International football has to be one of the most corrupt communities in sports, which is saying something. Between bribing WC officials to sway votes on World Cup locations and awarding the tournament to a country that saw 6,500 deaths of workers building the stadiums[0], to implementing dynamic pricing at the current World Cup, a move like this feels very par for the course for these guys.
> Between bribing WC officials to sway votes on World Cup locations and awarding the tournament to a country that saw 6,500 deaths of workers building the stadiums
Qatar is a terrible place when it comes to treatment of workers, but that number of deaths is actually unusually low.
The 6500 figure was the deaths for all foreign workers in Qatar over a 10 year period, a country which uses foreign workers for almost all of its labor force (about 95% is foreign). They have around 2 million foreign workers. Compare to the number of citizens of Qatar which is around 400k.
6500 deaths among those foreign workers over that time period works out to a death rate of around 33 per 100k per year.
Compare that to the death rates for males aged 25-34 in the US, which is somewhere in the 160-250 range. I'm comparing to males in that age range because around 80% of the foreign workers in Qatar are male and they are predominantly 25-39.
Qatar's 5-8x lower death rate than the US still could be an indication that they have a serious problem with worker deaths, but to determine that someone would have to dive much deeper into details.
For example a significant component of the US deaths is poisoning (drug overdoses are counted as poisoning). Qatar has a very strong anti-drug policy with little tolerance and harsh penalties, so I'd expect that they don't have many drug deaths.
Same for drunk driving. They also are very intolerant of drunk driving, and consider a driver to be drunk if there is any detectable alcohol in their bloodstream after an accident. (Also, I'd expect most migrant workers don't drive).
The Guardian really should have noticed this and investigated. They really dropped the ball here.
The rules need to be updated to better ensure accurate calls. If we can agree that Balogun's red card was overkill because his trip wasn't intentional then there should be a way to reverse the call. And Maradona's "hand of god" goal should have been reversed as well. There should be MORE than one ref on the pitch during these games. And spare me the, "This is how's it's always been" argument... It's the World Cup. Let's do better!
Between this and the C.Ronaldo decision, I wonder if we're headed toward a future change to the automatic red card suspension. Part of what makes a red seem extreme for certain fouls is the automatic suspension.
The point of the suspension is to discourage deliberately violent actions when the current match isn't a major concern (i.e. late in games that aren't close, or when the result is largely immaterial). That obviously isn't the case here.
no worries, then they'll just ship those products through one the other members of the EU
>The European Union allows goods to move freely between the 27 countries in the economic bloc, which would complicate any bid to impose trade restrictions on a single member state.
Src: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r1mzd8vygo
Maybe it would have been better for Team USA if it had not been reversed.
Before the reversal the oddsmakers were putting USA vs Belgium at even or slightly in Belgium's favor. After the reversal the oddsmakers had USA as a slight but clear favorite.
I'd expect that if it had not been reversed it might have made USA feel like underdogs with something to prove which sometimes can inspire better play. Also it made have made Belgium overly confident knowing USA was missing its best scorer, which can lead to sloppy play.
After the reversal and the change in the odds USA might have been less inspired and Belgium might have been fired up.
Anyway, whether or not the reversal affected the outcome Belgium slaughtered USA, 4-1, and USA is out.
This annoys me, in a very American way, because whenever USA won a World Cup game Subway was giving a "USA Wins" coupon in their app for a footlong sub for something like $7.99.
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[ 11.5 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread0: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r...
Qatar is a terrible place when it comes to treatment of workers, but that number of deaths is actually unusually low.
The 6500 figure was the deaths for all foreign workers in Qatar over a 10 year period, a country which uses foreign workers for almost all of its labor force (about 95% is foreign). They have around 2 million foreign workers. Compare to the number of citizens of Qatar which is around 400k.
6500 deaths among those foreign workers over that time period works out to a death rate of around 33 per 100k per year.
Compare that to the death rates for males aged 25-34 in the US, which is somewhere in the 160-250 range. I'm comparing to males in that age range because around 80% of the foreign workers in Qatar are male and they are predominantly 25-39.
Qatar's 5-8x lower death rate than the US still could be an indication that they have a serious problem with worker deaths, but to determine that someone would have to dive much deeper into details.
For example a significant component of the US deaths is poisoning (drug overdoses are counted as poisoning). Qatar has a very strong anti-drug policy with little tolerance and harsh penalties, so I'd expect that they don't have many drug deaths.
Same for drunk driving. They also are very intolerant of drunk driving, and consider a driver to be drunk if there is any detectable alcohol in their bloodstream after an accident. (Also, I'd expect most migrant workers don't drive).
The Guardian really should have noticed this and investigated. They really dropped the ball here.
Gotta cash in that Peace Prize sometimes, I guess
> saying world soccer's governing body had "crossed a red line" and undermined the integrity of the game
Ah yes, the bastion of integrity defending truth and justice.
The point of the suspension is to discourage deliberately violent actions when the current match isn't a major concern (i.e. late in games that aren't close, or when the result is largely immaterial). That obviously isn't the case here.
>The European Union allows goods to move freely between the 27 countries in the economic bloc, which would complicate any bid to impose trade restrictions on a single member state. Src: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r1mzd8vygo
Before the reversal the oddsmakers were putting USA vs Belgium at even or slightly in Belgium's favor. After the reversal the oddsmakers had USA as a slight but clear favorite.
I'd expect that if it had not been reversed it might have made USA feel like underdogs with something to prove which sometimes can inspire better play. Also it made have made Belgium overly confident knowing USA was missing its best scorer, which can lead to sloppy play.
After the reversal and the change in the odds USA might have been less inspired and Belgium might have been fired up.
Anyway, whether or not the reversal affected the outcome Belgium slaughtered USA, 4-1, and USA is out.
This annoys me, in a very American way, because whenever USA won a World Cup game Subway was giving a "USA Wins" coupon in their app for a footlong sub for something like $7.99.