World cup draw

[Padge_DRFC]

Surely grounds are going to be empty in the group stages. Americans aren't going to pay that too that aren't their own games

Padge, the 1994 World Cup in the USA was the highest attended World Cup in history.

Is that more down to all the grounds being big at the time?

How many Americans are going to splash out to watch Scotland v Haiti?

[The Beast]

I see they have managed to sneak advert breaks in, halfway through each half. This used to be a line FIFA would not cross.

Heard this elsewhere, is this correct?  I’m sacking football off all together when it goes 4 quarters! 

[Filo]

I see they have managed to sneak advert breaks in, halfway through each half. This used to be a line FIFA would not cross.

Heard this elsewhere, is this correct?  I’m sacking football off all together when it goes 4 quarters! 

Dressed up of 3 minute hydration breaks in each half, regardless of the temperatures

[drfchound]

I see they have managed to sneak advert breaks in, halfway through each half. This used to be a line FIFA would not cross.

Heard this elsewhere, is this correct?  I’m sacking football off all together when it goes 4 quarters!

I think a game often goes into four quarters these days mate, what with the tactical breaks when the keeper “gets cramp”.

[LincsRover]

Let’s face it, if the US networks want the players to play 4 quarters and dress up as cheerleaders in each break, infantino would allow it - as long as it keeps Trump happy! 

[MachoMadness]

Complete joke. Expecting people to pay in full just after Christmas is almost as bad as the pricing itself. Hard to overstate how much damage FIFA has done to the prestige of the World Cup in the last decade.

[silent majority]

So when bidding to secure the World Cup the host FA has to publish their forecast ticket prices ijn their bid documents for approval by FIFA. This is fraud, and FIFA are complicit;

[Belle_Vue]

Really appreciate you sharing this on the forum Martin.

Do you, or anyone know who actually benefits from the prices being this high?

[silent majority]

Really appreciate you sharing this on the forum Martin.

Do you, or anyone know who actually benefits from the prices being this high?

Essentially its FIFA, but there’s a part of me thinks that El Presidente has his murky fingers in the pie. But just read a report that claims that this deal agreed between FIFA and the host cities is the worst deal ever done and the host cities are picking up lots of costs they never expected. They are starting to make cut backs already, including cancelling a lot of the Fan Fests that are a key part. I'm going to keep digging and see what I can find.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

So when bidding to secure the World Cup the host FA has to publish their forecast ticket prices ijn their bid documents for approval by FIFA. This is fraud, and FIFA are complicit;

Spot on. I hope this gets published around the world and FIFA held to account. Football is being stolen from the fans. We've seen this already in the Premier League and how the owners are trying to remove 'cheap' season tickets and concessions. We've seen the introduction of the club world cup at the expense of domestic leagues who are expected to rollover to accommodate it. None of all this is for fans.

[BobG]

On the same lines I wonder exactly who is going to present the trophy to the winner of the final....

Scurrilous thought. The finals are not just before the US midterm elections are they....?

BobG

[Filo]

Whats to stop the different federations coming together and boycotting FIFA to form their own governing body?

[Blue Green Algae]

Whats to stop the different federations coming together and boycotting FIFA to form their own governing body?

There is already a body for teams who are not affiliated with FIFA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_Independent_Football_Associations#List_of_members

[scawsby steve]

Surely grounds are going to be empty in the group stages. Americans aren't going to pay that too that aren't their own games

Padge, the 1994 World Cup in the USA was the highest attended World Cup in history.

Is that more down to all the grounds being big at the time?

How many Americans are going to splash out to watch Scotland v Haiti?

Actually, Padge, there will be millions of Yanks that have Scottish ancestry. The USA is cosmopolitan, and most families have heritage links to other countries.

I remember the group games in 1994, some of them between non-descript countries, and the grounds were always packed out.

Despite the obvious distractions of American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey, the Yanks do love their "soccer" as they call it.

[Smyth]

Whats to stop the different federations coming together and boycotting FIFA to form their own governing body?

There is already a body for teams who are not affiliated with FIFA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_Independent_Football_Associations#List_of_members

Hmm, who's going to vote against the leading teams having the chance to share $1 billion+ prize money,?
The saying,  money talks, no it doesn't,  it shouts, it spits and it screams.

Oh BobG there'll be no elections anyway, cancelled,  it's what fascists do.

[BobG]

Hmm. I don't think the elections will be cancelled. Far too blatant. But they will be manipulated. Americans have done that for over a century. They've had a lot of practice. And this time they've got a bloke in charge who acts and sorts out his messes afterwards. With their silly legal processes everybody will have forgotten the original gerrymandering before the courts ever reach a definitive decision. He'll fix the result, but he won't cancel the elections.

BobG

[Smyth]

Hmm. I don't think the elections will be cancelled. Far too blatant. But they will be manipulated. Americans have done that for over a century. They've had a lot of practice. And this time they've got a bloke in charge who acts and sorts out his messes afterwards. With their silly legal processes everybody will have forgotten the original gerrymandering before the courts ever reach a definitive decision. He'll fix the result, but he won't cancel the elections.

BobG

Bullshit.
Anyway wouldn't want people there being jailed for speech or Trump ending trials by jury or cancelling elections due to government's incompetence.
Of course USA wouldn't have got the Finals without European votes.  Anyone think it wasn't spoken of in meetings about extra money coming in if games were split to allow advertising breaks? Not made public but so what that's hardly new, anyway orange man bad.

[BobG]

If I wrote bullshit, what's yours? Because this is clearly written by either a lunatic or an incoherent baby. When you learn to write, do let me know.

Cheers

BobG

[silent majority]

Theres a section for Politics. Keep it there.

[silent majority]

So, FIFA have acknowledged that they have set pricing wrong for the most loyal followers of their International teams and have introduced some much lower prices, but its all a PR stunt as it only applies to 10% of allocated tickets for each association, in England cas about 300 tickets.

https://thefsa.org.uk/news/fsa-statement-fifa-play-pr-games-on-ticket-prices/

FSA chair Tom Greatrex said:

“FIFA have a track record of announcing ‘affordable’ headline prices that, in reality, aren’t available to the vast majority of fans.

“This seems to be a new version of that with the intention of relieving pressure on FIFA without fixing things for the majority of supporters.

“This is a step in the right direction, as it shows changes for good can be made, but it still leaves 90% of loyal, hardcore supporters paying ridiculous prices.

“Rather than playing PR games FIFA needs to do the right thing and set prices at a reasonable price for all supporters, and FAs need to apply pressure on them to do just that.”

[waldron40]

I am struggling to understand concept of group 3rd places going into Round of 32. Winner and Runner Up from each of the 12 groups goes forward automatically, plus the "best" 8 teams from across all groups. Third place from the remaining 4 groups will miss out.
However, looking at the schedule, it seems that for example match 74, the best 3rd place will come from groups A,B,C,D or F. Similarly for match 77 it will come from C,D,F,G or H.
Looking at those combinations, groups E and I are eligible for 6 matches and F and J are eligible for 5. Groups K and L (Englands group) only appear once each. This seems rather biased.
Hypothetically, if groups E, F, I and J are not in the top 8, I can see a situation where by the time you get to matches 85 and 87 there will be no eligible teams left in the declared groupings.
Am I missing something?

[Herbert Anchovy]

Have you seen the price of tickets for the World Cup games? The cheapest tickets for the England group games is expected to be around £198! When I went to the England v France game at the 1982 World Cup my ticket was £8. For the England v Kuwait game I paid £5 for a ticket. A pint was about 30p and our digs cost about £15 for the fortnight!