One Team In Keynsham

Fall-out for Cayman continues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/sports/soccer/fifa-soccer-sepp-blatter-cayman-islands.html

http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2015/06/01/Webb-and-Canover-Watson--Same-street-mansions-in-Georgia/

[Canover Watson is a CIFA executive facing an unrelated charge in local courts here re money laundering]

2nd round it is

133 votes to Splatter

73 to Ali

3 spoilt ballets

Ali camp considering their position; may concede before second round.

Thats me done for the day. Nyt all.

Have the BBC feed playing whilst at work:  even by FIFA standards this has been drawn-out to a laughable degree.  And assuming the 2/3rd majority is not reached at the 1st ballot, presumably we sit through the exact same again?

I see that voting has now commenced:  would be curious to know if CIFA sided with Blatter.

Sorry OTIK, but you probably are 1/12th of the islands' footie fans.

There are thousands of us......hundreds o...tens of us, I tell you.

No chance Switzerland will give up one of its favoured sons. It's a corrupt country, grown rich on corruption and ruled by.a corrupt Cabal.

Don't forget Blatter spreads his largesse in Switzerland, giving mega-bucks Fifa merchandising and marketing contracts to Swiss firms.

Ultimately, if he goes, you still could get a "new Blatter". Havelange was as corrupt as Blatter.

Until the governance system is shaken up so England - for instance - has more say than the Cayman Islands (how many players there?) this will be a repeating story.

Small corrupt countries' FA's outvoting the rest.

How dare you try and take our vote away.

Ta Ta Blatter...

I missed the start of the conference:  is this a hope, or a response to one of the facts presented?

Or it's a complex, ageing multi billion pound per annum turnover organisation which structurally and operationally is not fit for purpose and no one man could be expected to be wholly on the pulse throughout - or in Concacaf, perhaps.

I'm not going to directly throw around any accusation but as I've said above Havana I would bet if we had a pint and talked about this we would have far more in common regarding suspicions and the relative confidence in those suspicions than not, if we disagreed at all. I'mreally just playing devil's advocate.

Ultimately I'm VERY excited with today's developments but also very intrigued: why now, why now and not blatter, why not Blatter, how was the Swiss involvement, what the offences were (not the title) and how/why the U.S. has jurisdiction yada yada yada.

This is a link to the DoJ page itself that describes the nature of the case.

I would guess that "why now" is much to do with convenience:  all, or many, of the parties would likely be in the same hotel for the FIFA Congress.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and

Loved the Qatar vote. The top officials in FIFA do a full study and report on the bidding nations, but still manage to miss the small detail that it's chuffing hot in summer!

To be fair, it's an easy one to overlook, involves a whole mass of studies on climate and the like.

BBC radio news still only saying 6 and have only named one, a bloke from the Cayman Islands.

Sister was there as my proxy, she reported this "Classic comment from the landlord in the pub earlier - I have sold 3 weeks worth of cider in. 2 hrs clearly I did not do my research"

Great old ground that has hosted an FA Cup final, semi finals, England games and a test match. Hope we batter them.

Watch the First Great Western website crash under the load

AA.com didn't seem to have the same demand at final whistle.

Get it into the corners, any corner.

JET looking like he wants to seal this.

Looks like he clattered the post very hard.

FFS

Walsall manager saying the fourth official should have told the red it was red for freeman. Is he allowed to do that?

Per the source of all that is true, it appears to be in his remit:

Fourth official[edit]

The fourth official assists the referee in a variety of tasks, and may be called upon to replace another match official.

The fourth official is a recent addition to the officiating crew. English referee and administrator Ken Aston introduced the practice of having a named replacement referee in 1966, but the International Football Association Board (IFAB) did not officially create the position until 1991, and listed only areas of responsibility. The fourth official is simply instructed to assist the referee at all times, and his duties are largely at the discretion of the referee. His usual duties can be broadly divided into assisting functions and a replacement function (see below).

The fourth official typically has a table a short distance from the touchline between the two teams' technical areas, however his positioning is not defined by the Laws of the Game.

In usual practice, the fourth official assists the referee in the following ways:

• Assisting with administrative functions before, during and after the match;
• Assessment of players' equipment;
• Ensuring substitutions are conducted in an orderly manner;
• Notifying the referee of the details of the substitution, by means of numbered boards or electronic displays (where supplied);
• Notifying the teams and spectators, by means of numbered boards or electronic displays where supplied, of the amount of time added on at the end of each half, after having been advised of this by the referee;
• Acting as the contact point between the match officiating crew and any non-participants (such as stadium managers, security personnel, broadcast crews, and ball retrievers);
• Maintaining decorum in the teams' technical areas and interceding in situations where coaches, bench personnel, or substitutes become agitated;

In practice, the fourth official becomes a key member of the officiating team, who can watch the field and players and advise the Referee on situations that are going on out of his sight. The fourth official keeps an extra set of records, and helps make sure the Referee does not make a serious error such as cautioning the wrong player, or giving two cautions to the same player and forgetting to send off the player.^[1]

The fourth official played a significant role in the 2006 World Cup Final when fourth official Luis Medina Cantalejo informed refereeHoracio Elizondo of the headbutt of France's Zinedine Zidane against Marco Materazzi, resulting in Elizondo showing Zidane a red card and sending him from the field. French manager Raymond Domenech accused Cantalejo of using the replay board to initiate the process that led to Zidane's ejection, which would have broken FIFA rules, but FIFA maintained that Cantalejo did not breach any rules and acted properly.^[2]

He did get a yellow. Lucky boy it was studs up and he went into his shin. Red every time for me.

Missed it live, just seen the replay:  he must realise he was very, very lucky a City player seemingly blocked the ref's line of sight.  Looked a nailed on red even with the atrocious feed I have.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Pessimist in me always expects some calamitous defeat, but we are doing a good job of proving me wrong so far this season.  Will be listening from this side of the pond on Player, sister making sure my ST is used.

Just up, took dog out, now sat twiddling thumbs with Citeh Spurs on in the background.

My assumption would be that because franchises buy in bulk from Subway, the pork products were hanging around too long and going off. As I've said though, the whole point of fast food chains like Subway is that their menu is homogenous and you should be able to go into any Subway and order the same product so I'm sure there could be a way around it rather than turning 10% of their stores 'pork free'

Vincent Vega tells a different story.

It's the taking off the menu of pork products that people object to. Why should non-Muslims (and non-observant muslims) have their menu shrunk because they happen to live in an area where there is a high Pakistani origin population.

I'm sure there's no rule that means muslims can't just select the non-pork products from a full menu - so why restrict the choice for the rest ?

There's nothing to stop Subway franchisees doing that, but equally there's nothing to stop the rest of us going 'F you Subway, you're not getting my custom any more'.

In my view RR has summed up all this story is:  assuming Subway stores are franchises, franchisees can stock whatever they want within the terms of their agreement with Subway.  If the store doesn't sell what you want, take your business elsewhere.  Doesn't bother me, since I already skip Subway for better sandwich options.

Brazil and Italy - yes.

Argentina and Germany - no (England v Germany is twelve wins apiece).

Two left.

Uruguay - yes.

Chile and Costa Rica - no (Chile is two wins apiece, and we've never played Costa Rica before).

The last country is one we've lost two high profile matches against in the relatively recent past.

Bodes well for the summer.