World Cup Round up: A Year Ban for Koreans, Durban Stadium Delays

You go out with your friends to a karaoke bar, have a few drinks, pay some women to keep you company, and at the end of the night you settle up your tab. Even if you spend a lot on the booze and the women chances are your simple trip won’t cost as much as the one made by four members of South Korea’s national team before their Asian Cup match against Bahrain this summer. They have been suspended from international duties for an entire year. Seriously. I can understand a suspension for a few games, but an entire year? I can only hope that my boss doesn’t get any ideas next time I call in “sick” following a night out on the town.

Because coaching a national team isn’t enough work, Dunga is now going to moonlight as the coach of Brazil’s Olympic team. I think they should make him suit up and play while they are at it.

Labor strife is beginning to rear its ugly head in South Africa with news that construction of the new stadium in Durban might come to a halt because of a striker. Let’s hope it gets sorted out quickly. South Africa has been on target with everything so far and no one wants to see a 2010 World Cup venue fall behind schedule.

Sudan has withdrawn from a four-team tournament in Ghana later this month because they can’t scrape together a team. That is a shame. I relish any chance I have to write about the country with the coolest nickname in the world: The Nile Crocodiles.

Prince William is being recruited to help convince the FIFA fat cats that merry old England is the ideal location for the 2018 World Cup.

The guy who decided it would be fun to ram his car into a crowd at the 2006 World Cup has been sent to a mental hospital in Germany. About a year too late if you ask my opinion.

It isn’t all puppy dogs and rainbows for Otto Pfister now that he is the boss of Cameroon. Some in the country’s football federation are none too impressed with the selection of a man who didn’t exact represent himself well in Germany in 2006.

Have a fabulous weekend, my friends.