Stowe sent me this "100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire" video on Twitter the other day, and I watched it, and I was like, "Oh my God, The Wire," because I haven't seen it in a few years and this sort of brought it all back. Then, for no obvious reason, this video started tugging at my brain after the Thierry Henry handball rocked the core of everything that had a core to rock yesterday.

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...Or at least if you had just read the reactions from the fans and trigger-happy journalists, you'd think this is what Henry had actually done:

On a serious note, the 'victims' the Irish team have been refreshingly objective about the situation and have laid the blame squarely on the horrible refereeing and to a much lesser extent on their own poor finishing as the real reasons why the French and not the Irish are headed to South Africa.

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Vuvuzelas - Noisy Plastic Trumpets in All Colours

According to bbc news Motoaki Inukai, the president of the Japan Football Association (JFA), wants the noisy vuvuzela trumpet to be banned from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Noisy Plastic Trumpet!

And to add insult to this sign of cultural intolerance, when asked for his thoughts on the subject after Saturday's stalemate, Japan coach Takeshi Okada responded dryly: "Perhaps if they play good football (the fans) will be quiet and watch.

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The title of ‘most repugnant man in world football' isn't hotly contested. Anyone remotely aware of FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner knows that he'd have got to keep any trophy years ago, and that he'd keep it anyway, even if he was supposed to give it back. To sum up his football administration career, he's a ticket tout and swindler an arrogant, ignorant, thuggish, loutish, borderline racist, dictatorial, political failure.

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On the surface Van Persie's� latest setback is a major blow to our team. Dare I� say it, it could prove to be even more significant than Cesc's injury last year which ruled him out for 4 months.

We've played without either Arshavin or Cesc in games this season. Yet it is only the Carling Cup where Van Persie� hasn't featured.

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Champions League surprises galore this week Madrid, Barcelona and Liverpool all losing while Sepp Blatter is in the news again, this time explaining why he wants to remain as FIFA president. These and other stories all feature in this week's podcast. Come along to the site at languagecaster.

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On this week's main report we take a look at the world football governing body FIFA.

Main Report 11 Transcript

'It is an institution that ... has taken on a social, cultural, political and sporting dimension in the struggle to educate children and defeat poverty. At the same time it has also become a powerful economic phenomenon.

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There was a time when the names Diego Armando Maradona, Carlos Bilardo and the Argentine National team were synonymous with success. The magical run to the 1986 World Cup made both men house hold names in the sport, and heroes back home.

Boy, does that seem like a life time ago.

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The word is getting out:
YouTube - Fahrenheit 2010 TRAILER YouTube - Fahrenheit 2010 TRAILER
Even if the 2010 World Cup is a ringing success artistically - and Sepp Blatter has made a brilliant career for himself by being smart enough to step back and let eh football speak for itself - the fact that South Africa, a desperately poor country with enormous unemployment, crime, housing and communicable disease problems, is literally bankrupting itself so that FIFA can pocket billions. Click to continue reading...

Sepp Blatter was in Budapest today to unveil the all new FIFA Puskás Award, named after legendary Hungarian Ferenc Puskás. The award will be bestowed upon whichever player is deemed to have scored "the most beautiful goal" of the year, and presented to that player at the FIFA World Player Gala on December 21st, [. Click to continue reading...

OK, so the definition of 'tomorrow' was a bit flexible to say the least, but Saturday is here so let's have a quick look at the games that feature England internationals. Not surprisingly, the first game of the day is the one with the most England squad members on show: Aston Villa v Chelsea (Sky Sports 1 now)� could feature� seven players including Emile Heskey, who seems to want to leave Villa in order to improve his chances of making the squad next year; an odd time to start making these comments seeing as though the transfer window doesn't re-open for a while yet.

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Here's a message from the young forward's family. Courtesy of The Soccer Insider:

"The tremendous support the family has received is of great comfort and much appreciated at this difficult time. Our thoughts also go out to the families and friends of those involved in the accident. We would also like to thank all the staff at Washington Hospital Center in Washington D.

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Bit of controversy in European World Cup qualifying, with the powers that be pulling what looks like a commercially motivated bait and switch with the playoffs.

Here's what's happened: The nine European group winners all qualify automatically. So that's Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, England, Serbia, Italy, Netherlands all going to South Africa.

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There is a delicious sense of the absurd in the way Don Garber has gone about his MLS business in the last few days, almost like a Steven Colbert satirizing the moronic "ideas" market of the Blatter/Warner contingent in order to expose football's upper echelon time-wasters for what they are.
First, we had Garber telling European clubs that MLS could be a model for wage sharing on the continent, the equivalent of asking the Germans to slow down on the Autobahn or the French to "clean up those unions so everything can run better in the country and there'd be less strikes and stuff. Click to continue reading...

It never fails. Every interlull brings the inevitable 'Cesc-to-Spain' stories. Cesc to Barcelona, Cesc to Madrid, Cesc to Malaga, etc... Now, apparently, following their loss to Sevilla, Madrid once again are making noise. Arsenal have reportedly received bids of up to £60m for Fabregas over the last two seasons and each time the player and the club rejected them.

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Once again, it's that time of the calendar. I expect the US to take care of business, so I'll be looking at how the other matches will affect us.
If you haven't heard, the big news is that Sepp Blatter announced a week ago that teams will be seeded in UEFA's World Cup qualifying playoffs. The eight playoff teams will be split into two pots based on their FIFA ranking. Click to continue reading...

This post, which is for subscribers and googlecarters only, examines the massive potential for corruption in the conclusion to World Cup European Qualifying Group 4, where Germany and Russia are separated by just one point.
FIFA has established a template seemingly primed for corruption.
We also look at the FIFA biases exhibited in the Play-Off's to ensure that certain countries are guaranteed a place at the finals in South Africa, after Blatter performed a u-turn on seeding. Click to continue reading...

Brunei is a tiny dot, well two dots actually, on the world's surface. It's a relatively harmless little place that plods along in it's own sweet little way usually without getting pissed. It's not often the country or anyone from the country makes any ripples anywhere. A big news story there is a maid being sacked for cutting her toenails while watching imported soap operas. Click to continue reading...

I hear you, Aaron, but missing out on the Olympics is pretty bad for American soccer, especially women's soccer.
The Olympics have historically been very kind to the USWNT. Remember, the Golden Generation got their big boost from the Richard Jewell Olympics in 1996, the worst in human memory. Click to continue reading...

There was some confusion today after FIFA President confirmed that the play-off draw for the European qualifying groups will involve teams being seeded. Blatter was allegedly quoted after a meeting in Rio de Janeiro as saying "We have decided on seeding the teams into two groups of four, taking the FIFA . Click to continue reading...

Image by footyfactor.com

What happens when Sepp Blatter and his cronies see millions of dollars and plenty of prestige in danger of disappearing?� They change the system.

That's the conclusion drawn by many after FIFA last night announced they were altering their planned World Cup 2010 qualification play-offs system to seed teams based on their FIFA world rankings, a decision which clearly favours the traditionally strong nations.

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FIFA president gets his kicks from a bit of simulation Sepp Blatter has confessed that he is a diver. Normally, a headline like this on OTP would be a twisted quote or a piece of cutting edge satire. Not this time. This is 100 per cent the truth. Blatter has admitted that he used to go [...]

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Sepp Blatter, as we know, is the lord almighty in the world of football What he says, GOES! He says jump, and we all say "How high Sir?" So today the man that is the leading light when it comes to the rules of the game has publicly admitted that he used to cheat when he was [...] Click to continue reading...

First things first.Where's Tahiti?
The game was part of the ongoing FIFA under 20 World Cup being played in Egypt.(Where's Egypt question answered here)
Blatter is displeased with clubs for not releasing their players for the same and is not keeping quiet about it....
."It's not right that the big European clubs don't free up their young players for the World Cup, when they don't have any obligations and are not in the first team.

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Remember how Maradona crowed he was chosen the best player over Pele in an internet poll.

"What matters is that when the people voted, he came second behind me. Nobody can take that away from me. And there was another vote in Brazil in which he came second behind Ayrton Senna. He needs to stop coming second.

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Major League Soccer

A common complaint about Major League Soccer is its failure or unwillingness to observe FIFA International breaks. As recently as this month we have seen MLS matches played at the same time as crucial World Cup Qualifiers involving the United States National Team, this despite earlier indications from MLS that the League was going to pay closer attention to these FIFA breaks during the 2009 season.

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Am I the only one who has had just about enough of the countless emerging� proposals� pushing for all sorts of quotas? Certainly not. Whether it's the� restriction over� acquiring young� foreign talent,� or the� recently established� requirement of having� at least eight� homegrown players in each Premier League squad, it seems that the governing bodies of football are meddling with� the mannerisms of a sport that is doing just fine.

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Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has defended the pursuit of the world's best young talent by the Premier League's top clubs.

Wenger has also declared a ban on the transfer of under 18s would be very damaging for the game.

Chelsea have been barred by FIFA from making any new signings for two transfer windows after being found guilty of inducing Gael Kakuta to breach his contract with Lens in 2007, when the winger was 16.

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Since there's nothing else going on due to the international break, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write something a little less topical that I've been worrying about lately. I think FIFA's recent crackdown on Chelsea and other clubs could be a very bad omen indeed for Arsenal.
As you have no doubt heard, FIFA recently handed down a decision which prohibits Chelsea from making any purchases over the next 2 transfer windows.

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Fiorentina forward Adrian Mutu has offered to make a huge donation to charity if his former employer's Chelsea are prepared to waive his 17million euro fine.� Mutu was handed the huge fine by Fifa for breaching his contract at Stamford Bridge after he tested positive for cocaine in 2004.

Mutu took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but they upheld Fifa's ruling.

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Nope, this is not a joke!

Fiorentina striker Adrian Mutu is pledging to fight against the order to pay Chelsea €17million compensation as he issues an open letter to FIFA, Sep Blatter, and the English club, according to the Italian media.

The striker was ordered to pay the mega sum following his drugs taking case which dates back to October 2004.

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Postmatch coming. Feel free to leave comments here

Related posts:

1. US-El Salvador 1997 Highlights of the US trip to San Salvador during the...
2. Blatter, Garber out of touch with American sports fans FIFA President Blatter's statement a couple weeks back regarding.

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Football's governing body FIFA have made drastic changes to the laws surrounding the controversial Pre and Mid season transfer windows due to the confusion over its existence and the many grey areas surrounding loan deals and deadlines. Sepp Blatter, with the support of Michel Platini, has decreed that every professional club (non league teams are exempt) [. Click to continue reading...

With only a few days left in transfer window I would like to reflect on the major dealings of the summer and some changes I would introduce if I was Sepp Blatter.

As we all know, Manchester City and Real Madrid have been at the center of transfer activity during the summer, spending obscene amounts of money on players.

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Note: Click on any team name below to see their specific game-by-game announced attendances.
Team# of Home GamesAvg. Attendance
% Change From '08
Seattle Sounders FC
12
30,412.42
N/AToronto FC
1220,307.58
+0.80%LA Galaxy
10
19,379.40
-24. Click to continue reading...