Arsenal Action

[damir]

turning football game into a business will kill the game eventually!football game is more than business,it's passion,devotion,courage etc...it's the magic when you see the team who don't worth a million beat the team who is worth 400 millions,that is the true example that football game is more than just business or money,money is important but it can't guarantee the success!
Fifa was extremely unfair with the draws for the playoffs,some nations like France and Portugal were in benefited positions cause they couldn't be paired to play against each other,that was extremely unfair,Fifa has done everything it could to stop the 'small' nations to go in SA!France and Portugal played bad in their groups,and if they must go in SA at all costs then why they had to go in qualifications?Fifa should change the rules and give those nations places automatically in the every World cup

[Curt.B]

Thats an interesting staitistic but I am afraid it is misleading. It is inarguable that Rugby is the new Zealand national game. Very few people play soccer and it receives no funding for what it is. It receives funding as part of the government sports package/push play package, but not like Rugby, which receives massive funding boosts to ensure we stay the best/one of the best in the world. Most people don't even know we are trying to qualify for the world cup.

This data relates to the period 1997 to 2001. Some care needs to be taken when interpreting it. For example, "Top Sports and Physical Activities" above gives Rugby Union as the fifth most popular sport for New Zealand adult men with 137,100 participants, and soccer as twelfth most popular with 83,800. Neither Rugby Union nor Soccer appear in the top fifteen sports for adult women. On the other hand "Participation in Sport" states that 158,100 New Zealand adults participated in Rugby Union in the previous twelve months and 143,300 New Zealand adults participated in soccer; a difference of 60,000.

The top five sports played by men are:

26% Golf
15% Cricket
14% Tennis
14% Touch football*
11% Rugby union
* Less physical form of rugby

Historically, rugby and netball dominated team sport in New Zealand

Also consider, all three of our rugby competitions receive television broadcasting. We have three national competions, Heartlands Rugby, National provincial Championship, and we are part of the Southern Hempisphere Super 14. All of these receive broadcasting, even though, for things like Heartlands rugby, the clubs are only part of small towns with very few members!
We also have a 'Rugby Channel,' essentially a subscription viewing channel dedicated completely to rugby and shows about rugby.

We have none of this for a football. Our only national provincial competition receives no coverage. Only subscription will show A-League games, in which we have one team, the Wellington Phoenix.


You can't be so black and white with your statistics.

[cerbera]

turning football game into a business will kill the game eventually!football game is more than business,it's passion,devotion,courage etc...it's the magic when you see the team who don't worth a million beat the team who is worth 400 millions,that is the true example that football game is more than just business or money,money is important but it can't guarantee the success!
Fifa was extremely unfair with the draws for the playoffs,some nations like France and Portugal were in benefited positions cause they couldn't be paired to play against each other,that was extremely unfair,Fifa has done everything it could to stop the 'small' nations to go in SA!France and Portugal played bad in their groups,and if they must go in SA at all costs then why they had to go in qualifications?Fifa should change the rules and give those nations places automatically in the every World cup

I agree completely with everything you've said here.

[Curt.B]

They could make the competition bigger? To encompass several more nations so theres more smaller nations involved.

[damir]

They could make the competition bigger? To encompass several more nations so theres more smaller nations involved.

...or they could organize 'world cup division A' and 'division B' or something similar...anyway only few nations have won the cup,Brasil,Germany,Argentina,France,Italy,Uruguay,England,and again in SA it's going to be one of those nations including Spain this time maybe

[ARSHAVIN!]

Curt, whats NZ like? Do you fancy them to beat Bahrain? I know a few of their players - Ryan Nelsen is a solid and reliable rovers defender, so I'm guessing your defense isn't bad. I don't know any of their midfielders but I know they've got Chris Killen who plays for Celtic and Steve Smeltz, who is a pretty sharp finisher. Who are some of their other players, are they any good?

By the way as an Aussie, I for one want to see NZ in SA with us next year.......imagine if we played each other, how weird would that be!!!!

[Curt.B]

Umm, we are okay. We are better than usual, which is good. We drew with Bahrain away 0-0, but they botched some chances. Chris Killen is really our best attacker, and we'll need a great game from him. Its in Wellington so I'm sure a full stadium will turn out for home support, which hopefully will help.

It would be fantastic to have NZ vs Aus at the world cup! We have the advantage as we drew the away leg

[damir]

Curt, whats NZ like? Do you fancy them to beat Bahrain? I know a few of their players - Ryan Nelsen is a solid and reliable rovers defender, so I'm guessing your defense isn't bad. I don't know any of their midfielders but I know they've got Chris Killen who plays for Celtic and Steve Smeltz, who is a pretty sharp finisher. Who are some of their other players, are they any good?

By the way as an Aussie, I for one want to see NZ in SA with us next year.......imagine if we played each other, how weird would that be!!!!

tell me mate are you maybe participating in Asian cup as continental competition or you have Oceania cup or something like that where are participating Australia,NZ,Fiji and other nations of that part of the world...?

[ARSHAVIN!]

tell me mate are you maybe participating in Asian cup as continental competition or you have Oceania cup or something like that where are participating Australia,NZ,Fiji and other nations of that part of the world...?

Hi there, I'm back! Anyway, in 2007 we began competing in the Asian Cup as, frankly, we were hammering all the island teams in Oceania including NZ and were playing nowhere near enough regular football. From there on we began competing in the Asian world Cup qualifiers and in my opinion it has improved the quality of our national team. We are playing regular footy now against top teams and have become a more consistent and solid outfit.

[Curt.B]

England defence is going down the drain:

-A Cole probably at the peak of unfittness come world cup
-Wes Brown broken foot. That can mean none other than the Neviller...
-Leighton Baines looked very unimpressive vs Egypt.
-Terry playing in some of his worst form. (Though was he better vs Egypt?)
-Ferdinand simply shouldn't make the squad. He is overated and has only played about 10 games this season. Did anybody see him himself when Ronaldinho ran at him in the Champions Legaue tie in Milan?