Something Rotten in the State of Fifa

Fifa is like sausage. You really don't want to look too closely at how it comes together. You could lose your lunch. Maybe your mind, too. Just consume it; usually it goes down fine.

Today, we have Sepp Blatter caling for an super-duper-extraordinary-ultra-secret-super-double-probation meeting (or something like that), in Cape Town on Dec. 2, to do nothing at all about three major issues that have sullied the image of the organizing body.

As if you can sully the image of something that always tends to get mud on its face.

Here is the news story, but we can boil it down to three main issues for you.

1. OK, yeah, we blew that hand-ball call in the Ireland-France match. We blow calls all the time, and the hubbub usually dies down straight off. We didn't know this was the match that the entire English-speaking world (at the least) apparently was watching, and it's getting a little warm here in Zurich, even in late November.

Not that we're going to do anything about it other than to appear concerned and toss about ideas about better officiating ... that we will do nothing about.

2. That match-fixing thing brewing in Germany and various and sundry other countries in Eastern Europe. OMG. If you knew half of what we know ... oh, did we say that out loud? You know how easy it is to fix matches in which only one goal is scored? We do. Did we say that out loud too?

3. Oh, and the Algeria-Egypt thing, the players cut by flying debris and the siege atmosphere that Algeria had to play in, in Cairo, and the reprisals toward Egyptians back in Algeria, and the generic disgusting ugliness of the whole mess, making a mockery of the "beautiful game" and "fair play" platitudes we mouth ... well, we're going to talk about this very seriously as well, and frown, and maybe even wag a finger at somebody or other. Not that it will maatter.

All in a day's work! Read more!