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kasbah

Listed below are comments made by kasbah between Thursday, 7th May 2009 and Saturday, 12th December 2009.

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Eto'o and Toure lead African footballer of year race 5:53pm on 12 Dec 2009 @ Teddy Markham - why shouldn't european performances be counted? The award is the BBC African Player of the Year, it doesn't say best player currently playing in Africa. The five candidates are all African and therefore eligible for the award, irrespective of what leagues they play in.
UK calls for EU muscle 10:29pm on 27 Oct 2009 "He said the choice for the UK was simple"

Choice? What choice is this that Milliband is referring to? Surely what he means is "the choice for the government was simple", because to say that the UK had a choice suggests that it is the country at large that has a choice, when in reality we know that these decisions are far too important to be left to the public to decide!!
Mutu's misery is football's folly 8:49pm on 11 Aug 2009 A few people seem to be missing the point here. Mutu has not been fined for taking drugs, he has been sued for breaching his employment contract with Chelsea. Because of his breach of contract Chelsea were allowed to terminate that employment contract (which I believe they also did with Bosnich) and also sue him for his breach.

Someone above said that if you were sacked from a shop you wouldn't be sued for it. Chances are you won't because (a) your contract is worthless as you'd only need to give a week's notice of your intention to leave, and (b) the shop is unlikely to have paid your previous employer £15.8 million for your services. If you breach an employment contract then you could find yourself being sued by that employer, but in most cases it doesn't make commercial sense as the sums of money involved, legal costs and risk of failure don't make it worth it. However, in this case Chelsea lost an asset they had just paid £15.8 million for + signing on fees and wages only 15 months previously so they must have thought it was worth pursuing.

A few comparisons to the Rio situation. However, Rio was not caught taking drugs so it might be there was no clause in his contract allowing them to terminate it. In any event, it is irrelevant to the present case. Just because Man Utd didn't sack Rio doesn't mean Chelsea can't sack Mutu, it's an option available to the employer.

And to Articandy saying "I also don't understand why he didn't say he would have honoured his contract", how would that have solved anything? Abramovich would have laughed if Mutu had walked into his office and said "you don't need to sack me, I will let you continue to pay me tens of thousands of pounds every week for the next 3-4 years even though I'm suspended for pretty much an entire season and you will need to replace me for that period". Ridiculous idea.

In any event Mutu was the first to contest his sacking, not the other way round. It was only when he appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport that Chelsea submitted a compensation claim.
Mawhinney tackles the big issues 7:54pm on 01 Jun 2009 Rangers and Celtic will never join the English leagues. Just look at the fuss that the Scots raised about having a UK team for a one off Olympic games being held in the UK. Allowing Rangers and Celtic to leave would cause more damage than the one off Olympic football team.

As for the Welsh teams, I guess that is more historic, as someone mentioned above the lack of an organised Welsh FA led to the major Welsh clubs being involved in English competitions and joining the English leagues (but they are still governed by the Welsh FA who will decide on red card appeals made by Cardiff/Swansea/Wrexham instead of the English FA!! bonkers)
Onside for England 2018 8:42pm on 19 May 2009 attertone - one of the benefits of our bid is that I doubt it would be much of a 'burden' on us. The Olympic bid has required everything to be constructed from scratch. This will not be the case of the World Cup, the stadiums are already there, and those that are not will be constructed by clubs who want their stadium to be used at the World Cup.

The FA's main expense will be the advertising and organising/administration!!! The FA will just rent out Wembley for a few more rugby/american football/motor racing events to make up the cash!
Onside for England 2018 8:39pm on 19 May 2009 "i think they should also include ireland, wales and scotland within this bid.
same way we saw korea and japan, and poland/switzerland."

Purdy14 - Korea/Japan was an official joint bid, with everything split equally between them. It wasn't just one country bidding and nicking a couple of stadiums from the others. Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland would have to use the same number of stadiums, it would have to be called the Ireland/Wales/Scotland/England bid (with all four disputing which name comes first) and all four would qualify automatically. Importantly, what about Northern Ireland?

As for Poland/Switzerland......when was that?
Onside for England 2018 8:35pm on 19 May 2009 I have to respond to the comments suggesting making use of Twickenham, Hampden Park and the Millennium Stadium.

Twickenham:
- For a World Cup bid you can only use a maximum of two stadiums in one city. For London we already have Wembley and then will probably make use of the Emirates (unless another London stadium is built in the meantime). We won't be able to use Twickenham.

Hampden/Millenium:
- They are not in England. An England bid can only use stadiums in England. I'm not putting the Welsh and Scottish down or saying we don't need them, I'm just saying that FIFA would not allow the use of a stadium outside the host country.
- Also, if Scotland and Wales won't consider even allowing their players to join with a UK team for a one off Olympics then what makes you think they will allow their stadiums to be used for a World Cup hosted by England? It isn't a joint UK bid, it is just an English bid, so they will effectively become England for a few weeks. They wouldn't allow it anyway.
- Before someone points out that the Rugby world cups are often spread out I will remind you that rugby is a different sport. It has different rules.

Besides, there are enough Stadiums in the Premier League/Football League and Wembley to host a very good world cup. The advantage for an English bid is that FIFA won't need to worry about stadiums being ready on time as they are experiencing with the South African bid, or the construction of white elephants as experienced in South Korea/Japan. Most of our stadiums are already built, and at a push a couple of smaller clubs will be left with a 40,000 stadium they can only half fill (which is not exactly unusual anyway in England!!)
Bitter recriminations at the Bridge 7:21pm on 07 May 2009 "Just think how many world cups England would've won with cameras in place!!" - post number 54.

Shhhhh.......don't let Sir Geoff Hurst hear you say that, we may not have won the one we DID WIN if the cameras had been at Wembley in 1966.
Bitter recriminations at the Bridge 7:12pm on 07 May 2009 Post Number 87 - spot on. Fletcher is sent off and will miss out on his first champions league final after playing brilliantly over the two legs: He walks off without a word to the referee.

Drogba misses two clear chances to win the tie for Chelsea, limps off injured, and now misses the chance to play in his second champions league final (having been sent off in his first just 12 months ago): He is able to leap onto the pitch (injured?) and abuse the referee.
Bitter recriminations at the Bridge 7:06pm on 07 May 2009 "How would you feel if someone had taken something so important away from you for nothing?. You don't understand where he's coming from." - Comment number 2.

No disrespect but as someone else has said above, the £115,000 he will probably take home this week (I concede there will be tax and national insurance coming off of that...) will surely soften the blow of missing out on his second champions league final, having won most other trophies in club football. Maybe he wouldn't have been so upset last night if he had won the trophy last year rather than get himself sent off in Moscow instead?

Also, are emotions not as high in other sports at this stage of competition? In rugby they had the European Cup Semi Finals last weekend, one of which went to a penalty shoot-out (first time in rugby history) but you did not see any players abusing the referee for missing decisions that could have won them the game. I also don't remember England players surrounding the referee and hurling abuse for not giving them the try in the rugby world cup final in 2007. Why is football any different?

On the point of the referee, he did seem a bit out of his depth, but I am sure he will gain some top match experience back in the Norwegian league this weekend.... Maybe that is the problem? No offence to Norwegian football but when would that referee be able to gain experience of such high pressure fast paced matches except for in the champions league itself, whereas the English/Spanish/Italian/German/etc referees will be officating over top matches in front of huge crowds on a weekly basis, probably making them better prepared for such a game last night?

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