World cup

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Now even Fifa’s dinosaurs have learned to cry racism

Are all white women really prostitutes who should be avoided, as some children at those schools in Birmingham were apparently informed? This is obviously a delicate, if not rather fraught, area and one should tread carefully for fear of giving offence. I have given the matter a lot of thought and have tried to fashion a sort of middle way, amenable to both sides in the debate. So, while everyone might agree that white women are to be avoided wherever possible, it seems to me to be overstating the case to characterise them all as prostitutes. I am not even certain that one could reasonably describe ‘most’ white women as being prostitutes. The Queen, for example, is not a prostitute, and nor, to my knowledge, is the Cambridge professor of classics, television’s Mary Beard.

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Estate agents just don’t get it – I want a house, not a building site

‘What is this, please?’ I said to the estate agent, as he showed me into the building site he was calling a house. ‘This,’ he said beaming, ‘is the kitchen and breakfast room area.’ I picked my way over the rubble and stood in the dark, pokey room with its walls of hideous grey breezeblock. ‘I thought I asked you not to show me anything without a second fix, Sedrick.’ ‘Well, yes, but,’ said Sedrick, one of those perky young estate agents you can’t keep down, ‘you just need to use a bit of imagination. If you stand over here you can really get a feel for it. The space, I mean. You can get a sense of what it will be like when...’ ‘Stop!

Toby Young

I used to think I was a Nietzschean superman. Now I know I’m just a dad

In The Wolf of Wall Street, there’s a poignant shot towards the end in which we see an FBI agent going home on the subway. This law enforcement officer — Agent Patrick Denham — will eventually bring about the downfall of Jordan Belfort, the film’s main character, and the fact that he uses public transport is supposed to be evidence of his integrity. He’s an honest, hard-working tax-payer who plays by the rules. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but in the past 25 years I’ve gone from being an international party boy to a kind of FBI agent. Admittedly, I’ve never plumbed the depths of debauchery that Jordan Belfort does in the film. Even in my New York heyday, I was more of a Mouse of Madison Avenue than a Wolf of Wall Street.

Rod Liddle

Did anyone really think that Qatar won the World Cup fairly?

I suppose the appalling shock to the soul that was occasioned by the allegation that Qatar bribed its way to hosting the 2022 World Cup was exceeded only by the startling suggestion that it was Fifa’s African delegates who trousered nearly all of the illicit money on offer. Who’d have thought, huh? The money was doled out by the Qatari crook Mohammed Bin Hammam, according to leaked emails obtained by the Sunday Times. Mo did not find bribing the Africans terribly difficult, it would seem. My favourite of the various requests for money from these venal and grasping and not terribly bright Third World panjandrums was that of a chap called Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa, of Swaziland: ‘I am in dire need of finance in the region of $30,000.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

The Speculator: Why I get so excited at goalless football matches

A successful gambler once told me: ‘Never bet on football, never bet on multipliers, and never ever bet on football multipliers.’ Multipliers, in case you don’t know, are those enticing combination wagers on bookmakers’ shopfronts: ‘Liverpool win 2-0 + Sturridge to score = 33/1.’ Mugs like me fall for them every time. My subconscious tends to add together the two probabilities — that of Sturridge scoring and that of Liverpool winning 2-0 — when really I should be multiplying them. Duh. The bookies don’t always triumph when it comes to football, however.

Thursday

Taki

ANOTHER media failure. How does Tina Brown get away with it?

Gstaad Why are hacks scared to state the obvious? In Britain the excuse is the strict libel laws. But in America? To win a libel case over there one has to prove malice aforethought, and I don’t know many journalists who would admit it and go down the Swanee. Take the case that has been hogging the headlines lately, that of the 2022 World Cup and its Qatar venue. Qatar gets rather hot in the summer, hot enough to kill an athlete exerting himself for glory and the root of all envy. Rob Hughes, a respected football commentator, calls it ‘not a responsible thing to do’. He writes that a small group of men got together and decided that Qatar was the best place to hold the tournament.

Saturday

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: Does anyone care about the cricket world cup?

It seems churlish to be having a bitch just when two enthralling Test series are being played out in Australia and South Africa. And how enthralling they are too, by the way, the SA-India series being if anything even better than the Ashes. The sight of South African bowlers really having a go at Indian batsmen is the most pulsating drama in world cricket. And as for the Ashes, wasn’t England’s 517-1 declared one of the most astounding stats from last year? And that was scored not in Chittagong or Bulawayo, but in Brisbane against the Aussies. It’s a score that properly belongs in a battered Wisden from the 1930s.

Saturday

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: Goodbye World Cup, hello xenophobia

So here’s a thing: if Fifa is so bloody venal and corrupt, then why on earth did England ever have anything to do with it? If much of its activity is spent lumbering poor regions of the earth with a vast web of unaffordable stadiums and expensive infrastructure before disappearing with billions of untaxed income, then why has there been such a howl of outrage that England wasn’t allowed to join in? And if they’re all so ‘buyable’, to use Andy Anson’s word, why did we send a prince among men, not to mention Prince William and the Prime Minister, to grovel before it?

Friday

Peter Hoskin

From the Archives: 1966 and all that

Yesterday, Coffee House recommended that disappointed English football fans take solace, as always, in memories of 1966. To that end, here's The Spectator's review of England's World Cup victory at the time. These were clearly more innocent times, as evidenced by the closing observation: "whether we win or not is not a matter for negotiation between heads of states or men in striped pants." Their cup runneth over, D.N. Chester, The Spectator, 5 August 1966 Let it be for ever recorded. At 5.15 pm on Saturday July 30 1966, the Swiss referee blew his whistle and England had won the World Cup for the first time, having just beaten West Germany 4-2. Winning deservedly, in my opinion, for they were the best all-round team in the competition.

Fraser Nelson

Cameron can be proud of his World Cup fight

It’s not often that I disagree with James, but I don’t think that David Cameron returns from Zurich with egg on his face. Of course, we Scots learn to see the upside in sporting defeat, but I really do believe the World Cup bid was a credit to England – and to the Prime Minister. That video which Pete blogged yesterday spoke with incredible elegance: England is already the home of world football. People get up at 4am in Singapore to watch Manchester United and Chelsea play, and I suspect most Man Utd fans have never visited Britain, let alone Old Trafford. It’s an extraordinary national asset, an area where Britain punches above its weight time and time again.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

BREAKING: England lose their 2018 World Cup bid

Bad news, I'm afraid: Russia has won the contest to host the World Cup in 2018. According to some sources, England didn't even make it beyond the first round of voting. So, not the fairytale result that David Cameron, or most English football fans, would have wanted – nor, indeed, the one that was expected earlier today.

Alex Massie

The Madness of the World Cup

Well, in as much as it matters who hosts the World Cup, I'd like to see England have it in 2018. It's their turn and they'd do a very good job. But it doesn't much matter who hosts the tournament (though one could argue that awarding Qatar the 2022 tournament would be the best possible argument for lettting Iran build a nuclear bomb). But, blimey, the tournament does some strange things to some people. Witness Iain Dale: What a pity it is that the BBC should have disgraced our bid with that Panorama programme on Monday. I see. There was me thinking that exposing corruption and all the rest of it was the sort of thing the media is supposed to do. Except, it seems, when it's inconvenient to do so... UPDATE: It's Russia. Which is ridiculous but there you go.

Saturday

Roger Alton

The World Cup we just might win

Quite how much tawdrier the plotting and deal-making for the 2018 football World Cup could become it is hard to imagine, and how appropriate that not just Sepp Blatter but officials at England’s campaign are so keen to denounce the devastating Sunday Times investigation into Fifa corruption. Quite how much tawdrier the plotting and deal-making for the 2018 football World Cup could become it is hard to imagine, and how appropriate that not just Sepp Blatter but officials at England’s campaign are so keen to denounce the devastating Sunday Times investigation into Fifa corruption. No, the only World Cup that matters for England is the 15-man game due to kick off in ten months in Auckland. And eight years after Sydney, English hearts should be pumping that bit harder.

Saturday

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: Spare us the 2018 World Cup!

Andy Anson and Simon Greenberg are two splendid, clubbable chaps. Their current gig is running England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup, and forgive me for sounding disloyal but I hope these two delightful fellows find themselves disappointed when Fifa votes on the 2018 and 2022 bids in early December. Andy Anson and Simon Greenberg are two splendid, clubbable chaps. Their current gig is running England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup, and forgive me for sounding disloyal but I hope these two delightful fellows find themselves disappointed when Fifa votes on the 2018 and 2022 bids in early December. Because one thing England certainly doesn’t need is the World Cup in 2018. What is this bid all about?

Friday

Alex Massie

The Stupidest Man in America

Like Satan, Sodomy and Socialism, Soccer begins with an S. Obviously, then, it's un-American and likely to corrupt these great United States. Hats off to Marc Thiessen for scrawling the most absurd anti-soccer nonsense of the World Cup. At long last we have a winner: The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport. Think about it. Soccer is the only sport in the world where you cannot use the one tool that distinguishes man from beast: opposable thumbs. “No hands” is a rule only a European statist could love.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Are England Hopeless Underachievers?

A good question! Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski suggest not. Their argument, summarised by Tim Harford, runs more or less like this: - England do about as well as you’d expect, given their size, economic power, proximity to football’s “core” in Western Europe, and footballing history. That is, you’d expect them to usually make the last 16, sometimes make the last 8, occasionally make the last 4 and make the final very rarely. And they do. - Managers don’t make much difference to a team’s expected performance. Not even Fabio Capello. - There is no correlation between the qualifying performance (which in this particular campaign was outstanding) and the performance at the championship itself (which… well, the less said the better).

Monday

Alex Massie

Karma

Yes, it might well, nay would, have changed the momentum of the game*. No, video technology is not needed (not least because it hasn't improved any game in which it has been introduced). And anyway, to adapt Wodehouse, what you gain on the roundabouts of 1966 you lose on the swings of 2010. Consider this, then, an open thread to moan about the World Cup:   *I didn't actually see it since I was playing cricket. Against Langholm. We won. I took, rather astonishingly, two wickets. It should have been three. Or even four. But that would be greedy and massively above and beyond expectations.

Friday

Alex Massie

Touareg 0 Toerags 0

I'm not going to intrude into private grief. But, as mentioned before, there's a considerable disconnect between the England fans (many of them anyway) and the tabloids. As this wince-inducing Sun frontpage from the day after the draw was announced makes clear... So, readers, what do you think England should do next?

Alex Massie

Oh No! English People Support England! Racists! Think of the Children!

Sunder Katwala has already done a terrific job dismantling this fatuous piece of New Statesman guff by James Macintyre. But that doesn't mean other people can't play the game too. Macintyre, you see, wants to see a United British football team. Not, mind you, because he thinks it might be better than England's but because this is needed "for the sake of the Union". Yes, really. Macintyre's piece is remarkable, not least because I'm not persuaded it contains even a single sensible sentence while every one of its assumptions is wrong and each of its dubious interpretations is as hopeless as anything ever produced by a Russian linesman. It's so bad he could probably have persuaded the Guardian to pay* him for it. So...

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Annals of Dismal Punditry: World Cup Edition

One of the stranger aspects of watching World Cup coverage in the United States is ESPN's choice of colour commentator and studio analyst. Who knew that what this tournament really needs is Robbie Mustoe's analysis? Then there's Steve McManaman and Ally McCoist and Efan Ekoku all of whom are working for the Americans for, frankly, mysterious reasons. Not all of it works. Then again, the quality of analysis on the BBC and ITV has been abysmal and actually, I think, worse than what ESPN offers.