Mohammed bin Hammam

Mohammed bin Hammam

Has bin Hammam made any public comments about the Phoenix participation in the a-league following us knocking out Asia's only Middle-Eastern team?  Can't imagine him being very happy with the result.  Regardless of how the result went  it could backfire on us. 

I'd like to think that he wouldn't take out his anger on us but you never know.

This is all I've seen , but it's reaction from Oz, reworked with past comments from MBH

I don't know if that article is good news or not.

Hang on all, like I've been saying on here, now the game is over it's going to get very political.

Read this extract below, we don't like Fink much over here, but here's something for you. The AFC has an awards night in Kuala Lumpar next week.

http://www.theworldgame.com.au/blogs/halftimeorange/new-zealand-upsets-asia-on-the-field-and-off-257512

When the AFC has its annual awards night in Kuala Lumpur next Tuesday evening, there will be much private discussion about the advantages of absorbing New Zealand into the confederation, as it did Australia back in 2007, in ensuring those five places are sacrosanct and not risking the calamity of dropping down to four.

Mohamed Bin Hammam, the AFC president, has much to work to do in regards intra-regional gladhanding.

Remarkably, all four of Asia�s representatives � Australia, Korea Republic, DPR Korea and Japan � come from outside the powerful Middle Eastern or �West Asia� bloc.

With Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE all missing out, there will be some stern faces in KL and they will be demanding satisfaction.

There are many fascinating twists and turns in store for Asian football politics in the months ahead.

Does anyone else find it really frustrating that the game is run by countries with asbolutely no football culture?  This guy from Qatar, some guy from Malta is billy big balls in UEFA, Jack Warner from T&T, the whole thing is a joke, it's all corrupt, I hate even reading about these dickheads living of the fat of the fans through their backroom deals

Maybe they are that way as their national team and/or league are duds!

All jokes aside, Julio Grondola, one of the FIFA Vice President's is from Argentina, so not all FOFA reps are from non-traditional football countires.

Alsol Platini (French) is from a footballing stronghold, he is UEFA boss from memory.


diego's son2009-11-21 04:01:29

Football is Malta's national sport. I've even got a Valletta Hibs jersey!

Phoenix's own Manny Muscat has been playing for Malta recently.

Didn't I see a clip on the news the other night of Terry and Tony ove rin aussie at an A League meeting discussing license extentions?  What was the result of that?

Piney has just said he is going to have Tony P on ZB between now and 9 to talk about the outcome of the Sydney talks ...

Tony P says .. spoke with officials in Sydney this week, all very positive about Phoenix esp re what has happened with World Cup and number of Phoneix players involved in that.

Just posted in another thread before looking at this.

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10880&PID=423647#423647

FFA has been supportive for a while now - you'd hope that the (relatively) good performance of the nix in terms of crowds and profile (inc connection with AW) makes for a pretty solid case at that level, so it comes down to how long FFA are willing to give the Nix given the prevailing political environment.

All the more reason to move Oceania into an "East Asia" confederation, and split the others into "West Asia"

Then Bin Hammam can throw his tantrums about the West Asian teams not qualifying all he likes, and it will have no bearing on the Phoenix or NZ football... apart from when we beat them qualifying for Brazil :D

I think FIFA will have to consider doing something about Oceania at some stage.

And for those worried about countries like Vanuatu not having money to travel or get a team together etc, how is that any different to now? :)

Ard Righ - the problem with a confederation split of Asia is the qualifying spots.  West Asia would surely demand 2.5, with 2.5 to East Asia. 

Nobody mention Charlie Dempsey!

I think the best possible thing is still for the top 2 OFC teams go into a 12 team final round in Asia.  That way no Asian teams lose spots, it grows the game in OFC as an Island nation can compete in a good standard of football, and gives us meaningful games in the lead up to possible qualification

Ahh, I should have noted the rounds of qualifying.

I agree it wouldn't be an easy task either way, and might make it easier for the 'East Asia' teams, but the reality is that Oceania as a confederation can't continue in it's current form.

We have 1 major country and 3 very small countries as a confederation.
The reason the confederation is so poor, is because we have so few countries as members, and only one in reality that has any money to start with.

I think if Oceania was merged into AFC, there would be a very strong argument to increase the number of spots up to 6 - 3 for East and West.

Or if it had to remain on the 5 spots there are currently, it should be decided to have a play-off match with the 3rd ranked teams of each 'side', of the likes we just had here - that qualifying wouldn't be any different to the current situation.

Moving the countries into Asia would give countries like Vanuatu and Fiji more games against the lower ranked Asian sides, and I am sure they would benefit from the increased number of games, and the money they could generate from the games also.

I know people want to keep the easy street for NZ Football, and moving to Asia won't be an easy thing for NZ Football.

But as someone commented on the radio tonight, if you only set the bar at a certain level, that's the only level you will ever reach.

So if NZ Football wants to stuck in Oceania playing against Vanuatu and Fiji, that means we will never improve worth a damn to fairly compete against better Asian competition.

Australia were once oceania. They moved to asia and have qualified, New Zealand wins oceania and beats asia 5th placed country, and qualifies also!!. Whats that say! Football is alive down these parts.

darkhorse2009-11-22 07:00:51

OFC (11) has more members than CONMEBOL (10).

Dont forget about the asian champs,if we move into asia. for a start,thats even more games to compete in to qualify,island nations would be screwed. But would be really cool for us if we could afford it,and qualifying would bring some reward?

Why should both West Asia and East Asia get 2.5 spots each, when East Asia claimed all available spots for South Africa?

A fair solution would be to have some merger between AFC-OFC which results in perhaps the top-2 from the OFC Nations Cup to enter the 3rd stage of WC qualifying. 

havent read the whole thread, so this may have been said already, but my preferred system would be this;

just realised my suggestion isnt really on-topic to be fair... if it was in place it would make an ounce of difference to the argument around the phoenix' participation in the a-league

Pfft. We had 4 teams who played Oceania qualifying matches for the World Cup.

Paper memberships are worth sh*t. That's like Japan paying for land-locked countries to join the International Whaling Convention, so they can vote in support of commerical whaling.

When the rest of the Oceania 'members' field sides to try and qualify, they can have their say too.

At least the better majority of all the other confederations at least field a team for qualifying matches, something that could never be said for most 'members' of Oceania.Ard Righ2009-11-22 23:52:12

Pretty sure the smaller Island nations played an elimination tournament prior to the final OFC group stage, so I think they have tried to qualify.

No, that was just the final qualifying group. There was a round prior to the final group stage, which was when we joined the qualifying.

The South Pacific games provided the qualifying tournament.  The top 3 from that went on to play in the group stage with NZ.  The Solomons lost in the semi's and then in the 3rd vs 4th game that is why they missed out.

well it's not a fair suck of the sav
to imply that "other" countries are the problem
with FIFA corruption

Havalange was Brazilian
the guy before him seemed determined to live by the white mans inherant superiority
he was from England

the current Dear Leader is from
and how well is his "financial acumen"

bin Hammam is actually one of the very best characters in the administration of the game presently. That he may be saying something we do not want too hear should not diminish he is probably the 'least corrupt' one out there

I'd be interested in hearing examples of the corruption accusations that get thrown up on a regular basis.

Oceania has 11 members, but only 10 played in the World Cup qualifiers. Not sure why that was.

well
you could start with
"How they stole the Game"

potentially Havalnge's least favorite book

also pretty much anything by Brian Glanville in the last 20 years

even commercial decisions... look at FIFA with Visa vs Mastercard
what Bank
what TV rights
it's an interesting exercise for sure

True. Papua New Guinea entered, but withdrew without playing any games - one of six nations to do so. For the record, one nation withdrew after playing in qualifying and three nations did not enter at all.

OK
for a direct example

how about looking at Concaf under Walker
and
Asia under bin Hammam
'
this is idle speculation on my behalf, but what are the the likely long term benefits for each Federation given the dealings of the two leaders?

A direct example of what? Walker does not seem to be particularly charismatic bloke, nor Hamman from where we sit, but what are the direct examples you're citing?

I have some things SiNZ but I can't put them here.  We should chat sometime.

Have you read Jennings ?