₦airaland Forum

The race to succeed Sepp Blatter as president of Fifa is picking up steam, with Nigeria legend Segun Odegbami announcing his decision to throw his hat into the ring.

Odegbami, also known as ‘Mathematical Odegbami’ – a label he was given because of his masterful exhibition of engineered dribbles, technical control of the ball and goal-scoring skills during his footballing era, believes that FIFA need to purge itself, launder its image, restore its reputation and reinstate integrity into its activities and operations and that this would require a new form of leadership with a renewed vision.

“The current scandal at FIFA is the organisation’s worst crisis in its 111 years of existence. Moving forward, FIFA thus require a new era of leadership that can restore the dignity of the noble sport and that of this esteemed international institution with global followership,” he said in a press release.

"Times like this call for all concerned members of the global football family to contribute to the actualization of renewed objectives for FIFA by electing a deserving and qualified person, with the right character that can achieve the desired goals and restore confidence and integrity to the organization and its activities. The world is very interested in who becomes the next President of FIFA, considering the present image and state of this institution and I see myself fitting into this role”

Regarded as one of the greatest Nigerian footballers of all time, he is recognised by many to have the clout both on and off the field to command the top job in football.

He joins the already crowded race with the likes of former Abia State governor Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, UEFA prseident Mitchel Platini, Brazil legend Zico, Liberian FA chief Musa Bility and Diego Maradona all declaring their interest in the FIFA top job.

http://isoccerng.com/news/2015/09/odegbami-joins-race-for-fifa-presidency

DEXTROVERT:
Moses, Mikel...Chelsea...bench
Iheanacho,...Man city....bench

Awoniyi..Liverpool..i pray u are not signed to complete bench... receive grace to feature regularly on first team

He has been loaned to a German club which features in the 2nd division,FSV Frankfurt.Didn't you read that?

Those who are most disappointed by the President's recent appointments are those who waited eagerly for him to make either former Governor Chibuike Amaechi or Fashola the SGF or Chief of Staff.
They would have gone to town with loud tales of how the President who claims to be fighting corruption appointed men whose financial management of their states are facing intense scrutiny into such sensitive positions.
Oohhh!!! The noise would have been enough to rouse the dead.
They would have claimed that the President could not afford not to reward Amaechi for 'using Rivers State funds' to bankroll his election.
Hahahahaha!!! Unfortunately, the wily General pulled a mickey on everybody.
I believe that man is far smarter than we give him credit for.

DaGC:
People should quit the hypocrisy about 'destiny'

As if the same PMB didn't overthrow someone's administration too, an elected one for that matter.


We should all try to be objective abeg, irrespective of party affiliation.

Is today December 31st December 2015?

On this day,exactly thirty(30) years ago on August 27th 1985,IBB unseated PMB in a palace coup while Idiagbon,the second(2nd) in command was away on a trip to Saudi Arabia.Many believe that if he(Idiagbon) was in the country,the putsch would have been an impossibility.

akinniyiakinsola@yahoo.co.uk

ijustdey:
this emboldened part make my day....

I hope the wailers won't come out of their shell and say this is an APC newspaper

New Telegraph is owned by Orji Uzor Kalu

A corrupt FIFA deserves nobody else to preside over its affairs other than a corrupt individual.

FIFA is a corrupt body.Is it not logical for a corrupt person to seek its highest office to further perpetrate corruption.

The Osun-Osogbo festival was first celebrated in 1370.Long before the white and no so white men came with their parachute religion.

“A woman’s breasts are naturally designed to jiggle, bounce, and sway as she moves. Bras inhibit the natural movement of the breasts, which interferes with the way Mother Nature designed breasts for optimal health.”

joseph1832:
I mean I don't need to read any more, he rejected a cow and a Rolls Royce!!! Men! If it was Ayo Oritsejafor, Oyedepo, Oyakhilomen, Okotie or T.B Joshua would they do the same? All they'll do is collect tithe and sowing seed money and further enrich their self while their flock wallow in poverty and penury.

Truly, by their fruits, ye shall know them!!!.

His anti-opulence stances dates back to a very long time.In 1992,as a young pastor(he was just 3 years in ministry then) he rejected a gift of a Mercedes benz brand car commonly known as Beast.The basis for Bakare's rejection of the car was that he asked the donor what he does a living and he could not give a reasonable answer.

jiorhemen:
General Olusegun Obasanjo and his first wife, Mrs Remi Obasanjo on their wedding day in 1963. From left to right: Brig General Alabi-Isama, the bride's mother, the groom, and the bride

You have made a fallacious post!

Excerpts from BITTER-SWEET:MY LIFE WITH OBASANJO BY REMI OBASANJO:

We got married on June 22,1963, five days after my 21st birthday at Camberwell Green Registry,SE London.Two persons witnessed my wedding:my late brother,Akintunde Akinlawon, and Mr Adebayo.....

There is no consensus on how we got to this 4.5 billion-year-old piece of real estate called the earth. The best estimate says that modern man showed up some 200,000 years ago. The only consensus is that the first series of questions that crossed the mind of the first group of men and women who saw themselves on earth were: who am I? Where am I? How did I get here? Who made me? Where am I going from here? These questions are the original questions.

The search for answers to these original questions started from the very point they were first asked. They have continued until this day. Every now and then, century after century, we come up with new answers different from the ones before. These answers are tweaked and tweaked, promoted and advertized, until they become a force of nature called religion.

To understand how helpless we are in the face of this force, imagine a baby brought home from the hospital by its parents. When the baby opens its eyes, it sees the parents. The parents feed and care for the baby. In no time the baby looks up to the parents, especially the mother. The baby holds the parents in awe for all they do for it including, putting a roof over its head. To babies parents are gods. The words of the parents are the religion of childhood.

With time the baby begins to see the world outside of its parents’ house. It begins to see other houses and other parents and begins to question its original thoughts about its parents. Even when the child finds out that its parents are not all that it made them to be, out of habit and out of fear that there are no replacement parents out there that will accept it as a natural born, the child sticks to its parents. That is why most children of unfit parents, jailed parents and absentia parents find it hard to denounce their parents.

All cultures throughout history have come up with their answers to those original questions. It doesn’t matter how primitive a culture is. They come up with a story and over time the story develops. Expanding on the story, each culture tries to provide a guide on how to live this life in accordance with their story. The guide takes care of questions around life and death amongst other things. That is when the story becomes a religion.

And each religion sticks with its story, even when events raise questions about the credibility of the story or outright prove the story wrong. Most practitioners of every religion would rather follow it until they died. They rather find out the truth when they die than abandon the religion of their birth. And die they do, the believers and their religion alike.

The history of the world over centuries is littered with dead religions, dead gods and dead worshipers. In some ways, we are all children of a retired god. Key events in the world always retire religions and their gods. Traumatic world events always prove the old religions inadequate. The coming of the Europeans, for instance, essentially laid to eternal rest a lot of the African gods. Other events and movements like the Enlightenment reform religion. Reformation extends the life of a religion. An irreformable religion is one that is bound to implode.

The tragedy of Africa is that it reached the information age without first passing through the industrial age. In matters temporal, Africa got to the modern age without passing through the Enlightenment. That is why some people believe that a child was born holding a mini-Koran in its hand, or that a child came out of the womb holding a cross in its hand. Why mini-Koran? Why a cross? Why something we already know? Why does this kind of phenomenon only happen in societies that wallow in superstition? If it is a message from God, as some believe, why won’t God use the opportunity to send a definitive manual of life?

The Enlightenment instituted the culture of demanding empirical proof before believing. If a woman comes into the church and gives birth to a dead horse, you don’t clean up the floor and bury the horse. You send the horse to the lab and the woman to the hospital- mental and/or medical.

Every religion that comes begets a new one. Two hundred years from now the people that will occupy this world will look at our era and our religions that we fight for and die for and call our age the Extreme Dark Ages. In another two hundred thousand years, nobody will remember what god we fought for, killed for, or died for. Just like we have no idea what god the people who were on this earth 100,000 years ago fought for, killed for or died for.

It is hard to imagine it now, but after the Third World War and after a nuclear war, a new world will emerge with new religions. The old religions left standing will go through reformation. And subtly and gradually, new religions will replace the old. Because it takes hundreds of years for this kind of transformation to be visible, it is hard for those living in that age to notice the change as it happens. We won’t wake up one day and notice that our religion is dead.

It is hard to live without the concept of God because it is hard to live without an answer to the original questions, even if it is not definitive. That is why many will stick with their religion as if it is their parents. Virtually all religions place God beyond reach- at times above the sky. Do you know why? If God is within reach, God will suffer the fate of all parents – be critiqued and be seen to have fallen short.

The trouble with religion is that for every religion to survive and gain members and fend off competitions, it has to proclaim itself to be better than the others. That my religion is better than yours is like saying that my moon is better than yours. That my God is better than yours is to say that my sun is better than yours.

To be willing to fight for your God- which is to say, kill and die for your God, is like to climb on top of each other to pull the moon until it stands still on your side of the sky. It may sound stupid but it has been done before and continues to be done.

Those who worshipped the Greek gods used to believe that they had the final answer. Those who worshipped Oduduwa used to think that their story of the creation was the ultimate. The highest level of human stupidity is the belief that our religion is the final answer to these original questions- who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Who made me? The arrogance of that assumption has no equal in human folly.

Religions come and go but the earth remains the same. Until we know the definitive truth about the very beginning; and until we answer the original questions without a doubt, religion will remain attractive. But religion will continue to promise us that we find the answers only when we die. Science is the only one trying to find answers to these questions while we are still alive. And science is the only one trying to get to the very beginning and empirically show it to us for the very first time. It may take science one million years to get there.

1.The Cabals, The Clueless and The Oil Thieves.

2.My ties with lies on transformation agenda .

3. We came, we saw and we lied and stole our way out of office!

4.I was the VOICE, but had to present an INVOICE... my conscience was bought!

5.How leaving my brains in Lagos affected my works in GEJ regime.

6."Managing The Curse Of The Children Of Anger: From An Ever Ringing Phone To A Non Ringing One."

7.

LAMENTATIONS OF A FRIEND OF MINE:

As a banker, I sincerely never look forward to resuming next day after close of business everyday. The environment is tense,vindictive, scapegoat-ish, etc.That's how condescending the banking environments are now.We hardly sleep. Am afraid, a huge implosion is on its way if the industry is not strictly regulated as regards treatment of the workforce.Bulk of bank workers nowadays are zombies,you dare not use your initiative and things go bad, and you dare not limit your focus on processes and procedures and customer complain...you will either way pay! In fact, this work is already testing my sanity. I have to leave it before my head explode.

These days, I am always saddened when I go into any banking hall in Nigeria. The environment is often depressing. Maybe it’s that desperate look on the faces of the staff, that tells you they’ve been barraged and insulted this morning, threatened that their jobs could disappear at any moment. The culture has always been that the board asks the MD to perform the impossible, all they are interested in is the huge profits. The MD equally unleashes terror on his EDs and GMs. It’s like nuclear energy. You know, the atomic bomb. It starts small, but by the time it rolls down the rank and file, it picks up velocity, meanness and wickedness. This culture is what drives many a ‘bank worker’ to hate the system so much, they too start thinking of defrauding the banks. By the time the hateful energy reaches the guy on the shop floor, he just can’t take it anymore. It also drives them to make mistakes in their duties, apart from taking their dignity away.

The marketing guys bear the brunt. These days, many banks have employed marketers based strictly on commission. Some earn just N30,000 (less than $200) a month, if they don’t manage to open new accounts. Marketing cars? Where you see am? I see them sometimes trekking long distances after leaving my office. It’s depressing. Banking is far from what it used to be. In my first exposure to being a relationship officer, in 1997, I was allocated about 14 accounts, and told to grow the business on them. I was given a bit of pressure to open new good relationships. But today, the management of banks no longer care about relationships. They give instructions to their staff to go open 10,000 accounts each. Let me give them a feedback right here right now; it is damaging to your business, to the psychology of your staff, to how we the customers view you, and to the banking profession at large. It just does not make sense. How on earth is anyone going to manage 10,000 accounts? Not even 1,000. Not even 100.

What happened to banking? Most of the problem came from the executives, past and present. Nigerian banks are commercial banks. But they want to roll like the investment banks of Canary Wharf or Wall Street. Only better. They want to earn – at the top levels – better than those guys. They can even do personal deals that the Wall Street bankers would get jailed for. They live large, become high rollers. Some get courted by the government, given awards and appointed into all sorts of committees. This creates antagonism between the banks and the customers. The regulator steps in, determines the excesses of the banks, and rolls out the sanctions.

Unfortunately, it is the rank and file who suffers. The first to get wasted are those junior people. They are the first whose careers are stalled. In the days when the current executives were climbing the ladder, they knew they had a career. But today, careers are finished. What you get when you walk into a banking hall, apart from empty cubicles where they had planned to have human beings dispensing cash until e-Banking came along, are those sad eyes that I hate to look into. It’s not as if it’s easy for those of us outside, but it depresses one to see those faces, and oftentimes, to be told by them in hushed tones just how desperate things are, as they slip their CVs into your palms or obtain your email for the same purpose.

And then we all form the mob and rain down on the banks. Every customer is sure that they are overcharging his/her account even if there is no evidence. No one wants N1.00 to be taken as charges for anything. Some banks used to pay you for withdrawing money from your account. When I see the fees they take for sundry services, I wonder how they survive. For me, the issue is not generator and diesel. As standard businesses, with loads of staff to pay, you have to generate some good income. Nigerians say the banks should face their core business of lending. But we forget that even we Nigerians are very bad debtors. See what we had to move to AMCON, bailouts for many of our big men, many of whom hold national awards! The nation as a whole had to pay. For normal customers, 70% - 80% of the loans go bad. You give a loan and the man thinks it is just cash flow by any means. He decides to re-bury his grandmother who died 25 years ago! He pays tithes of 10% to his church because his pastor told him “you have to pay on every cash flow so that ‘Gaaad’ blesses the rest!!”

But I urge that we have a rethink about the way we have been raining down on our banks. They are shrinking. Their businesses are shrinking. Even their staff are shrinking in size. No, it’s not the gym. It’s the stress and bad cash flow. It’s the sanctions they receive from their bosses who are mostly at their wit’s end. It’s the psychological trauma of being cursed at every meeting for not meeting ‘targets’. It’s the trauma of being employed as an internal control officer, an internal auditor, only to be asked to go and meet your family and raise N200million in new accounts. It’s the apparent failure of the current banking business model. The problem is; can we imagine how the ideal situation will look like? Certainly, the executives have to reduce their expectations. They probably have to earn less because the cash flows will not sustain the expectations of the past. But those at the lower echelon need protection from the regulators and the rest of us. They need a proper return to the days when they could be happy that they have careers. The exuberance of the Soludo days – when branches were opened everywhere at huge costs – are since over. The illusions have disappeared. The industry has shaken out. Many have been laid off. But we should not stand aside as the industry shrinks to death. Indeed we should not bring out our own machetes and inflict more blows as part of the lynchmob.

I hope the banks find their mojos back. A lot of them are just marking time. The days of innocence are gone. Even we the people will not be happy with the picture when it all comes tumbling down. It’s also about the disappearance of the middle class. The only ‘safe’ industry in Nigeria is oil and gas. Telecoms has shaken out too; is still shaking out. Let’s have some mercy for our banks and bankers please. Believe it or not, they need it.

BY:TOPE FASUA

Truth is in this present age, a large majority of Nigerians believe that somehow auto accidents are caused by blood sucking demon. This reminds me of an encounter I had with a friend in the past, when I told him "I fear travelling by road in Nigeria because of the high rate accidents" and he then replied "IT IS NOT OUR PORTION"
I was like “can you explain? He says “don't you know that there are bloodsucking demons on Nigerian highways” hmmmmm, I then asked him “ok, so what do I do to avoid the blood sucking demons? He says “soak yourself in the blood of Jesus before travelling, sprinkle the blood of Jesus on the car, the tires, the driver etc” I was not surprised that a graduate was telling me this, rather I was flummoxed at how much he believed the idea of some blood hungry demons waiting on the express to spiritually waylay vehicles, puncture their tires in order to drink the blood of the occupants. I looked at him and asked why the demons have not succeeded to somersault his own vehicle, he simply says “IT IS NOT OUR PORTION” This is where my confusion sets in, is there anyone who will wake in the morning and then declare "TODAY, ACCIDENT IS MY PORTION"?? Why do people believe this “It is not my potion” rubbish? If it is not your portion, then whose portion is it?
Accidents don’t just happen, they are caused! And not by blood sucking demons.
The only blood sucking demons on the Nigerian highways that I know of are those devilish potholes, the arbitrary police check/extortion points, the drunken or fatigued driver, the guy who does 240km/hr, these are the bloodsucking demon in Nigeria not some evil esoteric forces!
Besides, I think the blood of Jesus is meant for redemption, sanctification and salvation, not to be sprinkled on tires.

Movie Casting Call

Are you a university graduate? Have you been seeking employment, but remain unemployed? Are you a graduate that is underemployed meaning you are employed but working a job that is at a level far less than the education you have?

Would you like to share your story and experiences for a documentary film regarding this issue?

If so, please contact DOSCampaign@gmail.com or 08074041628 for more information.

Casting will take place on:

Dates: Tuesday, July 28th, 2015

Time: 10:00a.m-4:00p.m.

Location: No. 5 Agbaoku, off Opebi, Ikeja, Lagos

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF PMBs USIP CONVERSATION...
____________________________

"Naturally constituencies that gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated ON SOME ISSUES with constituencies that gave me 5%"
____________________________

"While certainly there will be justice for everybody, everybody will get his constitutional rights"
____________________________

"But where THE PARTY in constituencies, by their share hard work, made sure that they got their people to vote and to ensure that their vote counts, they must feel that the Government has appreciated the effort they put in putting the Government in place"
____________________________

"I think that is really fair... ...By the constitution, no State can be excluded from Government"
____________________________

"Even if I want to show gratitude to those constituencies that heavily voted for me against those that didn't even vote for me, they have the protection of the Government"
____________________________

HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART
____________________________

"I have made an undertaking that I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody..If I come clearly and marginalise a certain group because they didn't vote for me, then I have already contradicted myself"
____________________________

...................IN A NUTSHELL.............

1) 97% will be treated ON SOME ISSUES as opposed to 5%

2) Constituencies where THE PARTY evidently worked very hard will be shown appreciation

3) Will NOT marginalise ANY GROUP for not voting for him
____________________________

~Jack Obinyan-Buhari 24/07/2015

989900:
What did Remi expect from a 'Labo'?

Cunnilingus?

Just at the foot of the Third Mainland Bridge, at the junction of Adeniji Adele Road, is a brick wall that separates the settlement there from the road. The wall, which is in a complete state of dilapidation, is about to collapse.

As it is now, the concerned authority to halt the collapse is pretending not to have noticed the disaster in waiting. One day very soon, the wall will give way, and maybe some innocent souls will lose their lives. It is only then that television; radio stations and newspaper houses will rush there to carry the news. Now that whatever/something is holding the wall back from falling, government officials whose responsibility it is to do something to prevent the disaster pretend not to have noticed it.

PMB: Rotimi, write qeury for Godwin, let him explain why he brought Jim Ovia to crash my event.

AMAECHI: Yes sir.

EMEFIELE: Sir, ehm let me explain sir. Oga Jim didn't tell me he was coming sir, he came of his own ACCORD sir.

PMB: whether it is "accord" or "prelude" you will know when we reach Abuja.

BIGERBOY1:
Did anybody here see where Obama (mistakenly) referred to Nigeria bringing peace and stability to the eastern part of Africa? Instead of Western Africa.

The point is we are all humans and are fallible. So those that in the name of opposition discuss people instead of issues should seize and desist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdXDJrzLgP4

From 6.05 to 6.20

Cc: lalasticlala

Cease and not seize.Another proof of man's imperfection.The best men are still men at their very best.

Football (soccer) over the years has become the most popular sport in the world. It is played in over 200 countries and no other sport has managed to achieve such a fan following. In the early part of the 20th century, there were more international competitions, and with them, more need to oversee, organize, and promote. As a result, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association or International Federation of Association Football) was formed in 1904.

FIFA says that its mission is to develop and improve the game of football everywhere and for all. FIFA is a non-profit organization that invests most of its earnings back in the development of the game. The earnings come from organizing and marketing major international competitions, with the most popular being the World Cup, which happens every four years. Other competitions like the continental championships and the FIFA Confederations Cup are also quite popular. We look at the simple and effective business plan that has helped FIFA become a successful corporate leader.

Economies of the World Cup

The football World Cup is a huge event in terms of the numbers it achieves for everyone involved. Of course, FIFA is the sole body charged with organizing the event and has access to all the revenues, but everyone is happy as long as they get a cut from the billion dollar revenues the event generates. (For more, see: World Cup By The Numbers.) The World Cup host country is decided upon by a bidding process, and it is a fierce competition.

Organizing such a huge and popular event requires a lot of investment, especially in building and enhancing world-class infrastructure. Thus, the country wins the bid attracts a lot of interest from investors, which can help to boost the economy. (For more read: Blowing Their Own Horn: Will The World Cup Lure Investment Capital To South Africa?) With so many countries vying to host the World Cup, FIFA naturally gets a big bargaining chip and gets away with dictating most of the terms. FIFA does not invest in any infrastructure created for the Cup; the onus for that lies solely on the host nation. However, FIFA gains a lot by selling television rights, marketing rights, and licensing rights, as well as revenue form ticket sales. And FIFA’s costs are minimal. FIFA pays the local organizing committee for organizing and conducting the World Cup. It also pays prize money to the participating nations, accounts for the travel and accommodation of players, and supports staff and match officials. In addition, it makes available for the host country a FIFA World Cup legacy fund to be used in the future for development of the game in the country.

Apart from the cost related to FIFA events, FIFA's major costs also involve development expenses, personnel expenses, and a financial assistance program.

FIFA in Numbers

FIFA has adopted the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reporting standards as part of a good governance policy. The numbers are reported around its marquee event—the World Cup. FIFA's revenue totaled $5.718 billion from 2011-2014, 89.8% of which came from event-related revenue. The rest of the revenue came from board licensing and investment income. Out of the event-related revenue $2.484 billion was attributable to sale of television rights, of which $2.428 billion was for the men’s World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

The next biggest source of income was sale of marketing rights of $1.629 billion, of which $1.580 billion was generated by the World Cup. Revenue from ticketing rights for the 2014 World Cup was $527 million and the rights are 100% owned by a direct subsidiary of FIFA. FIFA also gained from sale of hospitality rights and other licensing rights. Other income and financial income accounted for $271 million and $310 million.

All in all, there is a clear trend—93.9% of FIFA's event-related revenue during the period 2011-2014 came from the FIFA 2014 World Cup ($4.826 billion), of which 50.3% is from sale of TV rights, 32.7% from marketing rights, and a mere 10.9% from ticketing sales.

FIFA's 2011-2014 expenses of $5.380 billion can be broadly divided between event-related expense of $2.817 billion (52.3%), development projects of $1.052 billion (19.6%), and operating expenses of $861 million (16%). Event-related expenses were mostly related to the World Cup. A total of $2.224 billion was spent, including $453 million in contributions to he local organizing committee, $370 million in TV production, $358 as prize money with winners and runners-up receiving $35 million and $25 million respectively.

Other notable expenditures are operational expenses on ticketing, IT solutions, and hospitality for a total of $157 million and contribution to a legacy fund for Brazil of $100 million. The funds will be used for development and advancements in the game of football and related infrastructure in Brazil over the coming years.

Business Strategy

After analyzing the above numbers, it can be easily concluded that organizing the FIFA World Cup alone is a very profitable and low-risk venture for FIFA, which resulted in a net profit of $338 million during the period 2011-2014. Overall, FIFA has thus been able to accumulate reserves of $1.523 billion with cash of $1.038 billion. With relatively cheap inputs in players, personnel, and ready infrastructure (created by the host country), FIFA manages revenue of over $5 billion.

FIFA also constantly improves its strategy like it did with its sponsorship model. There are currently three World Cup sponsorship levels: FIFA Partners, FIFA World Cup Partners, and National Supporters. FIFA Partners help develop the FIFA brand and engage in corporate social responsibility. FIFA World Cup Sponsors are given the rights to promote their brand and the World Cup. National Supporters are headquartered in the host nation and have rights to promote their brands within the host country. FIFA is tweaking the model a bit, keeping the top two tiers intact and changing the “National Supporters” to a regional model with up to 20 companies from five regions (North America, Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe).

The Bottom Line

FIFA has recently been charged with mismanagement and malpractice over the bidding process for the World Cup. (For more, see: Financial Fiasco of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.) Recently, the president and other executives were named in the controversy and arrested on charges of corruption. Over its 110-year history, only eight people have headed the organization, which begs the question of transparency and good governance. Nonetheless, with its little-to-lose business strategy, FIFA is turning out impressive earnings numbers. It does not have to invest in or take on the financial risk of building infrastructure for competitions. Yet, it is FIFA that rakes in revenues in huge numbers, primarily from TV and marketing rights.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070915/how-does-fifa-make-money.asp?utm_source=newstouse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NTU-7/13/2015

If a law lecturer who has spent most of his years in the classroom, decides to go into law practice and he is given a Supreme court appearance as his first case, what do you think would be his performance? He would be confronted with the reality that theory is different from practice. I may be wrong but that is the parallel l can draw from the appointment of Sunday Oliseh as the next Super Eagles coach for the next five years. Yes, he has a coaching licence, he can analyse matches very well on Super sports but what is his practical coaching experience? Coaching goes beyond analysing football. It involves managing players ego, and preparing them psychologically. I doubt if this is a right choice to be given a five-year contract. But since the NFF has hired him, we are stuck with him but am not so optimistic and enthusiastic. I want Oliseh to prove me wrong.

FIFA published its monthly world rankings for July, and it's even more inexplicable than usual.

We'll get into a full discussion about why the ranking formula is so bad in a little bit, but first check out just how weird these rankings came out:

Wales is 10th, and has the most FIFA ranking points of any team in the world in the past 12 months (note: Germany won the World Cup 12 months ago).
Argentina is ranked ahead of Germany, who beat them in the World Cup final.
Romania is 8th after not qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.
Portugal is 7th after not making it out of their group in the World Cup.
France is 22nd, one spot ahead of Iceland.
The US, after beating Germany, the Netherlands, Guatemala, and Honduras in the last month, dropped seven spots to No. 34.

Here's the top 10:

Argentina
Germany
Belgium
Colombia
Netherlands
Brazil
Portugal
Romania
England
Wales

So how does Wales — a country that has never qualified for a European championship and hasn't made the World Cup since 1958 — end up 10th in the world?

FIFA's ranking formula, is how. Let's explain.

To determine this ranking, FIFA assigns a point value to every game a national team plays over the previous four years, with more recent games weighted more heavily. A game's point value is made with four variables: match result, importance of match, strength of opponent, and strength of opponent's confederation. FIFA multiplies these four factors together to find a team's ranking points in a given game, then takes the average of a team's points per game over the last four years to determine their total strength.

Here's the full formula from a post we wrote last year (feel free to skip if you're not into the nitty-gritty):
Points = M (points for match result) * I (importance of match) * T (strength of opponent) * C (strength of confederation)

A breakdown of the four factors:

M (points for match result): Teams get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss.
I (importance of match): This multiplier is fixed based on perceived importance of each competition, as follows:
Friendly game: 1.0
World Cup or confederation-level qualifier: 2.5
Confederation's Cup or confederation-level competition (like the Euros): 3.0
World Cup game: 4.0

T (strength of opponent): T= 200 - (ranking of opponent). So if you play, 2nd-ranked Germany, T=198. And if you play 10th-ranked Wales, T=190.
C (strength of confederation): This multiplier is fixed by the perceived strength of each continent. The mean between the two numbers is used when teams from different continents play each other:
South America: 1.0
Europe: 0.99
Others: 0.85

Multiply those four numbers together, and you get your FIFA ranking points for each game. To get a team's ranking points for each year, FIFA takes the average of its points per game over all four 12-month windows and weights them.

The ranking takes the last four years of games into account, as follows:

Four years ago: 20% weight
Three years ago: 30% weight
Two years ago: 50% weight
Current year: 100% weight

So that's the entire formula.

You can see the problems here. The formula is rudimentary and lacks the ability to assess games beyond simple win/loss/draw. It doesn't take into account goal differential or home-field advantage, which is more important in soccer than most other sports, according to Nate Silver's numbers. More importantly, you get ZERO ranking points for a loss no matter what. To FIFA's eyes, Spain battling Germany and losing 2-1 in Berlin is the same as Spain getting blown out by the Faroe Islands 5-0 at home.

This system rewards teams from Europe or South America that play a low number of high-stakes games (since it takes the average of ranking points, not the raw total). In other words, this system was built for what Wales has done over the last 12 months.

Wales has played six games in the last 12 months. Here are their results:

1-0 win over Belgium (June 2015, Euro 2016 qualifier)
3-0 win over Israel (May 2015, Euro 2016 qualifier)
0-0 draw with Belgium (November 2014), Euro 2016 qualifier)
2-1 win over Cyprus (October 2014, Euro 2016 qualifier)
0-0 draw with Bosnia-Herzegovina (October 2014, Euro 2016 qualifier)
2-1 win over Andorra (September 2014, Euro 2016 qualifier)

For comparison, the US has played 12 games during that same period, and only one of them (this week's 2-1 Gold Cup win over Honduras) wasn't a friendly.

Wales had four wins, two draws, and zero losses, all in European qualifiers that come with the 2.5x multiplier. Unlike almost every other team in the world, they didn't play any friendlies. That helped them immensely because they didn't kill their points average by losing a meaningless friendly. Even if they had played a friendly and won, it would have been worth about half the FIFA ranking points at these other games and dragged down their ranking anyway.

As a result, Wales had a bonkers FIFA ranking number in the last 12 months. Their 817 points in the last 12 months is the highest in the world. Germany earned just 577 points during the same period, even though they won the World Cup during it! And all because they lost two meaningless friendlies and dropped a Euro qualifier game to Poland.

A bunch of European teams who played Euro qualifiers over the last 12 months got a huge boost, while teams that didn't have meaningful continental competitions (sorry, CONCACAF) tumbled in the rankings because the only games they played were friendlies.

It'd be great if these FIFA rankings were completely meaningless. Unfortunately, they're only mostly meaningless because this is the ranking FIFA uses to determine the eight seeded World Cup teams. When the next World Cup draw rolls around in 2017, this stuff really starts to matter.

SOURCE:YAHOO NEWS

Good evening, my attention has just been drawn to a story on naij.com claiming that i have been arrested by agents of the SSS. While i shall seek redress in the appropriate quarters because of the writer's choice of words, i want to inform you that the story is pure, unadulterated lie. As you read, I am in my office at 53, Shonola St. ,Ogba. To those who have called or sent bbms and sms, i say thank you. Seun Oloketuyi, Publisher, naijahottestgist.com and bestofnollywood.tv

https://www.facebook.com/seun.oloketuyireal

vislabraye:
What I heard is that Keshi applied for Cote d'voire job through his proxy.

Even the reported resume they say he sent was not his current one.“If he wanted the Ivorian job he would have presented his current resume which entailed the 2013 AFCON triumph and the World Cup he led Nigeria to.”

Keshi will be paid two years salary as his contractual terms stipulated stated that in the event of termination by NFF.

In the meantime, a quick reflection will reveal that Nigerian football has definitely retrogressed. During the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, the Eagles were regular semi-finalists and finalists at the Nations Cup. In the early 2000s, they were regularly bronze medal winners. During the last 10 years, they have struggled to reach the quarter-final stage on occasions. Now, in TWO OF THE LAST THREE TOURNAMENTS, they have completely failed to qualify.

With the benefit of hindsight, the 2013 triumph is now looking like a lucky accident, a mere flash in the pan. If we delete it from the graph, we are confronted by a consistent decline in performance….and results!

I have taken some time to analyze the situation. My conclusion is that Nigeria’s style of play, if we can describe it as one, has lost its effectiveness. Power and pace has been the fulcrum of our tactics. We have won the odd matches here and there because of the tremendous speed and strength of our individual players. But, as a football team, the rest of Africa is leaving the Eagles behind.

I request the technical department of the NFF to ask for the recordings of all the matches the Eagles have played on the African continent in the last 10 years or so, and see how many of those matches, irrespective of the result, that we dominated in the area of ball possession.

During the past decade, Nigeria have repeatedly been out-played by the likes of Guinea, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Congo and South Africa. In many of those games, I noticed that these modest African teams controlled and moved the ball better, made runs into space, exchanged passes better and did all the simple things better.

In those games, we often managed to win because an Emmanuel Emenike fired an unstoppable shot against the run of play, an Obinna Nsofor blasted home a free kick, a Victor Moses scored a penalty or an Ahmed Musa simply ran his marker aground. When it came to deliberately and creatively working out a goal like the one Osaze Odemwingie scored against Bosnia Herzegovina at Brazil 2014 after combining with Emenike, it is very rare in the Eagles collection.

Cutehector:
Op what of kiss on the cheek.. Like d judas kiss

Friend zone kiss.