re the France V Ireland result will be our very own Ray Treacy of course.
His company is the biggest sports event travel agency in Ireland and would have stood to make a fortune out of Ireland qualifying.
The funny thing is that there has been a lof of bullshit spoken about "conspiracies" and all this crap but little old Ireland - outside of TV rights - would have generated far more dough by qualifying for the WCF than the French.
There would have been probably 10,000+ Paddies keen to travel to SA (probably more) whereas the French don't have the same tradition of travelling to tournaments in big numbers and would be lucky to get a couple of thousand.
There will probably be loads more Algerian-origin Frenchmen travelling down for the WCF than actual Frenchmen.
I think its pretty plain that UEFA (Notice how quiet Platini has gone) & the nutters at FIFA do have an agenda against English football especially.
As for Eire, I went to Italy in 1990 and found most of their fans fantastic (went on the beer with em in Rome and had a great laugh, it was the totally pished Jocks who were an utter pain in the arse and embaressing), the ones in Celtic shirts giving it the Zzzz IRA stuff that did them no credit in Sardinia.
I think they would've taken 20,000+ easily but you gotta hand it to that Henry. . . .
[cite]Posted By: Ormiston Addick[/cite]The funny thing is that there has been a lof of bullshit spoken about "conspiracies" and all this crap but little old Ireland - outside of TV rights - would have generated far more dough by qualifying for the WCF than the French.
There would have been probably 10,000+ Paddies keen to travel to SA (probably more) whereas the French don't have the same tradition of travelling to tournaments in big numbers and would be lucky to get a couple of thousand.
There will probably be loads more Algerian-origin Frenchmen travelling down for the WCF than actual Frenchmen.
Like you, I am not convinced about conspiracy theories either OA, but I don't think FIFA give a rats arse about numbers travelling - the games will be sold out anyway - however much cash is going into FIFA's coffers will only be affected by the amount they can sell the TV rights for, any other cash generated wouldn't be going into their pockets, so they really wont care.
And numbers wise, you are dead right about the French - I was at the Euro 2004 game in Lisbon when we played them, their support was pathetic.
[cite]Posted By: Ormiston Addick[/cite]The funny thing is that there has been a lof of bullshit spoken about "conspiracies" and all this crap but little old Ireland - outside of TV rights - would have generated far more dough by qualifying for the WCF than the French.
There would have been probably 10,000+ Paddies keen to travel to SA (probably more) whereas the French don't have the same tradition of travelling to tournaments in big numbers and would be lucky to get a couple of thousand.
There will probably be loads more Algerian-origin Frenchmen travelling down for the WCF than actual Frenchmen.
France is 15 times bigger than Ireland. Lots of TV money there.
I'm not saying that the conspiracy theories are true, but it would be in FIFA's interest to have France there, not Ireland, and Russia, not Slovenia. One out of two, eh?
I think all you need to know about Platini was in a recent interview where he berated the English clubs about debt (again), and then dropped in a little anecdote about talking to Calderon or one of the other bigwigs at Real Madrid, saying that he (Platini) wouldn't have paid all that money for Ronaldo, but hey, if you've got it, spend it. Now, if there is one club in Europe that take the mickey on indebtedness, it's Real. But, in their case, that obviously doesn't matter. I think a lot of Platini's resentment comes from the fact that even though they had the best football team in the world, in general the French are far more interested in Rugby.
Comments
There would have been probably 10,000+ Paddies keen to travel to SA (probably more) whereas the French don't have the same tradition of travelling to tournaments in big numbers and would be lucky to get a couple of thousand.
There will probably be loads more Algerian-origin Frenchmen travelling down for the WCF than actual Frenchmen.
As for Eire, I went to Italy in 1990 and found most of their fans fantastic (went on the beer with em in Rome and had a great laugh, it was the totally pished Jocks who were an utter pain in the arse and embaressing), the ones in Celtic shirts giving it the Zzzz IRA stuff that did them no credit in Sardinia.
I think they would've taken 20,000+ easily but you gotta hand it to that Henry. . . .
Like you, I am not convinced about conspiracy theories either OA, but I don't think FIFA give a rats arse about numbers travelling - the games will be sold out anyway - however much cash is going into FIFA's coffers will only be affected by the amount they can sell the TV rights for, any other cash generated wouldn't be going into their pockets, so they really wont care.
And numbers wise, you are dead right about the French - I was at the Euro 2004 game in Lisbon when we played them, their support was pathetic.
France is 15 times bigger than Ireland. Lots of TV money there.
I'm not saying that the conspiracy theories are true, but it would be in FIFA's interest to have France there, not Ireland, and Russia, not Slovenia. One out of two, eh?
I think a lot of Platini's resentment comes from the fact that even though they had the best football team in the world, in general the French are far more interested in Rugby.
EDIT: "this" being the World Cup!