football? who is sepp blatter in the NFL? Never heard of him, is he replacing Roger Goodell?

Roger Goodell is a chump and a poser, but he's an amateur compared to Blatter.

Can't believe I'm for once 100% in agreement with Ruffhaus!

Now lets get the 2018 and 2022 hosts stripped for their equally dodgy deals and give it to someone who cares more about the game than deepening Sepp and his mates' pockets.

I'm waiting till the other shoe drops and the world starts crying that the United States is now ruining the game of football like they ruin every country they ever intervene in...

Still good to see there is some accountability!

Good riddance, though I suspect it was Corporate Money more than any judicial process. And yes now let's get the tournament out of Russia and Qatar. 2018 is only 3 years away, so whoever takes it on will need the infrastructure, the capacity, and the organisational skills with a track record in presenting a great tournament. Any ideas on which country would qualify?

Hint - the London Games were absolutely fantastic.

Wouldn't that piss off Putin!

I would be pleasantly surprised to just once witness Europeans adequately solve a problem of vital importance to them and about which Americans barely give a rat's ass without the American government needing to intervene. But then I guess I would have great difficulty witnessing such an event since I would presumably be unaware of it.

@ Leif_Syverson :

I am not sure that I understood well what you wrote. Did you mean that :

1° The world always complains wrongly that the United States of America ruin every country they ever intervene in ?

2° The United States of America ruin every country they ever intervene in ?

3° Something else ?

@ gopher27 :

I am not sure that I understood well what you wrote. Did you mean that :

1° European are unable to adequately solve by themselves a problem of vital importance to them and that, as a consequence, the United States of America "need" to intervene ?

2° The United States of America always intervene in problems of vital importance to Europeans, which prevents Europeans to take care by themselves of their own problems ?

3° Something else ?

Naturally Retillion ignores the topic at hand, and goes charging off on a tangent failing to grasp the sarcasm. Both comments from Leif and Gopher were plainly stated. Of course he's probably just running out a red herring to cover up for France's FIFA representative who went along with the Qatar vote.

Hi, RUFFHAUS 8.

I have no opinion at all about your FIFA topic because I don't know anything at all about it.
I have no interest at all in soccer which involves indecent amounts of money. To me, soccer is just a vulgar capitalist enterprise which exploits people's gregarious instinct.

As far as Leif_Syverson's and gopher27's messages are concerned, you seem to have failed to notice their polysemic nature which prevents me from being completely sure that I understood what they meant. I would like that they clarify their comments before I possibly react to these.

Ahh Diplomacy banter. Love it.

Wait....are you implying that a representative of France behaved in a cynically corrupt and self-serving manner in dealing with Arabs and Russians?

Retillion, if you have no opinion on the game, then perhaps you should just stay out of the conversation. (Similar to conversations about Diplomacy, which you also know nothing about). Admittedly I invited you to comment on FIFA, but I had no idea that you were such a Marxist ideologue that you despise sport to that extent. I had hoped to interject some humor into our otherwise difficult relationship. That explains a lot about your opinions expressed on this site.

As for Leif and Gopher's comments I understood them perfectly. Apparently you need to psychoanalyze every detail of every comment and take some perverse interpretation just to be argumentative. Sadly that's not surprising.

Gopher, I am implying exactly that, but I do so hesitantly because I do not want to be accused of hate speech again just because I criticize the French.

Retillion,

I am sarcastically citing a widespread perception held by many throughout the world (even held by many Americans), that the USA intervenes in the affairs of other nations to those nation's detriment, without giving an explicit judgment call as to the truth or falsehood of the perception.

Amurica! All your bases are belong to us!

Here's the truth, all those nations who think the USA intervenes in the affairs of other nations sure have no fricken problem taking our money and generally for nothing.
Or God forbid some of those same nations get run over by some other nation and then its ok for us to intervene, naturally on their behalf.

Not to mention the USA is #1 in giving to worldwide charitys to the amount of about 29 billion double the next country.

So the next you time you want to critize the USA for "interfering" look at the USA as a whole picture just not what fits your agenda, especially you clown liberals.

Sendric,
Did you hear that sound...................wait...........yep that's a Tomahawk coming your way. :)

with the amount of debt the USA is in its amazing that they still find the money to give to others

Moosepers +1

@ RUFFHAUS 8 :

Your message was very entertaining ! Thank you !

The way you jump to hasty conclusions is always interesting.
So, according to you, a person using the word "capitalist" and who does not like soccer and the money that it involves is a "Marxist ideologue" ?
And, according to you, "Marxist ideologues" despise sports ?

Tell us RUFFHAUS 8, besides watching soccer on TV, do you practise much sport ? Do you swim ? Do you lift weights ? Do you practise martial arts ? Do you ride a bicycle ? Do you climb mountains ? Please tell us how much sport you do on a regular basis.

@ Leif_Syverson :

Thank you for your answer but it does not answer my question which was about your personal opinion.

@ DEFIANT :

If the *truth* is as you say, then why do so many people in the world disagree with USA's actions throughout the world ?
If the USA were truly only giving money for nothing and rescuing countries, why would it be that the majority (indeed, let's not forget that the USA includes only some 4 % of the world's population) of people in the world disagrees and even sometimes dislikes USA's international policies ? Do you really think that the world population is so stupid that it does not understand all "the good" that you do for it ?
In other words, if your *truth" is really true, wouldn't it be better for everybody that the USA keeps all their money for themselves and, much more important, all their military tools in their own country ?

One more thing, everybody should understand that this has nothing to do with citizens. When I write about USA's actions, nobody should take it personally : as Diplomacy players, you should know that it isn't at all the American citizens who decide about USA's policies, those who decide are hidden masters of puppets.

By the way, any of you Americans is welcome to visit me in Europe and I will buy him a beer, a pizza or whatever he likes.

Amerika :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPuKWy0_cJ0

@ moosepers :

Thank you for your great message because it raises many interesting questions !

For example, did you know that USA's Milton Friedman, who was one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, and who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, stated in 1988 :

"USA's deficit is denominated in dollars. So we owe nothing to anyone. We just have to run the printing press."

By the way, do you know what quantitative easing is ?

Quantitative easing mitigated some of the effects of the financial crisis of 07-08, but this monetary policy can cause adverse effects including but not limited to higher inflation and wealth inequality. the entire world is essentially in a huge debt chain and the USA is about to break this chain leading to a global economic collapse. But I am glad FIFA is starting to deal with the corruption in its ranks

@ Retillion

Withheld on purpose. I made the sarcastic comment and its ties to my personal beliefs on the subject ambiguous because my personal beliefs on the subject are not the point of my comment, nor the subject of this thread. I choose not to be dragged into the rest of this debate. ;) If I wanted those discussions, I'd participate on WebDip's forum!

-Leif

It's rather funny that the capitalistic USA have loaned a lot of money and are in debt to the communist China.

So I guess another thread has been successfully hijacked, and any real conversation is impossible in these forums. Since we are not going to talk about FIFA (because Retillion doesn't like soccer), we may as well just continue hating the French.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnOcwy3Jle0

However i agree that FIFA is doing the right thing. I hope they elect a completely independent person who has no connection to this bribe scandal. Furthermore I hope they rearrange the coming soccer events. Russia for instance shouldn't be trusted as a host, at least not after the rumours that was around when they hosted the Olympic winter games

Milton Friedman is not high up the list of the most influential economists of the 20th Century. BTW, two weeks ago, I finished too many years of graduate school in economics. I no longer have a security badge nor a cubicle at the Federal Reserve. Milton Friedman came up exactly once. That is about as often as Keynes did for any actual work he did. Irving Fisher, Frank Ramsey, Ken Arrow, John Nash, Bob Lucas and many other 20th Century economists have had more of an impact on actual economics than Milton Friedman. I am not claiming that he was a John Kenneth Galbraith empty shirt but he is hardly required reading for professionals.