The Draw

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'm moderately excited, though I'm much more thrilled to have made the inaugural post on this sub-forum.

[Antepli Ejderha]

https://www.onetouchfootball.com/for...e2#post2585143

Admittedly in the wrong place but...

[Patrick Thistle]

I was going to ask if the Draw thread could be moved over but not sure what the consensus would be on that

[Sean of the Shed]

Yes it should.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The draw's not taking place until 5-30 after all the singing and dancing, so it's not like Snake's got anything else to do.

[Incandenza]

Well that opening animation was something else

[Felicity, I guess so]

I think I'd rather press the red button for the dancing than listen to bbc balance platitudes

[Felicity, I guess so]

But it isn't working, blank screen

[Incandenza]

It would be nice if just once the FIFA president had to walk up on stage in front of a crowd of regular fans and be greeted with a chorus of boos, like the NFL commissioner at the NFL draft used to.

[Sean of the Shed]

Can we keep it all one the original thread for ease?

https://www.onetouchfootball.com/for...e2#post2585418

[Incandenza]

the stats don't lie, folks

https://twitter.com/SeanSteffen/status/1510003636876853252

[Sunderporinostesta]

When are the dated n times being announced? Are they waiting until the playoff games are finished?

[Wouter D]

Wikipedia has dates and times for games.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

When are the dated n times being announced? Are they waiting until the playoff games are finished?

No, they're all announced

[Sunderporinostesta]

Oh. Obviously missed that.

[Ray de Galles]

Fixtures changing date and kick-off times three months out for the actual World Cup (one of them being the opener) for fuck's sake :

World Cup set to start a day earlier than planned to allow Qatar to play in opener

It's already cost me seeing one game as we had tickets for Senegal v Netherlands which has been pushed later and is now too close to the kick-off for USA v Wales.

Obviously there are far bigger issues regarding the wrongness and insanity in the staging of this tournament but it keeps on throwing new ones up.

[Sheep]

Wow, that is some spectacularly shit planning on behalf of FIFA there.

[Lymeswold Snork]

Wow, that is some spectacularly shit planning on behalf of FIFA there.

Not their fault. According to the Metro, the Emir didn't want Qatar to play in the first match (because he thought their probable heavy defeat would spoil his fireworks, or something), but now he's changed his mind.

It WILL be their fault if they don't tell him where to go.

[Patrick Thistle]

Fixtures changing date and kick-off times three months out for the actual World Cup (one of them being the opener) for fuck's sake :

World Cup set to start a day earlier than planned to allow Qatar to play in opener

It's already cost me seeing one game as we had tickets for Senegal v Netherlands which has been pushed later and is now too close to the kick-off for USA v Wales.

Obviously there are far bigger issues regarding the wrongness and insanity in the staging of this tournament but it keeps on throwing new ones up.

You're going then, Ray?

[Ray de Galles]

Oh, yeah. I obviously feel conflicted and wish it was being held almost anywhere else but seeing Wales at a World Cup is something I've wanted for longer than anything else in my life and I guess I'm just not ethically strong enough to miss it.

I've got in contact with a few of the Welsh fans groups to discuss what can be done to protest out there and have discussed similar things with some contacts at the FAW. I'm aware that is largely moral offsetting but I think it's worth doing.

[imp]

Given that Qatari poet Mohammed Al-Ajami was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for reciting a poem to celebrate the Arab Spring to a small private audience in Cairo, then you might want to watch out. He was released after four years in 2016 thanks to a royal pardon (that is, a PR move to placate human rights groups in the run-up to the World Cup. After the WC they're either not going to give a shit any more, or use prisoners of conscience as a bargaining chip).

I'm so happy that Scotland didn't qualify - makes missing it so much easier. I could actually apply for accreditation - I'm in the Fifa system thanks to going to the 2019 WC. I thought about going to be the heroic reporter uncovering all kinds of bad stuff while wearing rainbow underwear. But I have to be realistic - 1. I'm not going to make the slightest bit of difference and 2. I don't fancy spending even one night in jail in a country without an independent judiciary. Too old. 3. I can also imagine going as a hack and seeing nothing but snazzy stadia and smiling PR goons, and being denied any kind of possibility to explore off the beaten track. 4. Financially, it would be a massive loss-making exercise to the tune of several thousand Euros. 5. I'd rather ignore the whole thing, I get depressed when anyone even mentions this fucking bollock-sweat of a tournament.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Good on you, imp.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Given that Qatari poet Mohammed Al-Ajami was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for reciting a poem to celebrate the Arab Spring to a small private audience in Cairo, then you might want to watch out. He was released after four years in 2016 thanks to a royal pardon (that is, a PR move to placate human rights groups in the run-up to the World Cup. After the WC they're either not going to give a shit any more, or use prisoners of conscience as a bargaining chip).

I'm so happy that Scotland didn't qualify - makes missing it so much easier. I could actually apply for accreditation - I'm in the Fifa system thanks to going to the 2019 WC. I thought about going to be the heroic reporter uncovering all kinds of bad stuff while wearing rainbow underwear. But I have to be realistic - 1. I'm not going to make the slightest bit of difference and 2. I don't fancy spending even one night in jail in a country without an independent judiciary. Too old. 3. I can also imagine going as a hack and seeing nothing but snazzy stadia and smiling PR goons, and being denied any kind of possibility to explore off the beaten track. 4. Financially, it would be a massive loss-making exercise to the tune of several thousand Euros. 5. I'd rather ignore the whole thing, I get depressed when anyone even mentions this fucking bollock-sweat of a tournament.

Then again the women's euros was also held in an arid, scorched monarchy where several people recently received prison sentences of over a decade for protesting the fascist government, where LGBT people face constant demonisation in the media and by the government and where migrant workers work in an exploitative grey economy and face arbitrary arrest and imprisonment in slave labour facilities, and i went to games at that tournament.

[imp]

That’s a facile, inane bit of whataboutery, even if you‘re just being facetious. You have the chance every five years to throw that government out (but too many people choose not to). You have the choice not to read those media, and start up your own. You have the opportunity to protest the monarchy and have passed up several chances to overthrow it. You can lobby, organise and go on strike. And the UK government was not using Euro22 to make itself look legitimate to the outer world. There is no perfect nation state or tournament host - but abusing sport and an international tournament to legitimise a criminal, exploitative, totalitarian regime is beyond the pale. Perhaps people from the UK went to support our athletes at Berlin 36 on the grounds that „Yeah, but we have Mosley‘s black shirts at home too, and the Daily Mail is no better than Der Stürmer.“

[Satchmo Distel]

That attitude was indeed shared by many on the left in the 30s, up to the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The Empire, they said, was just as bad as Dachau and what Hitler had promised in "Mein Kampf' that he'd do to the Jews.