Football Hierarchy

FIFA

This is the world governing body. It is a private organisation, based in Switzerland.  The current leader has a vision of a truly “World Game”. He gets elected by the large voting contingent of Africa, Middle East and the Far East. In return these small nations “club together” and a country in their region, more often than not, gets awarded the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Mr Blatter has no significant support from the Americas or Western Europe. These areas are of course where the best players come from and play. And needless to say, the world finances of football are centred.

You have spotted the politics that goes on now haven’t you? Money does not talk. The voting in of the leader is what it’s all about.

EUFA

This is the governing body of Europe. The person who is elected leader is a very close ally of the FIFA leader. Well, you would be wouldn’t you, because you want the FIFA job in the end!

As they are the governing body of the richest footballing area on the planet – by a country mile – the leadership just has its hand on the tiller and does very little.

The FA

Hands up everyone who thinks The FA run the English game. Well, legally they do, but in practice they don’t. When the Premier League was set up, The FA conceded control of the game in all but name.

The good news is that this decision has resulted in the Premier League having the very best players in the world and stadiums to match. The standard of football is by and large, breathtaking.

The bad news is that the national team suffers. In the Club v Country conflict, there is only one winner: the club as it pays the players colossal wages.

And the people who run the FA are not exactly the best businessmen. And have you ever seen them issue a 5 or 10 year plan to “progress the game”? No me neither.

I suspect that as the money side is so massive, they will not be able to wrestle things away from the Premier League for a considerable period of time. Given that the people who run the Premier League have the bigger brains, the FA may NEVER get control back.

And how does the FA influence EUFA or FIFA. Well, it doesn’t. There are masses of committees for all sorts of things and we only have a couple of seats in entirety. What a waste of space.

So if anyone actually knows what the FA Executive actually does, let me know!! (Poncing about does not count by the way)

Bearing all this in mind, why are we so upset when the World Cup is awarded elsewhere? I am 49 years old. I genuinely believe England will not host the World Cup in my lifetime.

And for the record, yes I would have a stab at sorting the FA out. Trouble is I won’t be allowed as I will use up a large boxful of P45’s and everyone will hate me as I go into “Dictator mode”. Being a Dictator is the only way to properly sort out the mess.

Weather cycle

More evidence that the phenomenon known as global warming is just a load of tish and tosh. Even bunkum.

We are all experiencing a spell of very cold weather at the moment (January 2010). Need less to say the media are making a meal out of it and making all sorts of comparisons. Much nonsense banded around.

This spell has created more perceived problems than previous cold spells. This is all caused by changes to the population and our habits. For example, there were just a few out of town shopping centres 20 odd years ago. And back in the early 1960’s we were by and large a manufacturing economy. People walked and cycled to work as they lived close by. Compare that to current commute most of us endure.

In short, all this reliance on the road network is all down to our changing demands. Also, as a very cold spell happens so infrequently, it makes no business sense for our services to be always prepared for all eventualities.

So onto a well proven weather cycle:

There is a cycle of about every 22 years of severe winters. These basically run as follows: 1870/71, 1894/95, 1916/17, 1939/40, 1962/63, 1984/85 and now 2010 may apply. All these winters were preceded (a warning if you like) and followed by some very cold individual months.

The 1939/40 cold spell was interesting from a historical context. As we had just declared war, the fact that the country was paralysed by cold weather was…..a national secret.

The weather cycle is dependent on a magnetic effect known as the Hale cycle. This encompasses two sun spot cycles. The Hale cycle starts and ends at points of minimum sun spot activity. Period of high geomagnetic activity, such as there is at present and there was in the early 1870s, can cause weather extremes. Both 1868 and 1870 produced droughts for example, followed by excessive storms and floods in 1872 when the Trent burst its banks. August and December in 1872 were particularly wet, with six and half inches of rain (three times the average) falling on Bingham in December that year.

My other thoughts on global warming are here:  www.smarty09.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/global-warming/

Overkill

You have probably spotted that in the effort to get news out, the media always assumes the worst possible case. Blow things out of all proportion and it’s a great story. By the time sense has prevailed, there is a new story. Peoples memories are short. Examples are:

Swine Flu

It started off with “we are all going to die”. Now it’s a mild dose of flu and there is no need to take Tamiflu. At the time of writing this, I don’t know anyone who has caught it.

Hole in the ozone layer

Big hole on ozone layer. CFC’s to blame. New gases in fridges and freezers, aerosols etc. Remember all that? Well, the hole has gone. It repaired itself. The scientists admitted that over 5 years ago. They confessed they had about 40 years of data and got it wrong. The hole was in fact a natural phenomenon. Did you spot this on the news? Me thinks not.

But you still recycle and pay for it don’t you? You are still concerned, right? Because you can never be too careful……

Oil reserves

We need new energy sources as oil is running out. Well yes it is. But on current growth rates and known oil deposits throughout the world, we will run out in not less than 300 years time. Yawn. The big question is the price we pay for it. There are huge known but untapped, oilfields. But they are all in very awkward places – great depths of the ocean (off the coast of Brazil or on outer edges of the Gulf of Mexico), or in Siberia, so politics kick in.

And did you know that the largest exporter of oil is now……Russia.