Word: fifa
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Subject to final approval by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), four of the world's top 16 soccer teams will play a round-robin tournament at the Stadium. It will be the first time the University has ever been the scene of an Olympic event...
Adios, as well, almost all traditions at this Mundial '82 Cup. In what the French are calling "le mundial des surprises," a handful of low-ranked national teams are generating shock waves and upsets. This year, for the first time, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), soccer's Swiss-based, iron-fisted ruling organization, expanded the number of qualifying first-round teams from 16 to 24. The soccer heavyweights complained. The inclusion of nations such as El Salvador, Northern Ireland and Algeria would merely prolong the first round, they muttered privately. Teams like Cameroon and Kuwait would...
...players were briefly sequestered in the Sahara-like climate of Valladolid in north-central Spain but worked out twice daily (and prayed to Allah the requisite five times daily). They broke the monotony by appearing for carefully rehearsed "photo opportunities," dancing around their camel mascot, which sports a FIFA identity card and a team jacket...
Julio Abreu, general director of the financially shaky hotel and ticket consortium Mundiespaña, blamed the general recession. Ajusting his once Olympian ambitions, he says: "We will not go bankrupt." But despite reports of severe losses to operators of travel, merchandising and ticket sales abroad, FIFA is still bragging that its eventual gross-helped along by revenue from three special Spanish lotteries-will more than cover the Spanish government's $40 million outlay...
That, after all, is what is important. Soccer is not for theorists, or for FIFA, or for military juntas seeking wistfully to appear respectable. It is not for journalists, certainly, and perhaps it is not even for wondrously skilled professional players. Soccer's lovely simplicity started with children- a ball, a patch of ground, a few kids - and that is where its center remains...