General Football Thread

[Gazz]

[Summers]

BrazilvMexico

20:06

Kick off time is.. interesting.

[Fudge]

Did anyone watch Real Madrid legends vs Man Utd legends?

Andy Cole's assist was awesome!

[The Future]

Mexico beat Brazil 2-0, courtesy of goals from Gio Dos Santos and a Hernandez penalty.

[GoGo Yubari]

Oh Jesus. Mainstream soccer coverage in the US in a nutshell right here.

[Guest mr. potato head]

Actually I believe Virk's Canadian, and Wikipedia tells me he's done stuff for the Canadian version of GOL TV in the past >_<

[Adam]

It's still American coverage.

Classic.

[Guest mr. potato head]

Yeah, the >_< was at my country being just as bad.

[Lineker]

One of the world's oldest football leagues is to introduce "secret shoppers" to spot officials and players swearing during games.

The Northern League, formed in 1889, could then "name and shame" the worst offending clubs.

The league encompasses 46 clubs from Northumberland, Tyneside, Teesside, County Durham and North Yorkshire.

Chairman Mike Amos said: "People say to me 'it's a passionate game' and it is - but it is also a disciplined game."

He added: "If you go to a Premier League game with 50,000 people there and the players and management are effing and blinding, you can't hear it, and so in a sense it doesn't matter.

"But if you are at a game with 100 people in the ground, you can hear."

The league advertised for volunteers to monitor swearing at matches and had over 100 replies from former players, referees and ordinary spectators.

A swearing "league table" will be published on the club's website, in programmes and in the league magazine.

The Northern League has led a number of high-profile campaigns against swearing but Mr Amos said the Football Association could do more.

He said the laws of football allowed a referee to send off a player or manager who used offensive language but few did.

"We have to get it through to the managers that the crowd is a few feet behind them," he said, explaining managers who swore often had players who did likewise.

"If they are swearing like that on a main street on a Friday night they would be arrested, so what makes it acceptable at a ground?"

[METALMAN]

good i h8 swearing

[Dingle]

good i h8 swearing

I hate you.

[Lineker]

Way over the line Jouzy :/

[METALMAN]

yeah that was unpleasant. i've had a hard day. :/

[GoGo Yubari]

Oh Jesus. Mainstream soccer coverage in the US in a nutshell right here.

On the other hand, The Onion's indirect response to inept coverage of the US' growing interest in the Euro's is great.

[Colly]

I want to be a Northern League swear policeman, where do I sign up?

[MDK]

Oh Jesus. Mainstream soccer coverage in the US in a nutshell right here.

On the other hand, The Onion's indirect response to inept coverage of the US' growing interest in the Euro's is great.

NEW YORK—According to a report released Friday, which noted a considerable increase in the number of people talking about soccer throughout the United States, this is not the year of a World Cup, so there must be something else going on. "Our research definitely shows a measurable increase in soccer-related conversations, Facebook updates, and tweets, which would be a perfectly natural occurrence around the time of a World Cup. However, that's still two years away, so we're really stumped," said Dr. Andrea Eagleman, a professor of sports communication at Indiana University, adding that hours of research also affirmed the increased soccer talk is not at all related to the upcoming London Olympics. "The current leading theory is that one of the famous soccer guys might have died, but the chatter only seems to be increasing rather than diminishing over time." Stating that they hope to have a definite answer within the coming week, researchers said there remains a strong likelihood that Americans were simply confusing soccer and hockey.

[GoGo Yubari]

Oh god damn it, I didn't even notice that the URL I copied and pasted into the tag left out the http://. Thanks for C+Ping it.

[Lineker]

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has signed into law a bill that in principle allows the sale of beer during 2014 World Cup matches.

Football's world governing body, Fifa, had demanded a change in Brazilian legislation banning alcohol at football matches.

The new bill, setting a number of rules for the World Cup, does not mention any restriction on the sale of alcohol.

Correspondents say state governors may still ban beer sales during the event.

Beer sales have been illegal at football matches in Brazil since 2003.

The ban was introduced as part of measures to tackle violence among rival fans and hooliganism.

Earlier this year Fifa's General Secretary, Jerome Valcke, made it clear that the right to sell beer must be enshrined in legislation on the World Cup in the Brazilian Congress.

In a visit to inspect venues in the 12 Brazilian cities where matches are due to be played, he was adamant.

"Alcoholic drinks are part of the Fifa World Cup, so we're going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that's something we won't negotiate," he said.

"The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the law."

Brewer Budweiser is a big Fifa sponsor.

Health Minister Alexandre Padilha and other members of Congress called for the ban to be maintained.

But the new law on the World Cup was approved last month by Congress and signed into law by President Rousseff without any mention of a ban on alcohol sales.

Analysts have pointed out that the ban on the sale of alcoholic drinks is enshrined in legislation in some of the nine states where World Cup matches will be played.

By failing to mention the sale of alcohol, the legislation leaves room for opposition state governors and mayors to keep their own ban.

Opposition politicians in the Congress have reacted angrily to the final version of the bill, accusing the central government of playing politics with Fifa and passing on a potentially unpopular decision to them.

[Lineker]

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Police on Sunday night rescued midfielder Christian Obodo, a player for Italy's Udinese football club now on loan to Lecce, a day after he was abducted in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, a police spokesman said.

Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka said officers freed Obodo and arrested several of his suspected kidnappers, who had not even left the oil-producing state where he was abducted on Saturday. Muka declined to say what led police to the kidnappers. Police and security agencies in Nigeria have traced suspects using their mobile phone transmissions in the past.

The kidnappers made contact with the international football player's family in Warri shortly afterward abducting him, making a ransom demand of $187,500, Muka said.

Lecce was relegated to a second-tier league this season, while Udinese finished third in Serie A this season.

Kidnappings remain common in the Niger Delta, a region that provides about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day for Nigeria. Gangs and militants once only targeted foreign oil workers, but in recent years have increasingly gone after middle- and upper-class Nigerians there.

Nigerian football players and their families have been targeted in the past by kidnappers. In August, two Nigerian soldiers and others took part in the kidnapping of Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel's father from Jos in central Nigeria, and at one point demanded a $4 billion ransom they considered "chicken change" for the team, officials said. Authorities later traced Mikel's father to the northern city of Kano and freed him.

In 2008, gunmen abducted the younger brother of Everton defender Joseph Yobo as he left a nightclub in Port Harcourt, the delta's largest city. The brother was released unharmed about two weeks later, though it was unclear if a ransom had been paid.

[Lineker]

Leo Messi and his missus are expecting a child. No pressure on the lad, if it's a boy anyway...

Does that count as his 74th of the season?