A little more than 24 hours after seven FIFA executives were hauled out of their luxurious Zurich hotel rooms and threatened with extradition to the United States for an assortment of crimes, football’s world governing body held a supremely bizarre opening ceremony to their 65th congress.
Perhaps afraid of getting pinched for his own crimes against humanity, 2014 World Cup opening ceremony scourge Pitbull stayed away from this event, but in his place was an assortment of oddities.
Hello. I am FIFA director of communications Walter de Gregorio and I am here to tell you that I am very tired and everything is super cool. Yes, the United States Department of Justice and Swiss officials are conducting two separate, but coordinated investigations that resulted in early morning raids which saw FIFA officials being taken from their luxury hotel rooms in Zurich and processed for extradition while documents related to the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were seized at FIFA headquarters, but this is all good for FIFA. All. Good. In the hood.
Poor, handsome Luis Figo. After months of traveling the world, holding up a manifesto, and touting himself as the man to reform FIFA, he has abruptly dropped his idealistic bid to become president of football’s governing body upon arriving at the shocking realization that the election might not be totally fair. Like someone applying to be CEO of slaughterhouse rescinding their application after finding out that they get their meat by killing animals.
If only someone had told him of this certainty before he went to the trouble of coming up with a hashtag.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter met with Russian president Vladimir Putin for some kind of congress of despicable humans. He took this opportunity to unveil the official slogan of the 2018 World Cup in response to politicians who don’t think Russia should host it.
Just in case you weren’t completely convinced of the mind-warping, greed induced insanity that grips FIFA and the leaders of its member federations, the CONCACAF congress has provided further evidence of this.
After six months of intense consultation, the razor sharp minds of FIFA’s task force for the 2018-2024 international match calendar have finally realized what everyone else already knew: that Qatar is quite hot from May through September. As a result, they have recommended that late November to late December as the most viable period for the 2022 World Cup with the support of all six confederations.
Real Madrid technically beat San Lorenzo 2-0 in the FIFA Club World Cup final to claim the title for the first time (they previously won the Intercontinental Cup, which was the predecessor to this tournament, three times), but the real winner was 11-year-old Prince Moulay Hassan.
Though Real Madrid might appear to be overwhelming favorites to beat San Lorenzo in the Club World Cup final, the South American champions seem to have divine intervention on their side. Ever since San Lorenzo supporter Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis, they can’t stop winning trophies. First they won Argentina’s Primeria Division, then they won Copa Libertadores for the first time in the club’s history.
The Club World Cup quarterfinal between Cruz Azul and Wester Sydney Wanderers was played on a swampy pitch in Rabat, Morocco. In fact, it was so bad that the groundskeepers at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium broke out the giant sponges and buckets in futile attempt to sop up the lake that had overtaken the playing surface.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Manuel Neuer have been named the finalists for the 2014 Ballon d’Or and exactly none of them deserve the award. There is, however, one man who should take the prize.
