Just hearing about the Egypt football trouble.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16845841

Very sad news indeed, seems the police just left them to it!

73 dead, absolute madness.

What the hell kind of security even goes on here, none I'm presuming.

And to think people had the nerve to criticise FIFA for giving a World Cup to that part of the World.

Um, that's not that part of the world. Egypt is something else entirely, and Middle East is a totally different animal. Qatar will (and should) do absolutely fine with security, if not the total package. There's also the issue of the recent revolution and broken down system in Egypt.

I'm sure as the World Cup 2022 approaches, Qatar will get more coverage by the media. All will be evident then.

I was always under the impression Egypt was part of the Arabic World to be honest. The continent it happens to fall in means nothing.

Yeah...but that would be like comparing the deaths in Eastern Europe due to the cold wave and saying that France/Germany have horrible infrastructure.

It is, and they speak the same language, but blimey if there are another countries the Arabs hate more than the Egyptians. And well the feeling is mutual. The three most disliked countries/civilizations in the Arabic World are Egypt, Iran and Turkey. In fact, Egyptians aren't that well liked in the rest of Africa (the black part), either.

Truth be told, the rest of Africa don't even consider the Northern countries African - Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco. If they had their way, these countries probably wouldn't be in African Cup of Nations. Of course, this would mean the other countries would have more of a chance at winning the ACN. Team Egypt is just too good.

And this is ground knowledge, intelligence I gathered over the years. From my knowledge it's of no fault of their own, the hate just stems from a lot of different factors, including history, military might, and well Egypt was practically socially/economically well off before oil was discovered in the Middle East. And just as well, most of the African continent is still quite poor and backwards.

I'd say the only country Egypt can be directly compared somewhat is Algeria - and that is their direct rival.


Exactly. Good analogy, Captain!

Now you mention it, I'm sure I've heard commentators during the ACN mention that Egypt are much disliked by the rest of Africa.

I had no idea the countries were so different. From what I read and stuff, I always got the impression the difference between African-Arabic countries and Asian-Arabic countries was very little, that the people were similar.

I'm reading that it's politically motivated. Al Ahly fans are supposedly very against Maburak and the police/army are loyal to him, apparently they saw no reason to protect them.

Ofcourse,it's about politics.Did you think this was over a football match?xD

Egyptians have made fools of themselves too much.

Egypt is a bit crazy yeah.

What, you've never heard of football violence between rivals?

Not at that scale no
If,this was about football match,then people are more stupid then I've presumed.(Not that fighting over politics is any better,it sounds more pathatic though).

Retards will fight over anything.

I guess you're correct,it's just I've never hurd of 79 people dying for a simple leauge game ?!

Nah, never to that extent, but there's still been crazy incidents in games where there wasn't even rivalries, like Heylsey for example.

Yup, and it's not exactly hate, just pure dislike. Surely not racist or xenophobic, it's just that the most of Africa is black and well, African (as in traditions, lifestyle and economically not as secure as the Northern countries), while Egypt and friends aren't really that, plus them being closer to Mediterranean, and even a bit like Asia.

I mean in the last ACN, Egypt went to the final and won, and the displeasure was clearly evident on the commentators and African analysts' faces. You could see they were rolling with the flow, and no one was really happy.


Oh man, it's very different. You go from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Iran, and then Pakistan (well we're as multi-cultural as it gets, anyway), and over to say Burma, Philippines, and Japan, it gets very different. Even staying in Arabian or African countries, there are similarities, but more than enough difference in culture and lifestyle.

You can say almost twice the difference between say England, France and Germany. I mean these countries are similar in many ways, and different in many others. Captain Jack's example of Eastern and Western Europe is a good enough fit here. Though there is a bit more of a difference (and friction) than say Albania vs England.


Yes, well that was my first impression. Things are quite messed up in Egypt. That's why I said broken down system in Egypt, the country is practically upside down. Purely football violence at the scale of 73 dead and countless injured is not something one hears every now and then. Very sad.

96 people died in the Hillsborough tragedy. Liverpool doesn't have the brightest when it comes to their hooligans.

what was that again? I'm sorry i'm fully aware of my noobishness, but i am, perhaps one of the younger posters here and i never quite heard the full story.

Liverpool fans were crushed to death after an area of the ground was over crowded due to bad crowd control.

No what happened was that as usual the scouse scum sayed in the pub getting pi55ed til the very last minute and then proceeded to storm Hillsborough crushing those that had already entered the stadium in time. At that time stadiums in Britain were fenced in so there was nowhere for the fans to go. Obviously the police were at fault for letting them stay in the pub

It's stuff like this that makes me dislike Liverpool as a club. It still amazes me how more on here hate United more, I guess that's down to success as oppose to reasons to really hate though.

There's many other examples as well, in Athens loads went over without tickets and broke fences to get in and take seats from those who had paid. The ones who paid were made to sit on the steps. There were also reports that some of those who had broken in were urinating over others who were sat in their seats.

To be fair to United their fans are usually very well behaved and respectful, IIRC when we beat them at San Siro they gave us a standing ovation. This is something I would never expect from Liverpool fans.

I do feel sympathy for the fans that died, it partly wasn't their fault, the policing was very poor. What I do hate is how they always play the victim card. I think United fans are a total disgrace and the majority aren't even real fans, but Liverpool fans are worse. For all the talk and stuff they do about Hillsborough and act like they've the best fans ever, they never mention the murderers of Heysel.

The Liverpool-United game recently is just stupid too. Why are they booing Evra? How dare he be the victim of racist abuse!

I think everyone has sympathy for the fans who died, but it was their fans who rushed in at the last minute and caused the tragedy. You can't really blame the police as if they're being rushed by a pi55ed up group what can they do? You can't play with fire and complain when you get burnt.

From the documentaries that I've seen they made it seem as if the the real cause was the simple fact that an entry point was opened which lead to that particular area when it shouldn't have been. Thus leading to all those people rushing in at once in an already over crowded area.

Yes an entry point was opened because the fans had stayed in the pub until the last minute, which is the point i was trying to make. Had these fans arrived slightly earlier then they would have all got in safely. Of course it's easier to blame the authorities than look at ones self...

Rangers look to be going into administration. Numb doesn't cover it right now for me.

How exactly do Rangers/Celtic get into this kind of position? Big attendance, CL football most years, win competitions, both have huge fan bases.

Yeah! Damn! End of the old firm??!!

Guus Hiddink has signed an 18-month contract to manage wealthy Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala.

€10 million per season.

Montreal Impact sign Matteo Ferrari and are (still) looking into signing ADP...

We got into this position due to overspending from '98 onwards which led to us using an EBT - a scheme to avoid paying tax on wages and fees. That ended up being a 75M tax bill, but specifically HMRC forced us to go into admin because 9M in PAYE tax had not been received since Craig Whyte took over. Basically player income tax wasn't going to the tax man, the club kept it. And that forced HMRC's hand.

Administrators say Rangers should survive, but things will change.

Celtic couldn't cope without us tbh.

Ciro is deserving of another chance in Serie A, he has done a great job with the U21, I have heard alot of hype, but having seen only 2 U21 games i can safely say he is fielding a weaker team then we are used to having in the Italian U21s but is producing results nonetheless.

Montreal Impacts of the MLS Inaugural match vs. Vancouver Whitecaps. lost 2-0 on the road.
quite excited as a season ticket holder for the first home match next week
For those thaat remember Matteo Ferrari hehe, milan were linked with him when his contract expired at roma, we also signed rivas, formally of inter. were also after corradi were after every washed up star of serie a!

Awful thing to happen.

Chris Samba racially abused in Russia.

Should be an interesting WC. Great decision from FIFA, as always.

It's just that club I think. Lokomotiv? They have always had problems. They racially abuse their own damn players.

As far as I know, players were and still are racially abused in England as well?

They are? I can only recall one incident in years. That was an individual person too.

Well, the Suárez-Evra thing, Jason Euell and Avram Gant come in mind almost immedeatly. I don't think it's avoidable, but it has to be punished, that's all. Don't see how such racial assaults should affect the WC host/organizer; every league has such problems, whether it is in England, Germany or Russia.

I think countries who have a history with large scale racism shouldn't be allowed. Surely the whole point is to reward a country? It's also why I don't think Spain should get it. And I hardly think a foreign player being racist should really be held against England.

X-Off will get a kick out of this, I'm sure. Ronaldinho's shocker:

Shocker! Ronaldinho's terrible miss (Flamengo) v Bangu (2nd April 2011)

His co-national has been doing much worse, if you know who I'm referring to.

I know. I know, man, I know.

Rangers have a buyer. Huge for Scottish football. A few Celtic fans I know are disappointed as they wanted Rangers gone. In reality, without Rangers, Celtic would end up the same way.

No, we have a preferred bidder. His name is Bill Miller and he now gets a 2 week period of exclusivity for due diligence, during which we hope his bid is acceptable and the transaction goes through.

Any tim who wanted Rangers dead...is the majority - and they're so stupid. Rangers cannot survive without Celtic and vice versa.

At least, not while in Scotland.

There's a minority of tims who were sensible enough to realise how crucial Rangers are to Celtic, and to Scottish football.

Without us, the SPL will die.