adconline:

this is the reason why FIFA's potential  biggest customer-USA would always find it hard to like soccer, because the power of the referee is soo absolute like Sani Abacha's. I see no reason why plays at the highest level like WC would  not be reviewable. If I had not loved soccer before this match, this silly officiating killed it.

pump the breaks there tiger. there are 7 billion people in this world. 300 million are americans. i think fifa is doing quite well with 6.7 billion people.
secondly, the reason americans do not embrace soccer is because they suck at it. not because of anything else. americans like to be the best at everything. if they cannot be the best. they dont embrace it.

sending beckham to try to promote soccer in america was and always will be a lost cause. the only way socccer will take on the whole of america is if america wins a world cup. once they win, they will all embrace it and boast about how they are the best at it. until then ? soccer shall be last on their menu

good game by the americans, if only the super eagles bench warmers could have the fighting spirit of the usa team, i was expecting them to lose to the slovenian today but they were able to restore themselves by playing with passion and pride for americans, advice to alexi lalas and co on espn is just to shut the hell up by underrating a slovenia side that qualifyed for the world cup beating russia in the playoffs coached by the genius guss hiddink, american is not thier yet as they claim, drawing to england does not mean you are on top of the world, if american face any west african team be it nigeria,ghana,ivory coast,cameroon;the usa team will surely lose because they have no syndrome in beating the west africans with all their altidore,donovan and bradley because they will be worn out physically by the strength of west africans, if only the nigerian team will have the fighting spirit of the usa team, but its a pity, all usa fans, if usa face ghana in the second round, i see the usa team lose, finally,alexi lalas in a slowpoke,he irritates me,also he is a calamity playing for the usa team in the 90's, obinna nwaneri is better than him in defence.

pump the breaks there tiger. there are 7 billion people in this world. 300 million are americans. i think fifa is doing quite well with 6.7 billion people.
secondly, the reason americans do not embrace soccer is because they suck at it. not because of anything else. americans like to be the best at everything. if they cannot be the best. they dont embrace it.

In business, 300 million customers who have got discretionary income  are worth more than 1 bilion people who are looking to FIFA  to beam live matches  for free. FIFA would make more money from TV rights in the US than it would in India with over 1 billion folks. Got it?

why are we still arguing about this?? the ref seemed to have a competency issue end of story.

In business, 300 million customers who have got discretionary income are worth more than 1 bilion people who are looking to FIFA to beam live matches for free. FIFA would make more money from TV rights in the US than it would in India with over 1 billion folks. Got it?

ori e pe jare jo.

In business, 300 million customers who have got discretionary income  are worth more than 1 bilion people who are looking to FIFA  to beam live matches  for free. FIFA would make more money from TV rights in the US than it would in India with over 1 billion folks. Got it?

Spot on Some folks don't just get it sometimes. . . .

lol @ Maurice Edu  wikipedia . . .

adconline:

pump the breaks there tiger. there are 7 billion people in this world. 300 million are americans. i think fifa is doing quite well with 6.7 billion people.
secondly, the reason americans do not embrace soccer is because they suck at it. not because of anything else. americans like to be the best at everything. if they cannot be the best. they dont embrace it.

In business, 300 million customers who have got discretionary income  are worth more than 1 bilion people who are looking to FIFA  to beam live matches  for free. FIFA would make more money from TV rights in the US than it would in India with over 1 billion folks. Got it?

absolute hogwash. america will be a miniscule market even if america embraces the sport and like i said before, the only way america is embracing soccer is if they win a world cup so your argument is neither here nor there. no amount of bad or good referring will convince Americans to watch a game they suck at.

The recent report by the right-wing US-based Forbes magazine that
Ghana was the 9th “worst-managed” economy in the world is yet another
reminder of the insidious forces at work against Ghana as the scramble
for the country’s oil intensifies and big-business enlists the
services of big-media to do what they do best: Demean and conquer.

One need only connect the dots for a number of seemingly unconnected
events to see a pattern emerge of a conspiracy by foreign corporate
interests to do Ghana in over its oil. For years, the US media and
successive US governments have been among the loudest cheerleaders for
Ghana’s socio-economic accomplishments, but all that seemed to have
changed recently when the Ghanaian government dared challenge the
decision by Texas-based Kosmos to sell its shares in Ghana’s Jubilee
oil fields to fellow American company Exxon without the fiduciary
consent of the Ghanaian government, the custodian of the nation’s
natural resources. Kosmos’ intended sale was announced on October 12,
2009, a day after China’s National Offshore Oil Company’s interest in
Jubilee was made public. Thus, overnight, Ghana found itself in the
middle of the new scramble for Africa.

A June 2008 article in the Foreign Policy Magazine of the American
Council on Foreign Relations had cast this scramble as “a race between
China and the United States to secure [Africa’s] oil supplies”.
Companies like Kosmos and Exxon represent the poisonous arrowheads of
this new scramble.

As the Ghanaian government pressed its case against the sale, Kosmos
and Exxon began playing the role of victim in the US media. On
February 18, 2010, The Wall Street Journal, not coincidentally,
published an editorial titled “Why Africa is Poor - Ghana beats up on
its biggest foreign investors”. (Note the word “biggest” – not just
any foreign investor). Sadly, the gullible Ghanaian media eagerly
propagated this planted “editorial” as if it was gospel, and some
local politicians even quoted it with relish in Parliament as proof
positive of an economy in distress. (Exxon actually took a letter it
had received from the Ghanaian government to Will Connors of The Wall
Street Journal to plead for that scurrilous editorial, which of course
was written entirely from Exxon-Kosmos’ view of events).

Surely, every country has the right and duty to protect its national
interests, as the United States, for example, made abundantly clear in
2005 when it scuttled a proposed Chinese cash purchase of US oil
company Unocal. In the end, Unocal, a private company, was forced by
the US government to sell to a fellow American company for a
combination of stocks and cash which was US$1.5 billion less than what
the Chinese were willing to pay. US national interests won the day,
free markets be damned! But when a small country like Ghana seeks to
protect its national interest also, even in a less draconian fashion,
the American big business-big-media mafia promptly embarks on a
campaign of calumny and defamation to facilitate the easy
appropriation of the country’s oil by the likes of Kosmos and Exxon.
Not coincidentally (again), The Wall Street Journal’s February
editorial was followed on March 26, 2010 by a story in another
right-wing paper, The Washington Times, which got an “Africa scholar
at the New York-based National Committee on American Foreign Policy”
to say that “Ghana's recent actions toward foreign investors is ‘very
worrisome,’ echoing what several other businessmen and scholars have
said." The story continues: "He described the Kosmos case as ‘the most
egregious,’ but not the only one.” What could be more egregious than a
government forcing a private company to sell for less than what it
would have received on the open market? And now along comes Forbes,
June 9, 2010, in what appears to be a well-planned attack on mostly
foreign governments that it considers to be unfriendly to US economic
interests (Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and, on the basis of Kosmos
at least, Ghana; war-ravaged Liberia, whose reconstruction has been
helped with Ghanaian technical assistance and money, comes one spot
ahead of Ghana on Forbes’ list of infamy).

In the case of Ghana, the statistics used by Forbes were as misleading
as they were fraudulent.The claim that Ghana has a trade deficit of
US$3 billion is a case in point. As of the first quarter of 2010,
Ghana’s trade deficit, according to the Bank of Ghana, was US$487
million, which, when annualized, would be about US$2 billion for 2010
– roughly the same as the US$2.21 billion for 2009. Typically, such
deficits must be related to the size of the economy to have any policy
meaning. In the first quarter of 2008, the trade-deficit-GDP ratio was
27.8%, falling to 17.2% in the first quarter of 2009, and then to
10.9% by the first quarter of 2010. Is this what Forbes calls
mismanagement?

The magazine also claims that Ghana had an external debt of US$4.9
billion and was “struggling to pay bills”. In fact, the external debt,
according to the Bank of Ghana, was slightly higher in the first
quarter of 2010: US$5,438.77 million, or 29.7% of GDP. Most has gone
into infrastructure development, espcially electricity and roads – a
wise investment by any sensible measure. The combined public debt
(domestic and external) was US$10,506.15 million (or 57.4% of GDP),
better than the EU maximum of 60%, which many “better managed”
economies have breeched much to their distress. Nor is it true that
Ghana is struggling to pay its bills. In the first quarter of 2010,
the servicing of Ghana’s debt accounted for 0.4% of GDP, a slight
improvement over the corresponding period’s figure of 0.5% in 2009.
This was mainly due to the stabilization of the cedi and its eventual
appreciation against the US dollar, which means that government
requires less cedis to pay down its debt. This is good economic
management by any standard.

The article also claims that per capita GDP (or national economic
output divided across the population) “fell 9% last year to $621.” But
short-term dollar-denominated GDP as reported by Forbes reflects more
of the variations in exchange rates than actual changes in domestic
output or living conditions.

A halving of the cedi-dollar exchange rate by administrative fiat, for
example, would double Ghana’s GDP on paper overnight without a
corresponding increase in output or welfare; a doubling would have the
opposite effect of reducing GDP statistically, but not in fact.

And this is in fact what has happened. In 2007, the cedi depreciated
by only 2.1% against the US dollar; in 2008, as government spending
increased in part to deal with the global financial meltdown that
began in the US, the rate of depreciation shot up to 12.2%, and then
to 25.2% in 2009, leading to a fall in dollar-based GDP in both years,
although cedi-denominated GDP grew by 7.3% and 4.7% in each respective
year. With a population growth of 2.0% and economic growth rate of
4.7% in 2009, real per capita GDP (that is, the actual goods and
services available on average to each Ghanaian) increased by nearly
3.0%, contrary to Forbes’ dubious doomsday statistical decline of
9.0%.

And so as more oil is discovered, and the protection of the national
interest becomes a moral imperative, we can expect more of such
mercenary journalism from the likes of Forbes and The Wall Street
Journal. Ghanaian journalists have a professional and moral duty to
expose them at every opportunity.

By Nii Moi Thompson

niimoi@yahoo.com

Source Joy FM Ghana

Like someone said, Better luck next time

absolute hogwash. america will be a miniscule market even if america embraces the sport and like If it seems you are talking from your mind not your brain. Could you tell me why EU that got less population than Africa has 13 teams? Are u saying that AMerican market is miniscule when compared with  India?  FIFA prefers folks with disposable income than 1 billion folks half of them do not have electricity and TV

buzugee:

and yyou should not be allowed to procreate. you loquaciuos cretin

You are retarded!

I should use your sister to procreate and you should be grateful for it too.

tkb417:

and what shd happen to the one that allowed the goal against Nigeria

How is his sin greater than the other mistakes by other refs in this competition?

all have sinned.   .   .   .   . not only him
spare the dude abeg

At least the Nig one can claim he did not see.

What did this Uglifucktard see to disallow the goal? Ghosts?

Oh, thank God for this tie although I wish Slovenia defeated USA

But, I'm happy for the fact that I would actually watch the television today without hearing News reporters blab and brag on how mighty the U.S. football team is.

Just hoping that Algeria beats the U.S.A on wednesday.

And the whinning and crying over the disallowed goal, who cares. . .It's probably karma for the Robert Green mistake and the humuliation they put him through.

Travelista:

I thought I was the only one that was tired of the commentators on ESPN. Those guys are woefully offensive and can't help but to display their hateful ignorance. Even as an American, I've never been able to root for the US team; I don't support failure, so I commend you on at least giving them a chance. Goodness knows that if the US advances, we'll never hear the end of it; you know how we do things.

Well, one of them is Efan Ekoku, a fellow Nigerian of igbo descent like you. He played for Nigeria in US 94.

mama-gee:

Oh, thank God for this tie although I wish Slovenia defeated USA

But, I'm happy for the fact that I would actually watch the television today without hearing News reporters blab and brag on how mighty the U.S. football team is.

Just hoping that Algeria beats the U.S.A on wednesday.

And the whinning and crying over the disallowed goal, who cares. . .It's probably karma for the Robert Green mistake and the humuliation they put him through.

Hater.
Get your a$$ back to Naija. Why should Americans not whine when they believe that foolish referee denied them a valid goal without any justification? As a matter of fact, why should anyone who believes in fairness not whine about a foolish call?

Right is right, and wrong is wrong. If the goal was valid, why is not wrong when that foolish referee disallowed it. As a matter of fact, a  bunch U.S. players were the ones  being fouled while the goal was scored. That foolish Malian referee.
You complain they treat African teams bad, but you support referees who treat other teams unfairly.

The foolish referee has not given any reason as to why he disallowed the goal. Typical Nigerian, you don't use your brain to think of the repercussions of this referees call on other African referees. We already have it bad, so why not call that referee out when one of our own does something wrong?

adconline:

pump the breaks there tiger. there are 7 billion people in this world. 300 million are americans. i think fifa is doing quite well with 6.7 billion people.
secondly, the reason americans do not embrace soccer is because they suck at it. not because of anything else. americans like to be the best at everything. if they cannot be the best. they dont embrace it.

In business, 300 million customers who have got discretionary income  are worth more than 1 bilion people who are looking to FIFA  to beam live matches  for free. FIFA would make more money from TV rights in the US than it would in India with over 1 billion folks. Got it?
[/quote

thank God there are still Naija folks who think before they write

@ travelista,

You're complaining about the US analysts and commentators trumping up their team like no other matters. . . . bet you've not heard the English or better yet our own hopeless naija talk about their own!
Here in naija, if we win a game, xpecially a big 1 - it gets rerun on tv with the same regularity as the national network news

The US is a very decent, promising side with bountiful potentials and their recent performances are very well worth crooning about. . . . & who is to say they are not good enough to feature in the semis of this WC edition I'm certainly not ruling 'em out thats for sure!

In almost every WC I have watched, the US seem to mostly be on the wrong end of the officials stick. . . . vividly remember a US-Germany game where a german defender actually stopped an absolute unarguable goal-bound ball on the line with his hand like a goalie would
Amazing. . . . even without the benefit of video replays it was as glaring as Roy Carroll's blunder against Spurs in OT in the EPL some seasons back and all the officials didn't see or refused to see it!

Must be like an average of 5000 yanks in every US game thus far. . . . wonder why the general perception that the US public don't really give a hoot about the WC!?

RuuDie:

@ travelista,

You're complaining about the US analysts and commentators trumping up their team like no other matters. . . . bet you've not heard the English or better yet our own hopeless naija talk about their own!
Here in naija, if we win a game, xpecially a big 1 - it gets rerun on tv with the same regularity as the national network news

The US is a very decent, promising side with bountiful potentials and their recent performances are very well worth crooning about. . . . & who is to say they are not good enough to feature in the semis of this WC edition I'm certainly not ruling 'em out thats for sure!

The USA match had an American commentator who was so biased he was disagreeing with his co-commentator because he complained about every other call against the US but won't acknowledge the occasion the USA gained from Altidore's dive which the other guy noted. Fast forward to the England game which had British commentators, they sounded much more professional and refrained from those petty bickering about free-kick calls.

khai_khai:

The USA match had an American commentator who was so biased he was disagreeing with his co-commentator because he complained about every other call against the US but won't acknowledge the occasion the USA gained from Altidore's dive which the other guy noted. Fast forward to the England game which had British commentators, they sounded much more professional and refrained from those petty bickering about free-kick calls.

very few fans and sports journalists/analysts are objective when their own teams are involved in a game, u act as though the yanks are the worst at it - have u ever seen peterside idah on supersport

ha ha ha ha ha, where are the people who get mad that there are not enough african refrees in the world cup? this ref was terrible! see wetin affirmative action (yanki's version of federal character) dey cause. this is what happens when you put people who are not competent enough just because of there ethnicities.

Get help

Slobbing on their knobs isnt gonna get you a blue pali.

Typical house niggers screaming over supposed mistake against America as opposed to the one against CIV.

RuuDie:

Must be like an average of 5000 yanks in every US game thus far. . . . wonder why the general perception that the US public don't really give a hoot about the WC!?

I know, people are either ignorant about soccer in America or want to slight our position in the game just from pure hatred. Let me remind them of a few things:

1.the most successful World Cup ever was held in the United States in '94
2. More than 17 million people watched the England USA  match on TV. These numbers will probably increase if the US make it to the round of 16
3.FIFA received more than 40,000 application requests for wc tickets out of the US. that's twice as much as any other country.
4. There are more licensed soccer players in the US than any other country in the word.

finally I'd like to say. GO USA. BEAT ALGERIA. WIN THE GROUP.[size=8pt][/size]

Vquest:

I know, people are either ignorant about soccer in America or want to slight our position in the game just from pure hatred. Let me remind them of a few things:

1.the most successful World Cup ever was held in the United States in '94
2. More than 17 million people watched the England USA  match on TV. These numbers will probably increase if the US make it to the round of 16
3.FIFA received more than 40,000 application requests for wc tickets out of the US. that's twice as much as any other country.
4. There are more licensed soccer players in the US than any other country in the word.

finally I'd like to say. GO USA. BEAT ALGERIA. WIN THE GROUP.[size=8pt][/size]

As Shania Twain said: "That don't impress me much".

17m out of a population of 300m for a huge game is not impressive.

That does not even cover for the adult Latinos and non-white immigrants that are into football.

40,000 application from a nation of 300m and some of the richest on average is not impressive. How many would order for tickets if LA Lakers vs Boston Celtics are playing each other in Kazakhstan? I suspect it would be close to 100k.

What are licensed soccer players? I can only assume those I played football with under Gbagada bridge would not be bothered to be licensed, that does not mean they are not keen on football.

Sagamite:

As Shania Twain said: "That don't impress me much".

17m out of a population of 300m for a huge game is not impressive.

That does not even cover for the adult Latinos and non-white immigrants that are into football.

40,000 application from a nation of 300m and some of the richest on average is not impressive. How many would order for tickets if LA Lakers vs Boston Celtics are playing each other in Kazakhstan? I suspect it would be close to 100k.

What are licensed soccer players? I can only assume those I played football with under Gbagada bridge would not be bothered to be licensed, that does not mean they are not keem on football.

that 300 million # should be relevant to only a few hundred people, once every 10 years, and that is those dopey censors who give us an estimate of how many souls are in the country. But if you like numbers, I'll couch my argument in some of these.
The 17 million taken by itself, makes no sense. You have to contrast it against numbers of the well established sports in the country.
1) The NBA finals that just ended, averaged 18.2 million people per game--the games were at night (viewer rich time) vs The England USA match (17 million) played during the day
2)The Baseball final games averaged 19 million people per game--again the so called national past time did not really crush the soccer viewing there.

I laugh at people who have a snapshot of America and think they know what this country is all about. This is a country that is very fractured, there's no consensus basically anywhere. And that also extends to sports.

As for the licensed players, there are a lot semi pro leagues. And the license is a legal document that protects both the player and whoever is funding the league.

As for the ticket thing, are you kidding me?
FIFA had already allocated 10 thousand tickets for USA and that's it. You have to be a die hard and also well off, to be betting that you would be the one chosen, and only with a couple of months notice? and fly all the way to S AFrica.?

Vquest:


that 300 million # should be relevant to only a few hundred people, once every 10 years, and that is those dopey censors who give us an estimate of how many souls are in the country. But if you like numbers, I'll couch my argument in some of these.
The 17 million taken by itself, makes no sense. You have to contrast it against numbers of the well established sports in the country.
1) The NBA finals that just ended, averaged 18.2 million people per game--the games were at night (viewer rich time) vs The England USA match (17 million) played during the day
2)The Baseball final games averaged 19 million people per game--again the so called national past time did not really crush the soccer viewing there.

I laugh at people who have a snapshot of America and think they know what this country is all about. This is a country that is very fractured, there's no consensus basically anywhere. And that also extends to sports.

As for the licensed players, there are a lot semi pro leagues. And the license is a legal document that protects both the player and whoever is funding the league.

As for the ticket thing, are you kidding me?
FIFA had already allocated 10 thousand tickets for USA and that's it. You have to be a die hard and also well off, to be betting that you would be the one chosen, and only with a couple of months notice? and fly all the way to S AFrica.?

Solid and impressive arguments.

As Sagamite rarely says: "That has impress me much"

I have been educated.

Vquest:


that 300 million # should be relevant to only a few hundred people, once every 10 years, and that is those dopey censors who give us an estimate of how many souls are in the country. But if you like numbers, I'll couch my argument in some of these.
The 17 million taken by itself, makes no sense. You have to contrast it against numbers of the well established sports in the country.
1) The NBA finals that just ended, averaged 18.2 million people per game--the games were at night (viewer rich time) vs The England USA match (17 million) played during the day
2)The Baseball final games averaged 19 million people per game--again the so called national past time did not really crush the soccer viewing there.

I laugh at people who have a snapshot of America and think they know what this country is all about. This is a country that is very fractured, there's no consensus basically anywhere. And that also extends to sports.

As for the licensed players, there are a lot semi pro leagues. And the license is a legal document that protects both the player and whoever is funding the league.

As for the ticket thing, are you kidding me?
FIFA had already allocated 10 thousand tickets for USA and that's it. You have to be a die hard and also well off, to be betting that you would be the one chosen, and only with a couple of months notice? and fly all the way to S AFrica.?

thanks, man. I'm just glad the argument didn't devolve into name calling.
Just to emphasize how fractured the scene is when it comes sports viewing:
There are some states here in America(Alabama, Nebraska, ect.) where it's all
about university football (american football). Where 30,000+ fans would
travel to another state to watch their beloved teams. (you should see them forming
this long trail on the highway in their trailers, vans, pickup trucks.scary)
You never see that kind of fanaticism for professional sports.

Sagamite:

Solid and impressive arguments.

As Sagamite rarely says: "That has impress me much"

Hahahahahaa. lOL. Sagamite Twain: "That has imppress me much" ?!?!?!LOL. hahahah. Beast! Wut happened to the "ed" thats supposed to be behind the word? lol. Intelligent indeed! Thats 4-0 for u, u none english speaking monkey!

tedbundy:

Hahahahahaa. lOL. Sagamite Twain: "That has imppress me much" ?!?!?!LOL. hahahah. Beast! Wut happened to the "ed" thats supposed to be behind the word? lol. Intelligent indeed! Thats 4-0 for u, u none english speaking monkey!

Cretin, it is spelt "impress" and "that's".

Sagamite:

Cretin, it is spelt "impress" and "that's".

Bumbling slowpoke, as usual, the sarcasm flew ova your head! You run from thread to thread insulting people, professing intellingence when in reality u r nothing but a dimwitted nincompoop! You've met your match! Is there some kinda pain in your life that ure hiding behind and tryin' to shed? Is it becus u found out that having a Daddy and Daddy is not only abnormal and illegal, but also immoral; that normal kids have a daddy and mummy?!? Is it becuz u've grown to realize that the "suck-on-this" games that Daddy Larry has been having u play since u were 3 years old is wrong? Or that the "lick-and-kiss-me-goodnite" that Daddy Mike has been having u do since age 6 is reprehensible? There's clearly a lotta pain in your life. My advise; since u are clearly worthless to the human nation, I say that u save up some money, take a trip to the Zambezi when its high season and jump (head first) into its crocodile infested waters. Trust me, the death will be quick and painful. And if its not, it aint like u dont deserve it seeing how much grief u've caused the world with your miserable existence!

tedbundy:

Bumbling slowpoke, as usual, the sarcasm flew ova your head! You run from thread to thread insulting people, professing intellingence when in reality u r nothing but a dimwitted nincompoop! You've met your match! Is there some kinda pain in your life that ure hiding behind and tryin' to shed? Is it becus u found out that having a Daddy and Daddy is not only abnormal and illegal, but also immoral; that normal kids have a daddy and mummy?!? Is it becuz u've grown to realize that the "suck-on-this" games that Daddy Larry has been having u play since u were 3 years old is wrong? Or that the "lick-and-kiss-me-goodnite" that Daddy Mike has been having u do since age 6 is reprehensible? There's clearly a lotta pain in your life. My advise; since u are clearly worthless to the human nation, I say that u save up some money, take a trip to the Zambezi when its high season and jump (head first) into its crocodile infested waters. Trust me, the death will be quick and painful. And if its not, it aint like u dont deserve it seeing how much grief u've caused the world with your miserable existence!

Paedophile, it is over, not ova. Don't, not dont.

Now go have your mama up the arse, it is an example of the disgusting thing Ted Bundy would do.