World Cup Round Up: FIFA inspects South Africa, Chilean defender threatens boycott

A FIFA inspection team is in South Africa this week checking out the country’s progress as we inch closer to the 2010 World Cup. That progress has so far received a thumb’s up from FIFA, which can hardly be considered a surprise. “So far, things are all right,” FIFA spokesman Alain Leiblang told journalists in Cape Town as a FIFA delegation wrapped up a tour of the 2010 World Cup hosts. “All things are on track. I don’t want to say for the future, but for the two cities that we have inspected everything is correct.”

Forget the old club versus country debate. For Chilean defender Arturo Vidal, it is cash versus country. The young stud is threatening to boycott Chile’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Argentina and Peru unless he receives a $10,000 bonus for helping his country finish third in the U-20 World Cup in Canada this summer.

The fallout continues from Germany U-21 player Ashkan Dejagh’s decision to withdraw from his country’s upcoming match against Israel because he was born in Iran and playing against Israel would not be appreciated there. Germany’s leading Jewish organization has called on the team to drop Dejagh completely. “It would be an affront to silently tolerate this behaviour,” Council President Charlotte Knobloch said in a statement. “I therefore expect that the DFB will exclude the player from the German national team.”

On Monday, we saw Macau trounced 6-1 by Thailand in World Cup qualifying in Asia. On Tuesday, we saw Macau’s manager begging his government to give a rat’s ass about its football team. “It’s complicated, it’s about politics, it’s about control, but no one cares about our team,” said Kageyama Masanga. “All of the facilities are under the control of the government. We have very limited use of the pitches. We have virtually no chance to play.” On a bright note, Macau’s players do have access to the island’s numerous gambling establishments, prostitutes and drugs. If only we could all be so lucky.

Everyone knows that FIFA’s decision to have a competitive bidding process to decide the locations of future World Cup tournaments is only going to lead to bribery and corruption. Everyone knows this including FIFA itself, which may have its so-called Ethic Committee in on the process. Good luck with that one.

Want a handy overview of how World Cup qualifying works in each region? Here you go.

Spanning the blog:

• Anelka and Ribery speak (France World Cup Blog)
• The list is out (Tunisia World Cup Blog)
• Freddy Adu gets the call up (USA World Cup Blog)
• Will Australia’s coaching situation ever be settled? (Australia World Cup Blog)

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