pbl Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Reports: Justice Department Brings The Goddamn Hammer Down On FIFA
According to reports in both the Wall Street Journal ($) and New York Times, a number of FIFA officials were just arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, and according to the Times are expected to be extradited to the United States where they will face charges of “wire fraud, racketeering and money launder...
Report: Sepp Blatter Too Afraid Of The FBI To Enter The United States
Slavery-enabler Sepp Blatter might actually be facing consequences for how FIFA awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids to Russia and Qatar. ESPN’s investigative newsmagazine show, E:60, debuted an hour-long documentary on Blatter tonight, and reports that he is so fearful of an FBI investigation i...
FIFA Turned A Huge Profit On The World Cup, Of Course
FIFA is bad. "Bad," as in many of the people who work there are bad, and they often do bad things to the sport of soccer and to the world at large. But let no one ever say that FIFA isn't very, very good at making money: it pulled in more than $2 billion in revenues last year, nearly all of that fro...
Three More Sponsors Decide To Stop Supporting Slavery, Drop FIFA
Good news everybody! Three of FIFA's biggest sponsors—Johnson & Johnson, Castrol, and Continental Tires—confirmed to The Telegraph that they have cut their ties with FIFA, joining Sony and Emirates in declining to continue supporting slavery. As second-tier World Cup sponsors in 2014, the three co...
Report: Dodgers To Sign Taiwanese Pitcher Who Was Banned For Game-Fixing
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers are close to signing 33-year-old pitcher Chin-Hui Tsao to a minor league contract. You may remember Tsao from his days as a top prospect in the Rockies' organization (lol, sure), but what he's most famous for is getting banned from baseball in Taiwan a...
Head FIFA Investigator Quits To Protest Cover-Up
Michael J. Garcia, the former U.S. Attorney who spent 18 months investigating charges of corruption levied against FIFA only to have his 432-page report locked away and publicly summarized in a 42-page report that Garcia himself deemed to be incomplete and inaccurate, is tired of this bullshit....
German Football League Threatens FIFA Over Unreleased World Cup Report
FIFA finally released a summary of their report into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody it basically cleared Qatar, Russia, and current FIFA officials of any wrongdoing. The 42-page report was written by FIFA ethics committee judge Hans-Joa...
Even Carlo Ancelotti Wishes Sepp Blatter Would Shut The Fuck Up
FIFA has released its Ballon d'Or shortlist, which means Sepp Blatter can take time away from his day job of punching up FIFA propaganda and gets to enjoy some of that media facetime he loves so much. Like you, Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti would prefer Sepp spared us his hot takes....
One FIFA Executive Thinks Qatar Will Lose The 2022 World Cup
Everything about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar—from the scores of migrant workers who have died building stadiums and infrastructure, to the accusations of corruption, to the scorching heat that will make games unplayable—is shaping up to be a disaster. It is so bad that even one of the Bond-villain t...
<em>FIFA Weekly's</em> Sepp Blatter Profile Is A Marvel Of Propaganda
This week's edition of FIFA Weekly, a magazine that exists, for some reason, contains a short profile of FIFA president Sepp Blatter. It is one of the most rank and shameless pieces of propaganda ever committed to print. ...
2022 World Cup Final To Be Played In City That's Currently Not Real
The 2022 Qatar World Cup continues to be a disastrous exercise for the world's most beautiful game. In addition to the deadly slave labor and oppressive heat, a CNN article from Monday points out that the city expected to host the final, Lusail, still needs to be built: ...
FIFA Insists Women Play On Turf, Even Though They Hate It
The 2015 women's World Cup is still quite a long way off, but that doesn't mean that FIFA isn't already working hard on alienating the participants. No organization is better at being the worst than FIFA, except for maybe SMERSH....
The "FIFA Corruption" Twitter Account Is Fake, Of Course
Shortly after Germany won the World Cup final 1-0, a Twitter account popped up claiming that the match was fixed, and it had some seemingly convincing evidence. Alas, it was a (clever) hoax....
Sepp Blatter Says We're All Racist For Pointing Out FIFA's Corruption
While addressing FIFA's African and Asian confederations on Monday, FIFA president Sepp Blatter seized the opportunity to mount a defense against the most recent and damning allegations that Qatar bribed its way to the 2022 World Cup. He did this by accusing all of his critics of being racist....
Sepp Blatter: Giving Qatar The World Cup "Was A Mistake"
FIFA president Sepp Blatter offered up his strongest words yet regarding the scandal- and problem-plagued Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup, admitting what nearly everyone else already has: "Of course," Blatter told a Swiss TV station, "it was a mistake."...
Richard Ford: Stop Blaming The Game
In 1993, the acclaimed novelist Richard Ford wrote a piece for the New York Times called "Stop Blaming Baseball."...
What if FIFA Seeded The World Cup The Way Americans Would?
FIFA is so hopelessly corrupt that today's lottery to determine World Cup round robin groups is a necessary evil. If a committee determined the groupings behind closed doors, it would surely result in political enemies being forced to face Brazil in the first round and the country giving Sepp Blatte...
Cristiano Ronaldo's Beef With The Head Of FIFA Is So Dumb
Widely loathed shadowy mastermind/FIFA president Sepp Blatter recently caused trouble when he made an appearance in front of England's Oxford Union, where he was asked to make a choice: Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?...