BERLIN, 10 July 2006 — FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, and the European Union signed a joint agreement yesterday to use football in the fight against poverty in the world’s poorest countries.
The agreement, known as the Memorandum of Understanding, aims to promote development in the poorest countries of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific.
The EU and FIFA will pour 25 billion euros ($31.93 billion) into the so-called ACP countries over the next four years ahead of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission said at a press briefing in Berlin: “The idea is to use the huge power of football for specific purposes such as fighting Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, helping in growth and development, fighting racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination and helping with post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building.” The agreement was signed by Louis Michel, the Commission for Development and Humanitarian Aid and Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA.
Michel added: “We are not giving the money so that people can play football, people will play football whether they have money or not.
“What we are doing is using the power of football to realize projects in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions.”
Cheap at the Price?
Tickets for the World Cup final between Italy and France were going at a whopping 2,200 euros ($2,800) hours before kickoff as Italian and French fans gathered to try to snap one up in a final dash for a seat at the Olympic Stadium.
Dozens of fans, including a Japanese clad in a France shirt who said he would pay up to 500 euros ‘only’, were asking touts at the Olympic Stadium railway station.
According to one French fan some touts carried signs reading “1400 euros minimum.” One report said a member of the Brazilian Federation had sold a ticket for 2,200 euros— the top whack so far.
Lawn Souvenirs
Fans are queuing up for a piece of history — or rather, a piece of the Olympic Stadium turf, which will be sold off to supporters after the tournament, according to German daily Tagespiegel.
“On Tuesday, the turf will be dug up and the Quelle company will cut it into sections and sell it to supporters,” Alan Cairncross, head groundsman, told the paper. He added he had been trimming the grass to ensure it maintains its FIFA-specified length of 2.8 centimeters (1.2 inches.)
FA Red Cards ‘WAGs’
The “WAGs”— the wives and girlfriends of the hapless England football squad— have seen their last World Cup, if the English Football Association (FA) has its way, Sunday’s English press reported.
The FA aims to ensure that the WAGs, who generated reams of copy for Britain’s tabloid and mainstream press through their all-day shopping and late-night partying, will not again be able to block- book hotel accommodation, according to the Sunday Times.
“While it cannot stop the relatives making their own arrangements, it hopes to avoid a similar situation to that in Germany where the WAGs were all ensconced in the spa town of Baden-Baden and each time they stepped outside were pursued by paparazzi,” the Times said.
The paper said the women had run up a hotel bill of more than 250,000 pounds ($460,000)— to be paid by their respective men.
It cited tales of £65,000 shopping bills being run up within an hour and of bottles of drink at £40 a throw being consumed a score at a time while the WAGs danced on chairs.
A report in the Mail on Sunday— headed WAGageddon— said some of the younger WAGs had been overheard calling their boyfriends as late as 4 am, despite former coach Sven-Goran Eriksson’s imposition of a 10.30 p.m. bedtime on match days and midnight at other times.
Now the new England manager Steve McClaren aims to put a stop to the women’s antics.
A source at the FA’s Soho Square headquarters in London told the Mail: “The support of people closest to the players will not be discouraged but he would rather a similar situation did not occur again. The photographs and headlines were regrettable.”
The losers will be the English newspaper-reading public— and the shops and restaurants in Cape Town and Johannesburg in 2010.
