Today the 2018 and 2022 World Cup locations were announced. There were four countries bidding for each year and when one reviewed the group one thought surely the US or England or Japan or Spain and Portugal will win their respective groups. One also thought surely Russia and Qatar won’t win given the recent and relatively convincing allegations of some FIFA voters selling their votes. After all when one looks at the list of countries one thinks, Well, if any country is likely to bribe voters it is Russia with Qatar a distance second. Well Russia and Qatar won.
Didn’t know D&B follows international soccer? Well D&B does and D&B absolutely loves the game.
Well then earlier this week Cam Newton was declared ineligible by the NCAA because his father tried to get paid for Cam to play at MSU and maybe Auburn. Later the same day an appeal ruled that Cam could play because he wasn’t involved in his father’s scheme. Right. Anyway at lunch today I heard someone say that certain responsible parties are convinced the father did receive cash from some source and that the money was spent to repair his Church. Maybe or maybe not, but someday we will know.
Two weeks ago Josh Selby was cleared to play for Kansas after a short suspension and repayment of improperly received benefits.
Then we have Enes Kanter, the Turkish prodigy who is preparing an appeal to an NCAA ruling that he is permanently ineligible because his parents accepted a small sum to pay for some education. The amount and purpose would have been allowed if his club had paid for the education services directly rather than paying his parents. Parents who accounted for the funds separately and apparently went to great lengths to insure their son remained eligible for NCAA basketball. The hearing is this week or next and one believes given the Selby and Newton rulings that Kanter will be cleared to play because his parents tried to comply with the rules and in one area failed and the failing is correctable.
Or not. We shall see.
I seem to be the only one who frequently mentions how easy it would be to fix a NFL or NCAA football game. Six or seven officials and you only need one. Close line on the game. The holding or pass interference rules being what they are, particularly in the pro game, it would be easy to extend or abort a game changing drive by calling holding or PI. Remember it is the spread that matters not the outcome. I suspect it has happened. After all we have the recent instance of a NBA official taking money and to this day I believe NBA playoff games are essentially fixed. Not for gambling purposes mind you, but for television revenue. IE Right now the Lakers have to come out of the West.
Many of us love sports because it is “true” and “honest”. After all you either score the goal, make the shot, get the hit or you don’t Yet now with HD TV and replay we know that the player dove in the box, or the player walked with the ball or the ball was way out of the zone. Still the penalty was given, the shot was allowed and a ball was called a strike. So is it really true? Is it even honest? We know the cheating and fixing goes back to the ancients with boxers and wrestlers taking dives. We know that players don’t always give their best and sometimes have too many Coronas the night before a game with the Raiders in the Coliseum. Still we admire and respect the men involved and forgive them their transgressions. Yet we do not forgive the transgressions by our neighbors. Why? Are our neighbors not worthy of our love or our forgiveness? Or is it simply too hard to forgive someone we know?
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