I’ve got to point you in the direction of The Record’s World Cup podcast.An extraordinary rant from Hugh Keevins about the World Cup.
Poor old Hugh. He seems to be living in some sort of colonial time warp and thinks the World Cup should only be played in Europe, and western Europe at that.
Not South America and certainly not Africa.
His point about the massive inequality and the gaps between rich and poor is sound enough – although to some extent that can be levelled at any country.
And he fails to mention the United States.
On his criteria of footballing heritage there is no way the US could host. But, purely in terms of attendance, the 1994 World Cup remains the most successful.
There’s also some discussion about the ways different countries qualify. The suggestion is that an open, global qualification system would rid the tournament of lesser nations like New Zealand.
But surely the point of the World Cup is to have countries from across the world coming together to compete in a showcase event that allows people the world over to celebrate football.
Tweaking qualification would ensure a lot of countries never featured. That’s not the way to grow football. That’s the way to encourage a bloated hegemony amongst the leading teams. Just like the Champions’s League.
Anyway have a listen and see what you think.
Let’s just say that Mr Keevins comes across as vehemently unreconstructed.
Note also that Keevins, along with Jim Traynor and Keith Jackson, are rather critical of the event as a whole. Is it just me or has it the tournament really started to pick up over the last couple of days?
No comments:
Post a Comment