CBEM wrote:CTID Hants wrote:I know international games aren't very popular around here, but getting rid of Euros, other regional finals such as AFCON and the WC would ve detrimental to the game i reckon. So many young kids that get into it , that don't normally watch footie.
WC needs to go back basics for a start and infantino needs barring from football altogether. Personally I would like to see Pierluigi Collina at the helm, someone we know has integrity, currently head of reffing standards at fifa.
Fifa is a registered charity despite making billions per year, the only way it can survive is if everyone accepts and turns a blind eye to the corruption and sleaze, it isn't going away no matter who heads it.
AFCON can still run their corrupt little slice of the cake and whatever people say about how the game needs to expand it shouldn't be exempt from decent behaviour, set the shit on fire and start again it can't be any worse than it is now.
International football is littered with players from countries they weren't born in that can't make the cut for the country they were born in, it's a disgrace really and it removes the importance of international football as well as the whole point of it. Around 8% of all players to compete in the last world cup were born in France but couldn't get in the French national side, then came the passport of conveniences moving those players about to different countries.
This isn't keeping the 3rd world interested in football because they still get overlooked for foreign born players, it's all lip service corruption and crime.
Is it any different to what Ireland did?
Just like the grannies who moved to England from Ireland in the 1920s - 40s, the reality for any developing economy is that they lose talent to more powerful economies due to economic migration or conflict. It's interesting to see how abruptly that talent flow stopped for Ireland, primarily because most of the descendents of the big wave of Irish immigrants from the first half of 20th century are now 3rd generation and not eligible.
I read that Morocco had an active strategy to track and trace potentially eligible players worldwide, and that's what sits behind a lot of their success over the last 2 world cup cycles.
It's interesting because on the one hand, the money for that program (lets assume it was from Fifa's development bungs) should arguably have gone into grass roots - but you can argue that if you can import talent that raises the profile and aspiration of kids, then it does energise the countrys grass roots and get more kids into football, give the nation more to cheer about, then it's doing the same thing.
The granny rules are definitely a shortcut to success like Ireland showed in the 90s in consecutive world cups, but I can see an entirely logical argument in Morocco that this approach will in time pay dividends. But it doesn't automatically bring longer term dividends.....Ireland never kicked on with the grass roots improvement, and have gone backwards with no player of the capability of proper irishmen like both Keanes/Duff/Given/Staunton - their last squad had 3 or 4 premier league c listers and it's been like that for much of the last 15 years.
I have a feeling the African countries will really kick on over the next 20-30 years as they have much bigger populations than Ireland and probably place much bigger national importance on football as a way to boost the country's profile on the world stage.