FIFA's Resident Geographer

-
It turns out that July in Qatar is a bit on the warm side. Daytime temperatures during the summer can reach a scorching 50°C (122°F). No doubt by now we've all seen this graph from the BBC, or something similar.


FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup Finals to the emirate on 2 December 2010 apparently unaware of the impact these conditions might have on players, officials, and fans. After much public debate and discussion, FIFA finally gave in to the climate and recommended the Finals to be moved to the (slightly) more temperate months of November/December.

With FIFA blundering its way through the self-induced mess, the voices of discontent grow louder. Clubs, leagues and federations are pressing Football's governing body for compensation. And as FIFA digs in its heels, who do you suppose will come out worst from this fiasco?

Qatar get to keep their World Cup and its associated revenue.

The Big European clubs may just have to wait a little longer for the conclusion of the Champions League. No big deal.

The English Premier League will be forced into a winter break, but there will be minimal lasting impact. FIFA president Sepp Blatter has already conceded that the final cannot be played after 18 December, thus allowing the EPL to maintain its busy (and exceedingly lucrative) festive schedule.

How about the North American broadcasters who splashed out to purchase the TV rights to the World Cup matches? Their peak viewing months are in the summer: a winter World Cup is not what they bid for, and not what they want. But just a few weeks ago FIFA decided simply to extend the TV broadcasting rights beyond 2022 and into 2026 without a bidding process or offering up the rights to tender. A bitter pill sweetened.

The 2023 African Cup of Nations in Guinea, however, is likely to be moved from its traditional January/February slot to June, according to FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke. Junior Binyam, the media spokesman for CAF said, in the event of a FIFA request to postpone the Cup of Nations, that the governing body for African Football would 'adjust its calendar accordingly'. Apparently this will go ahead whether the host nation likes it or not.

The suggestion to move the Cup to the summer must have come from the same FIFA geographers who failed to discover that ninety minutes of running around during June in Qatar might be a sweaty prospect.

 

June is the start of monsoon season in Conakry, capital city of Guinea, and average rainfall peaks at around 450mm in August. There are likely to be 20 days of rain per month during the rainy season. Compare this to a paltry 70mm in London's wettest month (October).

According to lonelyplanet.com Guinea is 'one of the wettest countries in West Africa'. No kidding!

Perhaps Mr. Blatter is hoping to use his substantial political clout in Africa to push the rainy season back a few months. Or maybe FIFA knows that disruption to an African competition is preferable to disruption anywhere in the West.

In the meantime, it seems that FIFA needs to bring in someone with some basic Geography know-how. 

Popular posts from this blog

More than a Crest: the meaning of the Barça badge

-
Image
The changing design of Barcelona's club badge teaches us about how sport is an integral part of wider society, not simply a meaningless addendum.  In 1899 at the club's founding it was decided to use the city coat of arms as the club's badge. FC Barcelona's regional ties have long been a fundamental part of its identity, and when the club produced its own unique badge in 1910, key symbolism from the city's crest was retained. The Cross of St. George 1910 crest St George, is not only the patron saint of England, but also a significant icon in numerous regions of Spain. In Catalonia, as in England, he is the noble slayer of dragons, the moral crusader, the rescuer of damsels; in short, God's man on the earth. In a culture saturated with Catholicism the symbolic act of wearing George's cross is of great relevance. The selection of the Cross to form the Barça crest is a means to tie the club to a heritage which - albeit mostly invented - enables the
Read more

Michael Polanyi and the best ever goal.

-
Image
"There is no real substitute for a ball struck squarely and firmly". So says Billy Bragg in the song A Lover Sings, and anyone who has played football (soccer, if you must) knows what he means. You know what it's like to make the perfect connection with the ball. You just know. But what is it that enables us to 'just know'? That's what this blog post is about. Think about the last time you hit the perfect strike and sent the ball screaming into the back of the net. (Okay, point taken. Just imagine it.) What did it look like? How did it feel? Did it sound like a thud, or was it some other kind of sound? Were you aware of your surroundings? The opposition? Teammates? It's kind of hard to say, isn't it? We need some way of thinking this through, so let's start with an example, to which we can refer. Here is a short video clip of the best goal ever. (You heard me.) More than we can tell I wonder what the goalscorer Zinedine Zidane would
Read more

Loving Authority

-
I am a big fan of the work and thought of Michael Polanyi. His realism is refreshing as it is brilliant. But in this post I want to pick up on one interesting feature of Polanyi's epistemology, and show how it might be helpful in the ongoing discussion around pedagogy. Michael Polanyi asserts that coming to know is akin to an act of discovery. In learning, some new meaning is achieved through the integration of new and old knowing into a new, perhaps-only-half-anticipated coherence. Sometimes this feels like a 'eureka' moment, sometimes more mundane, but the process and the structure of the integration are the same. Polanyi also suggested that once a coherence is discovered (not 'constructed'), you know you have done so because you have a sense of 'indeterminate future manifestations' of that new thing. It explodes with meanings and possibilities. You might find yourself saying 'oh, that suddenly makes sense', or 'I can't believe I didn&#
Read more