An Expanded Football World Cup

FIFA recently announced that the World Cup in 2026 would be expanded to 48 teams. The decision was far from being warmly received. One concern, that the format for 48 teams will not be as good as the format for 32 teams is entirely valid. However my view is that the benefits of having more teams competing more than makes up for this. There is also concern that the move to 48 teams is political and is about shoring up the support of the FIFA President Gianni Infantino (which could be true) and there was a lack of consultation.

Increasing the number of participants of any World Cup is a good idea, something the ICC should take note of.

I think much of the criticism comes because football don't like or trust of FIFA, which is perfectly understandable. The fact that the structure of FIFA is basically unchanged after all we have learnt about corruption in FIFA is remarkable and very disappointing. The extent of how much FIFA is on the nose is that the movie, United Passions, that FIFA financed about it's history was the lowest grossing movie in US history and could not find a distributor in the UK, Germany and Brazil and went straight to DVD in France (and these are, of course, nations that love football).

The presidents of the German FA and the Spanish League have come out strongly against the move.

The European Club Association who represent about 220 of the major clubs in Europe are against it. However a lot of football fans regard them about as highly as they do FIFA.

Former Socceroos captain Paul Wade is against because it will dilute the quality of the World Cup. This is the same Paul Wade whose 340 game club career was spent in Australia, when any half decent player was heading overseas. Wade also marked Diego Maradona when Australia played Argentina in qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup. It's hard to imagine anything diluting the quality of a World Cup more than of having Paul Wade play at a World Cup at the expense of Diego Maradona.

Having more games between 'big' teams and 'small' teams might lead to more one sided games. However it will also lead to more of this:

FIFA Now is the organisation which has really been at the forefront of trying to overhaul how FIFA is run and structured, does not support the plan. There 3 objections are that:

• It will dilute the quality of the tournament and therefore the enjoyment of fans;
• It will make a mockery of the qualification process; and
• That it is a money and power grab

Re the last point. I assume that Infantino's plan will be very popular with the African, Asian, North American & possible Oceania confederations. That could be a sign that something is fishy. However it could also be because it is a good plan. And getting more money for TV rights and the extra games is not in itself a bad thing, indeed I would say it is a good thing.

Regarding their other points. Yes qualification will be easier but I strongly disagree it will make a mockery of qualification. At the 2014 World Cup, Europe had 13 spots. UEFA has 55 members. In a 48 team World Cup both Africa & Asia will probably get somewhere around 9 spots. The Confederation of African Football has 56 members and the Asian Football Confederation has 47 members. So in percentage terms it will still be harder to qualify from Africa & Asia in a 48 team tournament than it was from Europe in a 32 team tournament. Also the European Championships have just been expanded to 24 teams and the Netherlands (semi finalists at the previous World Cup) didn't qualify, so qualification is still wouldn't be guaranteed.

Regarding reducing the enjoyment of fans. Will it reduce the enjoyment of the fans from the extra 16 countries that make the World Cup? Also the format will lead to the introduction of an extra knockout round. In terms of watching a round robin game or a knock out game I know what I would prefer. Plus there will be an extra 16 games, something football fans might enjoy.

The format proposed is for 16 groups of 3. The top 2 qualify for the knockout stage. Then there is a knockout stage for these 32 teams. This will lead to an extra 16 matches compared to the 32 team model (the number of group games is unchanged, the extra 16 games being the extra round of knockout games). 

This model keeps the maximum number of games per team as 7 and apparently the tournament can be scheduled in the same period (with more games per day).

Other models were considered. There was a proposal where of the 48 qualifiers, 16 of them would go straight into the groups. Then the other 32 teams would have 16 knockout qualifying games. This was simply a horrendous proposal which rightly derided. Not only would it increase the the length of the tournament, playing one game was hardly a fair reward for the efforts of players from 16 teams as well not being much of a reward for the fans of those countries.

It has been suggested only having the top team from each group qualify and then have a knockout with 16 teams. This would keep mean the number of matches didn't change, I see some problems with this proposal. The first is if the team who played in the first 2 games won both of their matches. This would make the last game of the group a meaningless match. The other problem is that it gives a massive advantage to the teams playing in the last game. Lets say Germany beat Australia 2-0 in the first game, Then Germany draws 1-1 with Ghana in the next game, In the last game between Australia and Ghana, Australia has nothing to play for and Ghana knows exactly what result they need to qualify.

I think a better schedule would be 12 groups of 4 where the top 2 teams go through plus the 8 best 3rd placed teams, Then have a knockout of these 32 teams, Essentially it is a doubling of the schedule used in the 24 team tournaments from 1990 to 1998. However it does come back with one big downside which probably eliminates as a possibility and that is the length of the tournament. Not only would it increase the maximum number of games a team plays from 7 to 8, it would increase the number of games by 40. Even if you increased the number of games per day at the group stage so that this part of the tournament didn't take longer, the extra 16 games at the first knockout stage would add at least 4 days to the tournament (and probably a bit longer than that).

One of the shortfalls of the proposed plan is that it does increase the size of collusion. Lets say Germany and Australia draw the first game 1-1. Then Germany draws 1-1 with Ghana. It means the winner of Australia vs Ghana would qualify whilst the loser gets knocked out. However a 2-2 draw would put both teams through, There would be a temptation to arrange a 2-2 draw. Is that really that fanciful an idea?

Another possibility is Australia beats Germany 2-0 (it's possible!) and then Germany beats Ghana 3-2. Ghana takes an early 1-0 lead vs Australia in the last game. At that stage both Australia and Ghana would qualify. Ghana knows if Australia equalise then Ghana will be knocked out. Australia knows if Ghana scores 2 more goals then Australia will be knocked out. Ghana and Australia then go on to produce a game whether neither teams appears to be trying and the games finishes 1-0. Both Australia and Ghana qualify and Germany go homes feeling mightily aggrieved. Couldn't happen? In the section below read about the 1982 World Cup game between West Germany and Austria.

FIFA's plan to get around this is to eliminate draws by having penalty shootouts for every game, I'm not sure this totally eliminates the problems spoken about. In the case of Germany drawing 1-1 with Australia and then Ghana. Lets say Australia beat Germany in a penalty shootout and Germany beat Ghana on penalties. Then a 2-2 draw between Australia and Ghana where Ghana wins the penalty shootout still guarantees that both teams would qualify.

In the case of the second scenario previously mentioned, the introduction of penalty shootouts doesn't change the likelihood of any shenanigans because no games were drawn.

There is another problem with introducing penalty shootouts. Lets say Australia draws 1-1 with Germany but loses the penalty shootout. Germany then beats Ghana. Australia then draw 1-1 with Ghana in the last game, Ghana wins the penalty shooutout 9-8 with their goalkeeper scoring the winning penalty and in some way making up for the loss in the 2015 African Cup of Nations.

So Germany and Ghana progress despite Australia not losing a game. Also Australia's record of 2 draws (before the penalty shootouts) stands in comparison to Ghana's record of one draw and one loss. I fear it would bring about more games like the 1986 European Cup final between Barcelona and Steaua Bucharest where one teams decides their best chance of a victory is to try for a 0-0 draw and then win the penalty shootout.

There is another downside to penalty shootouts, especially if like me you are a England fan.

After going through these short comings I think that if there is a move to a 48 team tournament then it really has to be with 12 groups of 4.

So where will the extra countries come from? According to the Guardian, Asia & Africa will get an extra 4, Africa 4, North America 3, Europe 3, South America 1.5 & Oceania 0.5. 

That would mean that Europe would have 16 spots, Africa 9, Asia 8.5, South America 7, North America 6.5 & Oceania 1. That would leave a playoff between Asia and North America for one pot. I'm not sure how final these numbers are.

For the 2014 World Cup this might have meant that the extra qualifiers would have been: Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Venezuela, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Egypt (or maybe Burkina Faso might have replaced one of these African teams), Jordan, Uzbekistan, Oman, Qatar, New Zealand, Panama & Jamaica. The last spot would have filled by either Guatemala, El Salvador, Canada, Lebanon or Iraq.

Not much chance that the winners would have come from one of teams. well unless Lord Bendtner played like how he thinks he normally plays. However if we want the came to continue to develop outside of Europe and South America more spots need to be given to countries from outside of these regions.

Below is a brief summary the structure used for each World Cup. My rating is just in regard to the structure of the tournament, although not taking into account the composition of the countries that competed.

1930

13 teams
South America 7, Europe 4 & North America 2
Format: 1 group of 4 & 3 groups of 3. Winners of groups into semi finals. Then a final
Number of knockout games: 3
Were the last group games played at the same time? Only relevant for one group: no
My rating: 7. 13 is a horrible number run a fair tournament with. I probably would have gone with the top 2 from each group qualified, seeing that 6 of the teams who traveled to Uruguay only played 2 games.
Fact: Of the 18 games played there were no draws. Indeed only 8 of the 18 games had a 2 goal or less winning margin.

1934

16 teams
Europe 12, South America 2, North America 1 & Africa 1
Format: Straight knockout
Number of knockout games: 15
Were the last group games played at the same time? Not relevant
My rating: 3. I like knock out games, but not to have a group stage which meant that 8 teams only had one game.

1938

15 teams
Europe 12, South America 1, North America 1 & Asia 1.
Format: Straight knockout
Number of knockout game: 14
Were group games played at the same time? Not relevant
My rating: 2.5 (half a point less than 1934 for having 15 teams)
Fact: Austria qualified, but being in 1938 they unified with Germany. FIFA in their infinite wisdom decided to not to invite another team

1950

13 teams
Europe 6, South America 5 & North America 2
2 groups of 4, 1 group of 3 and 1 group of 2. Winners into a final group of 4. No final.
Number of knockout game: 1
Were group games played at the same time? Two teams had 4 teams. One group did.
My rating: 0. There were withdrawals. However to have 2 groups of 4, 1 of 3 and another of 2 was ridiculous. The only knockout game was the game between Uruguay & Bolivia in the only game in group 4. Then there was no final, instead there was a round robin. Luckily the top 2 teams played in the last game.

1954

16 teams

Europe 12, South America 2, North America 1 & Asia 1.
Format: 4 groups of 4. Top 2 into the quarter finals. Each team played 2 games in the group not 3. No goal difference (playoff games used). Knockout from then.
Number of knockout game: 9 (including 2 playoff games at the group stage)
Were group games played at the same time? Yes
My rating: 6. A big markdown for each team not playing each other in the group stage, However they had the good sense not to use goal difference to determine the second team to qualify. Two groups had playoffs and in both cases this was the second match between these sides (and in both cases the same team won)

1958

16 teams

Europe 12, South America 3, North America 1
Format: 4 groups of 4. Top 2 into the quarter finals. No goal difference (playoff games used). Knockout from then.
Number of knockout games: 10 (including 3 playoff games at the group stage)
Were group games played at the same time? Yes for 3 groups (and therefore no for one group)
My rating: 9. Almost perfect. To use playoff games rather than goal difference was the only negative (although with England & the Soviet Union having exactly the same goal difference a playoff was the best option to separate them).

1962, 1966 & 1970

16 teams

1962: Europe 10, South America 5 & North America 1
1966: Europe 10, South America 4, North America 1 & Asia 1
1970: Europe 9, South America 3, North America 2, Africa 1 & Asia 1.
Format: 4 groups of 4. Top 2 into the quarter finals. Goal difference used. Knockout from then.
Number of knockout games: 7
Were group games played at the same time? No
My rating: 9 - loses a point for not having the last group games played at the same time.

1974 & 1978

16 teams

1974: Europe 9, South America 4, North America 1, Africa 1 & Oceania 1
1978: Europe 10, South America 3, North America 1, Africa 1 & Asia 1.
Format: 4 groups of 4. Top 2 go through into different 2 groups of 4. Winners into the final.
Number of knockout games: 1
Were group games played at the same time? Yes for 4 of the 6 groups & no for 2 groups
My rating: 4. FIFA after having almost a perfect structure for the previous World Cups (only let down by not having simultaneous kick offs for the last round of group games) changed the format this year. This system does lead to more games (6 more).
1974: This system does lead to more games (6 more), however, the games lose meaning (East Germany vs Argentina and Sweden vs Yugoslavia in the second group stages were pointless games). FIFA got lucky in that the top 2 teams in each of the second lot of group games met in the last match which turned the games into defacto semi finals. The lack of knockout games is a major step backwards.
1978: The lack of not playing all of the group games at the same time had a serious impact on the tournament. In the first of the group in the second stage the last 2 games were played at the same time. However in the second group they were not. Going into the last game between Argentina & Peru, Brazil had 5 points and a goal difference of +5 and Argentina had 3 points and a goal difference of +2. Argentina knew they had to win by 4 goals to qualify for the final. In rather dubious circumstances Argentina won 6-0. Brazil were knocked out after being unbeaten in their 6 games

1982

24 teams

Europe 14, South America 4, North America 2, Africa 2, Asia 1 & Oceania 1
Format: 6 groups of 4. The top progress. Then 4 groups of 3. Winners into the semi finals.
Number of knockout games: 3
Were group games played at the same time? No
My rating: 5. The first real expansion in World Cup history (the first tournament did only have 13 teams but this was less due to design than to a lack of interest by European countries). The re-introduction of semi finals was an improvement. However the second group stage was a misstep, although luckily all of the last 4 matches of this stage were meaningful games and the Italy vs Brazil game is one of the clssic World Cup games. England, like Brazil in 1978, reached the second stage of the World Cup and were knocked out despite being unbeaten. Also the problem of not playing the last round of group games at the same stage again reared it's ugly head in the match between West Germany & Austria.

1986, 1990 & 1994

24 teams

1986 & 1990: Europe 14, South America 4, North America 2, Africa 2 & Asia 2.
1994:  Europe 13, South America 4, Africa 3, North America 2 & Asia 2.
Format: 6 groups of 4. The top 2 teams from each qualify plus the 4 best third place finishers. Knockout from there.
Number of knockout games: 15
Were group games played at the same time? Yes
My rating: 8. It's difficult to have a great format with 24 teams, but this is probably the best option. I'm not a fan of some third place teams qualifying and others not (especially as even one win at the group stage would have seen a team qualify so the teams who drew say Canada were virtually ensured of making the final 16). However there isn't an obvious alternative. Of the 4 teams who qualified as the 3rd best teams, 3 were knocked out at the next stage and Belgium made it all the way to semi finals when they fell to the brilliance of Diego Maradona.
Opinion: 1986 is probably the best World Cup ever. There were as many as 10 teams who made the final 16 who could have been considered serious chances of winning the tournament (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, England, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Spain & West Germany). In the end the brilliance of Diego Maradona proved vital in securing Argentina's victory.

1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 & 2014

32 teams

1998 & 2002: Europe 15, South America 5, Africa 5, Asia 4 & North America 3.
2006: Europe 14, Africa 5, South America 4, Asia 4, North America 4 & Oceania 1 (Australia were part of Asia when the tournament took place but qualified through Oceania).
2010: Europe 13, Africa 6, South America 5, Asia 4, North America 3 & Oceania 1
2014: Europe 13, South America 6, Africa 5, Asia 4 & North America 4.
Format: 8 groups of 4. The top 2 teams qualify for the knockout stage. Knockout from there.
Number of knockout games: 15
Were group games played at the same time? Yes
My rating: 10. A almost perfect system. A minimum of 3 games per team. Lots of knockout games.

Around The World

My favourite songs from different countries around the world. Dominated by songs from the 1980s.

I have only included songs that I really like, so for instance there is no place for Los Del Rio's Macarena

Australia. A fairly straightforward choice Wide Open Road by the Triffids. A song that the first time I heard sounded like a classic,,,and still does. A beautiful song, where the pain of the singer is laid bare. 

I wake up in the morning
Thinking I'm still by your side
I reach out just to touch you
Then I realise
It's a wide open road

It beat out Travelling (Ups & Downs). Plenty of others that would have made choices: Know Your Product (The Saints); The Way I Made You Feel (Ed Kuepper), Pressure Sway (The Machinations), One Perfect Day (Little Heroes), Streets Of Your Town (The Go-Betweens), Berlin Chair (You Am I), Suspicion Bells (Effigy) and Pedestrian At Best (Courtney Barnett).

Austria. Not a county I know a lot about musically. It came down to which Falco song I chose. And the winner is Der Kommissar. It was released at the same time as an English version by After the Fire and did much better in the charts (and rightly so). 

It also led to one of the better moments in Scrubs.

Belgium. Ce Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand

Brazil. I only came across Brazilian punk about a year ago. Have listened to a bit since and it's pretty damn good. Punk was very much a working/marginalised class music, so I suppose it's understandable that Brazil would produce some good punk.

Not being able to understand the lyrics doesn't really hurt it, as it then just becomes about the power of the music. 

I'll pick Panico Em SP by Inocentes as my favourite.

I do like Seu Jorge's Bowie covers, but I am trying to avoid covers (with one exception).

Canada. A country that seems that has produced lots of great acts (Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen & Neil Young). And a lot more that are truly awful (Avril Lavigne, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Nickelback etc). 

Another fairly simple choice Echo Beach - Martha and the Muffins. A song that sounds great from the opening beats and still sounds as good as when it was released. A wonderful song about wanting to be in a place you love rather than having to put up with the drudgery of work. I used to really love this song when I worked for Centrelink.

England. The most difficult choice just through the sheer volume of songs that I like. Starting with my favourite bands/singers: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (The Beatles), Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks), I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (Dustry Springfield), Life On Mars (David Bowie), Working Class Hero (John Lennon), Start! (The Jam), She's Lost Control (Joy Division), The Magnificent Seven (The Clash), Open Your Heart (Human League), The Perfect Kiss (New Order), A Forest (The Cure), World In My Eyes (Depeche Mode), Uncertain Smile (The The), Greetings To The New Brunette (Billy Bragg), Big Mouth Strikes Again (The Smiths), Everyday Is Like Sunday (Morrissey) & I Wanna Be Adored (The Stone Roses). Of these I'm going to plumb for The Perfect Kiss.

Then there are the songs from others: Tin Soldier (The Small Faces), Golden Brown (The Stranglers), Spellbound (Siouxsie & The Banshees), Fade to Grey (Visage), Free World (Kirsty MacCall), This Mess We're In (PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke), Little Lion Man (Mumford & Sons) & Rolling In the Deep (Adele).

In the end it came down two others. I came across Buoy by Mick Karn & David Sylvian on the B side to Sylvian's Let The Happiness in. Two members of Japan, a band who broke up just when the looked on the verge of success in large part because Sylvian moved in with Karn's girlfriend. They did some work together after Japan split and years later recorded even recorded another Japan album. Written by Mick Karen Buoy apparently reached #63 in the UK charts in 1987. It deserved much better. I find the switch from the verses to the chorus a bit clunky and that cost it the top spot.

Which leaves Temptation by Heaven 17. Two thirds of the band came from another favourite of mine, The Human League. Temptation is a classic pop song, big sound, some interesting lyrics, searing vocals and works up tempo as the song progresses. And it was used in Trainspotting.

France. Daft Punk would be my favourite band to come out of France, however my favourite song goes to I'll Kill Her by Soko. 

It's hard to do humour in pop/rock without turning into a novelty song. Brilliant executed in showing how nuts the singer is, you can't help but think the bloke who was the object of her love made a great decision not to call her back.

Germany. I'm not a fan over the overblown or stadium rock songs/band. For instance I really don't like Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody is the embodiment of overblown rock songs I don't like.

I also tend to think most movies run too long. No love story should ever run more than 100 minutes, because that's all Casablanca needed and I doubt anyone will ever make a better love story movie.

However, I am a fan of the overblown pop song. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes is Sea Of Time by the Rainbirds. The longest song to 'win' and probably the most obscure. 

99 Luft Ballons (Nena) and Tour de France (Kraftwerk) were considered.

Iceland. This was the closest choice and might have been the best 2 way battle since Bonecrusher and Our Waverly Star in the 1986 WS Cox Plate (I was on Our Waverly Star that day). 

Probably my 2 favourite acts from the last decade or so have been from Iceland, Sigur Ros and Emiliana Torrini. It was hard enough deciding on my favourite songs from each. I decided upon 2 of their most well known Hoppipolla (Sigur Ros) and Sunny Road (Emiliana Torrini). 

Hoppipolla is musically brilliant. Sung part in Icelandic and part in a made up language, I think the fact that we don't understand the lyrics really helps Sigur Ros. Their music is truly beautiful and the listener can make up what the song is about.

Sunny Road is a beautiful song, a love letter to an old flame, where the singer looks back on her life and expresses her regret at choices made and asks for one more chance to a person they haven't seen in quite a while. At the end we don't know how it turns out.

Listening to both now I was tempted to call a dead heat, but I don't want to wuss out. And therefore Hoppipolla races into music immortality. Bjork's Army Of Me completes the trifecta.

Ireland.I did want to avoid covers. However Sinead O'Connor's version of Nothing Compares 2 U is just too to ignore (and the original is barely known). The pain in Sinead's voice is clearly evident. Probably the best song Prince ever wrote. Plus it has a wonderful video.

Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats) is also fantastic and I'm a big fan of Summer In Siam by The Pogues.

Jamaica. I quite like reggae but know shockingly few songs from Jamaica. In the end it was what Bob Marley would I chose and I Shot The Sheriff just beat out Jamming.

Bob's name always appear on list's of celebrity Spurs fans. I think there is little evidence to suggest he really was a Spurs fan, but we've claimed him. And in a list of coolest people to have ever lived, Bob is very close to the top so I'm not going to poop on that parade.

Japan. Forbidden Colours by David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamato. Ok this is cheating a bit...well a fair bit. However the music (that Sakamato wrote & played) on this is absolute beautiful.

Netherlands. I'm not a big fan of stadium rock but I do like Radar Love by Golden Earring. If you're going to have a big rock song at least make it fun. 

Good enough to beat Shocking Blue's Venus.

New Zealand, Split Enz would be my favourite band from NZ. 

However the two in the running were Counting The Beat by the Swingers which was edged out by Gasrankinstation by the Headless Chickens. Fantastic how it reveals the story of Ivan, a bloke working at a petrol station whose life sounds unfulfilled. Ivan sounds like a man who would now have supported Brexit and Trump. The music really compliments what is a dark story. 

The Headless Chooks also had another great song with Cruise Control.

Northern Ireland. The great rock songs still sound fresh decades later. And that certainly applies to Gloria by Them.

Her name is G-L-O-R-I-I-I
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!

Norway. I know somebody who traveled to Norway for A-Ha's farewell tour. Now that is devotion. Take on Me was their biggest hit, but my favourite is The Sun Always Shines On TV.

Scotland. Time for another overblown pop song. At almost 8 & 1/2 minutes it's the extended version of Don't Talk To Me About Love by Altered Images. A pop song that is better in the extended format.

Just beats out New Gold Dream by Simple Minds, which wasn't released as a single. However with Promised You A Miracle; Glittering Prize; and Someone, Somewhere in Summertime that was an album with great songs.

Being a cover ruled out Sleeper's version of Atomic.

Sweden. A country that has produced more than it's fair share of great pop songs. 

I'm just old enough to remember Abba winning the Eurovision in 1974 with Waterloo. Abba almost won here with Voulez-Vous. Instead they were beat out by The Cardigans with My Favourite Game. I love the changes of tempo in this.

Switzerland, Oh Yeah by Yello. Probably my least favourite 'winner' but still pretty darn good and an excuse to show some of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 

USA. Otis Redding was taken from us way too early. In my opinion Try A Little Tenderness is just about perfect. I love the way it starts with just Otis singing with him really elongating the words. Then slowly more instruments get added, but that are secondary to Otis's vocals. Then the song speeds up. Otis vocals get quicker. By the end the song has built to a magnificent crescendo. The music is loud. Otis is quickly belting out the words. And the song has a brass section (which always helps).

Atomic by Blondie would have won for any other country. 

Others worthy of some love: Midnight Train To Georgia (Gladys Knight & The Pips - yes, this was a cover, but it's easily the most well known version), Say A Little Prayer (Aretha Franklin), Love Is Like An Itching in My Heart (The Supremes), I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges), Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers), Let's Stay Together (Al Green), Hazy Shade Of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel), Because The Night (Patti Smith), Controversy (Prince), Crosseyed & Painless (Talking Heads), Teardrops (Womack & Womack), Candy (Iggy Pop & Kate Pierson), Mockingbirds (Grant Lee Buffalo), Tom's Diner (Suzanna Vega & DNA - DNA who are English did amazing stuff with that song), Disarm (The Smashing Pumpkins), Tomorrow Wendy (Andy Prieboy), Grace (Jeff Buckley - really I could have nominated anything of that album), Professional Widow (Tori Amos), Sleep Now In The Fire (Rage Against The Machine) and Seven Nation Army (The White Stripes).

Wales. Underworld are sort of Welsh. At least one band member is/was Welsh and they were formed in Wales. Anyway I'm going to count them as Welsh. The question then becomes if I pick Underneath The Radar or Born Slippy. Born Slippy has the advantage of being used in Trainspotting, but in the end I plumped for Underneath the Radar.

I do like the Dakota by the Stereophonics and I really should listen to more Los Campinisos! as I like most of the stuff I've heard of theirs (By Your Hand is probably my favourite).

Rebecca Wilson

Sports journalist Rebecca Wilson passed away three Fridays ago, aged just 54. Apparently she had been diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago and looked like she had beaten in. However it was discovered just five weeks before she passed away that it had returned. Imagine how painful it must have been for her and her family (a partner and twochildren) that in all likelihood she only had a few weeks to live.

I'm sure anybody who reads this will have who has been in a battle with cancer. And it is a battle. I don't want to go over my experiences with it, but it's an insidious disease which has taken the lives of some people my wife & I loved very much.

When I haven't liked somebody who has passed away, I don't like to comment on them until after their funeral. The family of the deceased person should be able to grieve without seeing their loved one being attacked. I think it is possible to have a discussion about the deceased person's legacy that doesn't get personal, but I don't think I'm a good enough wordsmith to be able to do that, so I just leave any commentary until after the funeral.

The passing of Margaret Thatcher provided an interesting insight into how people deal with the death of a person who was disliked by a lot of people. For many in the UK her death was almost a celebration. Indeed there was a campaign by some of her opponents to buy 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead', which made it to #2 on the UK music charts. How disgusting. I understand why people didn't like Margaret Thatcher (because I'm one of them). However to call somebody a witch is unacceptable (in Australia many of us were rightly offended when Julia Gillard was derided as being a witch) . In part it's such an offensive term because there is no comparable insult for a man.

Obituaries in newspapers are should not be written as fan club pieces. I'm sure obituaries of Bob Hawke will not only mention his many achievements but also his problems with alcohol and his womanising, as well as criticism of his time as President of the ACTU and as Prime Minister.   

Tributes have flown for Ms Wilson. Virtually all obituaries/tributes for her have included the words 'award winning', 'legendary', 'ground breaking', 'courageous' & 'brave'. What there wasn't in any of these pieces was any reflection of any of Wilson's failures as a person or as a journalist. There was no mention of her struggles with alcohol which led to two drink driving and one driving without a licence convictions, not even as a tale of how she had overcome this problem.

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First things first. To give Ms Wilson credit, she had a very long career (over 30 years) in the media, working for a number of media outlets. She must have done something right and there must have been people who liked her work (although honestly I have never spoken to anybody who has said they did).

Secondly Ms Wilson was one of the early pioneers of women as sports journalists in Australia. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. Kudos to her and she certainly received praise from a lot of women who in later years have worked in that field.

A common criticism of Ms Wilson by her critics, indeed too common a criticism, was that she had twice been busted for drink driving and once for driving without a licence. Now these are valid points to bring up when Ms Wilson criticised people who had acted like buffoons because of alcohol/drugs or had driven in a reckless manner, such as stories about Grant Hackett & Mitchell Pearce. 

Not only was the argument irrelevant but let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Also there were so many more relevant things related to her journalistic work with which she could have been shamed. However her driving offences were often brought up when people disagreed with her. 

Still it's a good excuse to show this haiku from a Western Sydney Wanderers game (and my friends will know I do love haiku) and it provides a nice segue into another story.

 There are two stories from Ms Wilson that infuriated football fans across Australia. The first was from 2014 in a story about violence at Western Sydney Wanderers games, where she blamed the disaster at Hillsborough on football fans. 

There is so much wrong with this and it is an example of how little research she did. Hillsborough was not caused by fans not sitting in their own seats. The fans who died, were in a standing area. They died because an antiquated unsafe ground was used and because of police incompetence in getting fans safely into the ground in a timely manner, and then not directing fans into the less crowded areas but instead herding them into an area that was already dangerously crowded.

To make it worse, the police then started a media campaign where they tried to shift the blame from themselves to Liverpool fans. At the heart of this campaign was The Sun published by News Limited (who were Ms Wilson's primary employer). 

That Ms Wilson was still peddling these outrageous lies almost 25 years later was just disgraceful. The offending comment was removed from the article, although there is no note about

the deletion.

Then in 2015 Ms Wilson wrote an article about violence at A League games and how 198 fans had been banned from A League games. Any merit the story might have had was undermined by a whole range of issues related to the story. Unfortunately the story is behind a paywall. Here

is a copy (without the photos) from Reddit. 

The article caused outrage. For some the article confirmed what they thought about violence at football games. For a lot of football fans the outrage was directed at Ms Wilson, the Daily Telegraph, the FFA and whoever leaked the document that the story was based on.

There was criticism that the FFA had stated that the details of those banned would be kept confidential; that details were published of people who were under 18; that incorrect photos wereused in some instances; and that details of some offences were incorrect.

A friend of a friend of mine was fired from his job after the story broke. As he pointed out he was 16 at the time that the alleged incident occurred, he was never charged and there was no appeal process with the FFA.

The lack of an appeal process re the bans had been a sore point for football fans for years: the FFA acted as judge, jury and executioner - and then gave those banned no appeal rights.

The following is an interview between Mark Bosnich and the then head of the A-League Damien De Bohun. That weekend a lot of fans walked out of games (I walked out at the game where this interview took place) at the lack of an adequate response and at the continued lack of an appeal
process. 

The irony is that it was outrage at Ms Wilson that forced the FFA to cave in and finally implement an appeal process.

The issue of who leaked the document is also an important story that has never been properly answered. The main suspects are the NSW Police and the SCG Trust. Ms Wilson quotes 2 NSW policemen in the article, including Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione (more on him in a
moment). On the board of the SCG Trust are Ms Wilson's partner John Hartigan (more on him later) and Alan Jones (more on him later) on whose radio show Ms Wilson was a regular.

If the NSW Police leaked the story this almost certainly has criminal implications. If it was the SCG Trust, it is totally unacceptable that the body the people responsible for running one ground used by an A League team and who trying to gain control of the ground used by the team who became the main focus of this story another ground used by another team who are the main focus of the story (the SCG Trust are apparently trying to get control of Parramatta Stadium). 

In the article NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione is quoted as saying “The last thing we want to get to in Australia is putting rival fans in cages like the UK model”. It's simply amazing that the man responsible for running the police in NSW thinks that British football still uses cages.

The man is literally 20 years behind the time. Cages played a massive part in the Hillsborough tragedy and subsequently they were banished from British grounds.

You would have thought a quality journalist would have picked up on this and made a
comment. But as we saw from her article of the year before Ms Wilson seemed to know little
about English football. 

Following the article Ms Wilson appeared on Alan Jones’s radio show. Mr Jones was very
supportive of Ms Wilson. During the interview Mr Jones said "Is this like terrorism in Paris? The
leaders have no guts?" 

Now if it was me I might have answered something like "Well Alan, I think it's a ridiculous analogy to compare what is happening with terrorism in Paris to what is happening in football grounds in Australia. I think that people who are already outraged by the story, might
consider that you are implying that football fans are like terrorists. Also it's odd that on one hand we are arguing that 198 fans is a lot to be banned and on the other hand that the FFA is doing nothing. So, no, Alan I don't consider this to be anything like the situation in Paris".

Instead Ms Wilson said "That's exactly right, Alan."

One of the really illogical arguments that Ms Wilson made during this story is that the 198 fans banned by the FFA was a lot more than other sports and it showed that football was unsafe. Also

the FFA leadership had no guts and was doing nothing about the situation. Clearly only one of these statements can be true.

Besides the Wanderers the other sporting team that was often in Ms Wilson's cross hairs is the other team I'm a season ticket holder for, the Canterbury Bulldogs. 

Mr Noad also stated, "Rebecca also makes mention of the Club not calling her to discuss any issues from her page. That is at the very heart of this decision. Why are we constantly trying to contact her after she has written a story with factual errors. Shouldn’t she be contacting the Bulldogs anytime she receives unsubstantiated information about the club or its players? Isn’t it the very cornerstone of good journalism that you check your facts?"

He also stated "This is a key secondary issue to this whole problem, Rebecca has a personal issue
with me and with the Bulldogs Club. The issue with me extends back to the Sydney Olympics when she used to work for me at News Limited. She was suspended by News Limited for the period of the Games at the request of Lachlan Murdoch for several indiscretions. She felt I should have stood up for her."

Some very interesting points were raised by Mr Noad: The constant errors from Ms Wilson; the lack of fact checking from Ms Wilson; the lack of response from Ms Wilson; and that News Limited banned Ms Wilson from covering the Sydney Olympics. I haven't been able to find another source to confirm that Ms Wilson was banned from covering the Sydney Olympics.
However, Mr Noad would be in a position to know and would have opened himself to a lawsuit if the story wasn't true. I also could not find any denial from Wilson about this point. 

Things escalated and in July 2015 Malcom Noad sued Rebecca Wilson for defamation.

An interesting point in the claim was “Among Mr Noad’s reasons for claiming aggravated damages in his suit is [Wilson’s] act in exploiting her personal relationship with a senior executive of [News Ltd] in order to revenge herself upon [Mr Noad].”

The relationship being referred to was with John Hartigan, the former chairman & CEO of News Limited in Australia. 

In November of that year Ms Wilson apologised to Mr Noad: "On Saturday May 14 2005,

I wrote a report that Malcolm Noad had posted a letter on the (Canterbury) Bulldogs website about me. I also commented on that letter on 2MMM on May 7, 2005. I suggested that Mr Noad’s letter had incited Bulldogs fans to send me obscene messages and death threats. I withdraw that suggestion unreservedly and sincerely apologise to Malcolm Noad and his family for the hurt and distress my comments have caused them".

Back to fact checking. As Mr Noad stated, Ms Wilson was not contacting the Bulldogs before publishing unsubstantiated rumours and then did not return phone calls when contacted by the Bulldogs. 

One of my favourite mistakes that Rebecca Wilson made was claiming that the Boston Red Sox were coming to play a spring training (pre season) game in Sydney (the article was under her and Phil Rothfield's byline. Unfortunately I can't find a copy of this article). The story was published one day after all major league baseball teams published their spring training schedules. The Red Sox had no games scheduled in Australia and only had two days with no games scheduled during this period. Even the most basic of checks would have shown this story was rubbish.

In 2004 Ms Wilson published the following: "The NRL has copped a bucketing over player behaviour but the Swans aren't all angels. One player abused CityRail staff at Circular Quay last week. "I told you I haven't got a ticket," he shouted. He was politely told he would face a fine if he
didn't pay his fare. "You can go and ---- yourselves," he said." 

The problem was the story was completely fabricated and was emailed to her from somebody called Choppies from the League Unlimited Forum.

Even when Rebecca is on the right side of an argument, like she was with the continual booing of Adam Goodes, she lets herself down with her lack of fact checking. Singling out Dermott Brereton, in a radio interview she said "And the fact that Dermott Brereton can come out today and says

‘I actively encourage it’ [the booing], have a look at what he’s done.”

Mr Brereton didn't take kindly to this and called in. Quite clearly Dermott Brereton hadn't said what Ms Wilson alleged. Again some really sloppy journalism undermined her argument. Also it was interesting that she singled out Dermott Brereton rather than her friend Alan Jones, who was also critical of Adam Goodes. 

Ms Wilson called out Phil Gould and Danny Weidler. To quote from a Crikey article "last week

Wilson took a big dip at Weidler and fellow Fairfax writer, Sydney and NSW rugby league coach Phil
Gould. She pointed out, quite fairly in her column that both Gould [sic] and Weidler had mentioned the UK betting exchange, Betfair, without declared [sic] their allegiances with Kerry Packer’s PBL, which plans to take a half interest in Betfair".

As the article mentioned Mr Weidler returned serve: “In another paper, columnist Rebecca Wilson took aim at Last Word and said we should declare that I am moving to Channel Nine and ACP in two months. Wilson, who has appeared in this column because of two  drink-driving charges and a charge of driving without a licence, should take a look at herself. I will not be an employee of Channel Nine until November and have not been paid a cent by the network. For those who would have missed it Wilson is an employee of Channel Seven. She doesn’t declare her vested interest". 

"Since February she has plugged Channel Seven at least 14 times in her column. She has also given numerous favourable mentions to individuals connected to the program on which she appears. She has bagged Channel Nine programs about their ratings and attacked Nine’s sports personalities. She has used her column to beg people to watch her show on five occasions. She should have used it more, as it was axed last week.”

 With so many journalists working for more than one media company and media companies owning some football teams and broadcasting rights, journalists should point out when they have conflicting interests. I once complained about an article that Mr Weidler wrote for the Sun-Herald about a story that had appeared on Channel 9.  One of my complaints was the article didn't

point out that Mr Weidler was an employee of Channel 9. The Press Council agreed with this and I note that Mr Weidler's article now carries a footnote about him being an employee of Channel 9.

The big sport of 2010 was the Melbourne Storm's long-term cheating of the NRL salary cap. It took some time before Brian Waldron, the CEO of the Melbourne Storm, spoke to the media. When he did, this is what Ms Wilson had to say: "Waldron should not have been given the oxygen to say one word by anyone in the media".

Hmmm, Ms Wilson didn't think the media should speak to the CEO of the team involved. The Melbourne Storm were owned by News Limited (Ms Wilson's employer) which also owned half of the NRL.

 News Limited appointed Mr Hartigan to investigate what happened. Early on Mr Hartigan called Mr Waldron "the chief rat" of the operation. It was clear that News Limited wanted to paint the salary cap rorting as being perpetrated by Mr Waldron and a few other employees at the Melbourne Storm, without the knowledge of News Limited. This is the standard News Limited modus operandi when they are caught doing something naughty, like when the world found out that News Limited
newspapers had been hacking people's phones in the UK. 

 I'll attach an article from Phil Rothfield, the sports editor of the Daily Telegraph who runs the News Limited line and takes pot shots at Brian Waldron. Of course as we now know the man who takes money from the disgraced punter Eddie Hayson (not that that was money for favourable articles about Mr Hayson; the favourable articles were just coincidental).

  This is typical News Limited fare. Brian Waldron is called a rat; there is some outrage that John Hartigan and NRL CEO "were at times questioned as though they were the guilty parties"; Also Mr
Rothfield was outraged that when he called Brian Waldron, that Mr Waldron hadn't returned his call and that Mr Waldron wasn't there to face the music. It seems that Mr Rothfield was happy to give Mr Waldron oxygen, if he wanted.

 Back to Ms Wilson. The person who was outraged that Phil Gould and Danny Weidler didn't declare their connections, was reporting on a story where her partner was one of the major

participants (she did acknowledge this). And surprise, surprise she was rock solid behind her partner (and her employer) and didn't even want to hear from the person who her partner was putting all the blame onto.

  Ms Wilson was rightly pilloried for this. Here she is absolutely skewered by Gerard Whateley, Caroline Wilson & Gideon Haigh. And Greg Baum rightly took her to tasks in this Sydney Morning Herald article.

 We really hate hypocrites, although as Norm McDonald pointed out, often the hypocrisy should be way down the list of when we judge a person's sins. However it would be nice if a person who had a problem with drink, maybe recognised that when they criticised others. 

  Ms Wilson wasn't shy at criticising others when they caused problems due to a problem with
alcohol despite twice being prosecuted for drink driving and once for driving without a licence. She criticised others for not revealing any conflicts of interest, yet used her Daily Telegraph column to plug her other work and to run stories beneficial to the interests of her employer and partner.

The following is from a Danny Weidler article when the Matthew Johns and the Cronulla Sharks group sex story with a teenage girl in Wellington broke (as an aside I think there is an interesting story to be written about why it took 7 years for that story to get widespread media coverage whilst the allegations against Bulldogs players dominated the front and back pages for months in 2004).

  "She thinks she stands on a mound of morality but, if you ask me, News LTD columnist
Rebecca Wilson delivers her sermons from hypocrisy hill. Turning up the volume during the week to swipe at men in particular, myself included. Wilson denounced Matthew Johns' infidelity in her online blog, saying "It is a breach of trust that really annoys me with each of these blokes because there is no doubt most of them were in existing relationships. I just can't cop that." 

"I do wonder what her former husband thinks of her new moral clarity. Asked about this yesterday, Wilson said: What I have done in my personal life does not make it right or wrong. I'm in a happy relationship now. I have never had sex with 10 men so it is not fair to draw a comparison. If you want to write about that, I feel sorry for you. You will not stop until you destroy me. You want a quote? You don't deserve me discussing my life with you." 

The reference to not sleeping with 10 men is interesting. There was no allegation that Mr Johns slept with 10 people. The person who slept with 10 men was the young lady who Ms Wilson claimed she was defending.

Ms Wilson wasn't a great journalist. She wasn't even a good journalist or an average one. She was a poor journalist who too often wrote articles that included ridiculous assertions, were riddled
with errors and were driven by personal agendas; her fact checking was either lacking or non-existent; she took a laissez faire approach to conflicts of interests; and she was a shocking hypocrite. 

And the media in publishing obituaries that did not contain any negative comments about her personal life or mention any of the criticism that directed at Ms Wilson's journalistic work, seriously let down their readers.