Word: fifa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...good enough, reckons FIFA, world football's governing body. At its annual congress in Sydney on Friday, delegates backed proposals capping at five the number of foreign players top soccer clubs can field at the start of a game. Buoyed by the support - 155 voted in favor of the resolution, and only five against - FIFA plans to explore the idea further with the hope of imposing the limits by 2012. "There is a growing sporting and economic inequality" between clubs, said Sepp Blatter, FIFA's president, taking aim at wealthy European teams able to cherry pick from the world...
...bigger challenge for FIFA is that in their current form, the proposals are flat-out illegal, because they flout the European Union's rules permitting workers the freedom of movement among member states. FIFA's plan drew a "red card" from Vladimir Spidla, E.U. Employment Commissioner, ahead of the Sydney meeting...
...unfortunate recent history of spectator racism. In 2004, Spanish national team coach Luis Aragonés publicly applied the same "negro de mierda" epithet to Arsenal striker Thierry Henry and Spanish fans bellowed monkey chants at black players in a "friendly" match between Spain and England later that year. FIFA fined the Spanish Football Federation $77,000 on that occasion. In 2006, FC Barcelona's Cameroon-born striker Samuel Eto'o walked off the field in protest after Zaragoza fans repeated the noises whenever he took to the pitch...
...Africa to see them if they know they will be going back to hotels and guest houses with no power?" asked Michael Tatalias of the tourism association. "That means no hot meals, no clean laundry, no lights." (The football stadiums, however, will not go dark. The world soccer authority FIFA has required generators be built into each venue...
...Even if FIFA's proposal is unlikely to pass muster, there's evidence that fans are behind the idea. Manish Bhasin, host of the BBC show Football Focus, says that for many English fans, a dazzling side comprised entirely of local players would be a dream come true. "To have that local connection means a lot to your average English football fan," says Bhasin. Statistics support his assessment; a recent BBC poll commissioned by Football Focus found that 56% of respondents favored quotas...