As IF Times

link This is Why Americans Don’t Like Soccer – Soccer – Boston.com.

We know it’s the world’s “most popular sport”.  We know that the world is consumed as if in an epileptic frenzy when the World Cup is staged every 4 years.  But it’s boring.  Soccer, or football as the game is known everywhere in the world outside of North America, is as interesting as watching Pong.

From its origins as a savage pastime when combatants kicked the heads around of their vanquished opponents, the game has really stayed fairly true to its roots.   At a certain level, we understand the game’s primitive charm.  Especially at the global level when the pride of nations are at stake during a match at the World Cup.  There are few sports which stir up nations’ national spirit like soccer does.  Entire countries will shut down while they watch their squad do battle with that of another.  Soccer is essentially a surrogate for armed battles and which purports to demonstrate the superiority of an entire nation over another; especially if they have nothing else to brag about.   It’s the one time that Cameroon can kick Britain’s ass and shame the Limey bastards on the world stage.

We can see the simple charm of the game, one which doesn’t have all the arcane rules of many professional sports.  Soccer is big business worldwide, like any major sport.  It is a game which small boys dream of playing in all corners of the globe and their heroes are godlike.  It is still a sport for the common folk.  It’s also a sport in which there is as much action in the audience as there is on the pitch.

Basketball is a sport that has evolved into a game populated by thyroid cases and freaks of nature that must be over 6 feet 6 inches in height or they’re considered too small to play.  The shoes on most players can double as kayaks for midgets.   The players’ hands are so large that the ball may as well be an onion.   Basketball is clearly not a game for regular people.

Baseball is hardly interesting anymore either, since much of the game is spent with players standing around and spitting.  The real hard core fans are statistics geeks who can rattle off ERA’s, saves, runs allowed, etcetera.  Clearly a game for accountants.   Cheering for a team is like rooting for Price Waterhouse to beat Ernst and Young.  If baseball is too much action, there’s always cricket.

Hockey is not really a world sport because a big ice surface is not readily found south of the 49th parallel.   That’s a sport for a very specialized audience.  Golf; well that’s the same as hockey; use a stick to put an object into a hole.  Only golf has is played in warm weather, has more rules than an IRS handbook and participants lack any fashion sense.  American football comes close to the rabid fanaticism shown by soccer fans, but like basketball, as specimens, the players are generally many standard deviations removed from an average guy.  They are essentially bred for the sport like racing hounds or thoroughbreds.

Soccer at least gives the pretense that the players are average people who happen to have finely honed ball skills. If only they could do away with the Oscar winning head holding and ground rolling, it would be a real man’s sport instead of a primary school recess game.

link AFP: Health experts rap World Cup fast food sponsorship.

Do gooders are scourges.  You can try to escape by enjoying some harmless entertainment such as watching a sporting event or concert, but still they come at you like ants at a picnic.  All you ask for is a simple break from the rigors of life and not have to deal with all the rules and restrictions that society places upon us.

In this article, ‘experts’ are attacking the sponsorship by Budweiser, Coca Cola and McDonald’s of the World Cup soccer tournament because they represent unhealthy food choices. Why don’t they just attack eating?

Those that think that spectator sports in general but soccer in particular should be venues associated with “healthy” eating are social nerwins whose idea of fun and excitement is to own the most recent game app for their Ipod.   Like most big scale sporting events, soccer is a stylized game of war in which fans express their tribal convictions fueled by alcohol and hedonistic fast foods.  That’s the way it is.  It is not the opera. It is not a spelling bee. It is not meant to be healthy.   The enthusiasm of any crowd would be seriously impeded if all they had to consume or throw at the players in disgust was iced tea and granola bars.  Besides, those kinds of products don’t have the ring of normal sports sponsors.  Can you imagine the ad guys trying to make, “The World Cup of Soccer, brought to you by Kellogg’s Bran Flakes” into a jingle?

A cynical person would think that all of this tsk tsking of these sponsors is really about not letting men have any enjoyment since most sports fans are men.  However, the story includes some statistics regarding, how shall we say, zaftig women as well.  In fact, the article states that:

“…A recent report by the national Heart Foundation found that 29 percent of South African men and 56 percent of women are overweight…”

If we accept that most sports fans are men and they would be the sponsors’ targets, what do tubby women  have to do with these food sponsors at a soccer game?  Clearly, the women are getting their bad food influences from somewhere else.  Perhaps from watching Oprah.  Therefore, all this sanctimonious babble is really anti-West or more particularly anti-American.  Are there any more iconic names in American consumer foods than Budweiser, Coca Cola or McDonald’s? Underlying the facade of urging people to eat “healthier” is a current of antipathy towards these representatives of American influence. 

Another line from the health gestapo is also amusing:

“…But it would be a great boost for public health around the world if FIFA could show real leadership on this issue by announcing it will not consider companies that promote unhealthy products as sponsors or partners in future…”

Really?  FIFA is regarded as a world trend setter and leader in social issues?  Like the NFL or NHL, or NBA, have these organizations been masquerading as sports organizations all this time?   Well if so, they must all be chastised for not paying enough attention to teen pregnancy, gay rights and global warming.  It must be galling to many that despite all efforts, the impact of America through their cultural influences, affect the world in so many far reaching ways, even in the most non American sports event, soccer.  I think it’s time for these companies to tell these modern day Gladys Crabbits’ to mind their own business and let people have some unfettered enjoyment in their lives.  Tell them to take their thinly veiled anti Americanism to France or Iran where they willingly accept that kind of propaganda. 

Or, they can drum up groups to sponsor their own PC events.  I suspect that the only sponsors interested would be wienie makers.