Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} World Cup Whackoff by D.Blue FIFA announce ridiculously packed World Cup schedule. Four matches will be played each day during the group stage of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, FIFA has announced. The group games will be played over a 12-day period, with matches not being assigned to particular venues until after the finals draw in March 2022 in order to choose optimal kick-off times to suit television audiences in different countries as well as supporters out in Qatar. Kick-off times for the first two rounds of matches will be 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm local time (10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm in the UK), and with the stadiums all within a 40-mile radius of each other it will enable supporters and media to realistically attend two games on the same day. For all but three games there will be a three-day rest period in between. There will also be no need for teams, supporters or media to spend time flying or taking long rail or road journeys between matches. Kick-off times in the final round of group games and knock-out round matches will be at 6pm and 10pm local time (3pm and 7pm UK time). The tournament’s opening match will be played at the Al Bayt stadium in Al Khor on Monday, November 21 in a match which will feature the host country. The 2022 final venue is the Lusail Stadium in Doha, with the showpiece game to be played on Sunday, December 18. A start date has not yet been fixed for the European section of World Cup qualification. The announcement comes two years to the day since the 2018 World Cup final. Meanwhile, a report to the UN Security Council has highlighted the continued existence of “structural racial discrimination against non-nationals” in the country’s construction sector. Around two million migrant workers are involved in helping to build World Cup venues and other tournament-related infrastructure. The local organisers, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, employ around four per cent of construction workers in the country and were commended by the report’s author on the measures and safeguards they had implemented in relation to timely and reliable payments and living conditions. However, workers’ representatives still called for there to be non-discriminatory minimum wage protections and more liberal immigration rules. The Supreme Committee were praised for their work on safety, but the remaining 96 per cent of the construction industry was deemed to have failed to reach the required standard, and the report called on the national government to take urgent action. The UN’s special rapporteur for racism, Tendayi Achiume, who wrote the report, said a “de facto caste system” existed in the country “according to which European, North American, Australian and Arab nationalities systematically enjoy greater human rights protections than South Asian and sub-Saharan African nationalities”. FIFA said in a statement: “Ms Achiume, who visited a stadium construction site in November 2019, characterises these measures as ‘impressive changes’ and ‘sweeping reforms’ implemented for FIFA World Cup workers and calls for these heightened standards to be expanded to benefit all workers in the country. “FIFA supports that recommendation and is working with its partners to expand the systems developed for construction workers to other sectors directly linked to the FWC 2022 tournament as the preparation for the event advances. “FIFA will continue to work with its partner the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy and other entities in Qatar and worldwide to further promote a positive human rights and environmental legacy of the event. “These efforts include, besides the protection of workers’ rights, and innovative environmental solutions, a strong commitment to an inclusive tournament experience for all and a firm stance against discrimination of any kind.” WDF Cups. Following consultation between the World Darts Federation, the Danish Darts Union and the Hungarian Darts Federation, the decision has been made to cancel the WDF World Cup and WDF Europe Cup Youth for 2021. WDF Virtual Cup 2020- The Men & Overall. Congratulations to Patrik Kovacs of Hungary for winning the 2020 WDF Virtual Cup Singles in a thrilling 6-4 victory over Alan Soutar of Scotland. WDF Virtual Cup 2020 – The Ladies & Overall. Congratulations to Fallon Sherrock for winning the Ladies WDF Virtual Cup Singles and clinching the first WDF Virtual Cup for England with her teammate Lorraine Winstanley! Congratulations to Ksenia Klochek for her second place finish in the Ladies Singles! WDF Virtual Cup 2020 – Finals Sun 8/11 and Wed 11/11 LIVE. We have reached the finals of the inaugural WDF Virtual Cup! We have all been treated to some exciting high level matches in the knockout stage streamed by USA Darts. Sun Nov 8 1700 UTC Womens Final Fallon Sherrock (England) vs Ksenia Klochek (Russia) Wed Nov 11 2000 UTC Mens. WDF Virtual Cup 2020 – Semi-Finals & Follow Live Stream, SCHEDULE. Semi-Finals: Martin Adams (England) vs. Patrik Kovacs (Hungary) Irina Armstrong (Germany) vs. Ksenia Klochek (Russia) Alan Soutar (Scotland) vs. John Williams-Jones (Wales) Fallon Sherrock (England) vs. Diane Gobeil (Canada) WDF Virtual Cup 2020 – Quaterfinals & Follow Live Stream, SCHEDULE. We have reached the Quarterfinal round of the WDF Virtual Cup 2020! There have been some great matches in the knockout rounds, and we want to thank USA Darts for the job they have done streaming many of these matches. There are 8 different countries represented in both the Womans. WTF . World Cup is all about? . Qatar is the first west Asian nation and also the smallest country to host a FIFA World Cup So What is it all about? 1. What are the dates for the 2022 championship? Mon, Nov 21, 2022 – Sun, Dec 18, 2022. 2. How many countries have won the World Cup? Brazil has won the most world cups, with a total of 5. Following Brazil are Germany and Italy, with 4 wins each. Following these are Argentina, Uruguay, and France with 2 wins each. 3. How often is it? The FIFA has been played every four years since the inaugural tournament in Uruguay in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of World War II. 4. Who is hosting the 2022 Contest? The Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup bid was a bid by Qatar to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. With a population of 2 million people, Qatar will be the first Arab state to host the World Cup. 5. Why is FIFA every four years? The first and main reason why the World Cup is only held once every four years is due to the vast amount of qualification matches. 6. How old is it? The championship has been awarded every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. The current champion is France, which won its second title at the 2018 tournament in Russia. 7. Will US qualify for 2022? For 2022, the top six ranked teams in the Fifa rankings as of June 2020, will participate in the Hexagonal round robin without having to play any pre-qualifying games. These were 7 quality pieces of information, we hope you will find them below! Want more takes? read about Global environment If you have anything to add – please write us a comment below. World Cup Team Revealed. After a fair amount of tinkering, the site McDonald’s Official Fantasy World Cup team can be revealed! Before checking out the World Cup team, make sure that you join the community in our McDonald’s World Cup Fantasy Football League. The 1st PLACE manager will WIN A REPLICA WORLD CUP SHIRT of their choice. To be a part of the FF Community Shield, manually enter our league code KZN8PFHP , or click the graphic below. Strategy. Before setting up the team, the rules were studied closely and the overall strategy decided. With a number of key rules that can potentially maximise points, it’s important to plan things out properly first. You can check out a handy ‘How to Play’ guide that we’ve written, over on Fantasy Football Pundits, to help you with this. 1. We decided to spread funds across the squad to maximise options for manual substitutions . It pays to be organised here, as forgetting to make these subs after each day of games, could result in leaving premium players on the bench. 2. With up to six days in each round and captain changes permitted, we’ve opted for five premium attacking players, to maximise captain returns. 3. With four of the big teams having their most difficult group game first, followed by their easier games, we’ve made the decision to build a team for Round 1, with a planned Wildcard for Round 2. 4. We plan to use Bench Boost in either the Round of 16 or Quarter Finals, where there’s a bigger budget, extra time could result in more minutes, and all teams are going all out for a winning result. 5. We hope to deploy the Maximum Captain booster in either the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals or Final. With these rounds played over less days, and results less predictable, it will be more challenging to exploit captain change rules and land on the best player. Defence. With manual substitutions available, it’s important to have players that start here. We decided to go with a couple of premium players for our World Cup team, alongside cheaper options who appear in the first days of each round. The theory here is that no clean sheets will be left on the bench, if a cheaper player performs then he stays in, if not, he’s replaced with a premium option. The young Nigerian keeper Uzoho (4.0) , has emerged as a rare 4.0 million starter, so in an effort to keep funds tight, he was the first name on the team sheet. Appearing in Group D, we were then looking for a more premium keeper from Group F, G and H, since they all appear in the days after Nigeria play. The key options were Neuer, Courtois and Ospina. It was felt that there are some question marks over Neuer’s fitness and whether he is the key starter. Courtois was a strong choice, but we felt that at 6.0 million, there were better options from Belgium defenders. Coming in slightly cheaper, in a strong Columbian defence, Ospina (5.5) was given the position. For the five defenders in the World Cup team, we wanted a couple of premium options, plus some cheaper players capable of attacking returns. Belgium have a very easy opening game against Panama, plus they play in a 3-5-2 system with wing backs. Therefore, we’ve opted for Meunier (6.0) as a potential out of position prospect, who’s more than capable of attacking returns. The other premium teams hotly tipped to have strong defensive outcomes are Germany, Spain, Brazil and France. Spain and Brazil were ruled out, due to the difficulty of their opener. We considered Umtiti for France, and may still swap to him, but right now it’s Hummels (6.0) who get’s the nod. Elsewhere, we considered a number of options who are heavily involved in set pieces. Granqvist of Sweden and Rodriguez of Switzerland are both on penalties, which is always tempting. Granqvist (5.0) had the easier fixture, against South Korea, so we’ve put him in for the first game. Completing the defence, we wanted a couple of cheaper options. Hegazi (4.5) and Pouraliganji (4.5) both pose an aerial threat. We don’t hold out much hope given the fixtures, but Egypt are in Group A and Iran in Group B, so they get an opportunity in the opening days, before being replaced by more premium players. Attack. In the attacking positions, we wanted to get reasonable number of premium players for the World Cup team, to exploit the strong fixtures and give a range of captain options throughout Round 1. There were specific fixtures that caught our eye, which we definitely wanted cover for. We decided to spend big for these games, given the lure of the captain armband. Friday 15th June – Egypt vs Uruguay. Saturday 16th June – France vs Australia. Sunday 17th June – Germany v Mexico. Monday 18th June – Belgium v Panama. Tuesday 19th June – Columbia v Japan. For Uruguay, we were selecting between Suárez (10.5) and Cavani (9.5) . There’s not a lot to split their statistics at domestic and international level. Suarez is on penalties, but Cavani takes direct free kicks. Suarez’s World Cup campaigns tend to be full of controversy, so in an attempt to save some vital funds, we went with the cheaper Cavani. In the France squad, we considered Griezmann (10.0) , Mbappe (9.0) and Giroud (9.0). This was another tricky one, but it was felt that Griezmann should get the greater minutes, even if he doesn’t play as centrally. He’s on penalties and indirect free kicks/corners, which was also a factor. Another dilemma emerged for Germany assets, between Werner and Muller who are both pried at 9.5 million. Werner is a forward and should player higher up, whereas Muller is classed as a midfielder. Neither are on set pieces, plus Werner is the greater rotation risk. This decision is still subject to change, it is more of a gut feeling decision to select Werner (9.5) . There’s plenty of choice in Belgium attackers, with Hazard, Lukaku and De Bruyne all priced at 10 million. Hazard is classed as a forward, which slightly reduces his appeal. We felt that Lukaku could be rotated, and we didn’t trust Hazard enough for his price. Therefore, Kevin De Bruyne (10.0) get’s the place, with plenty of set piece responsibility. Finally, we wanted a Columbian player, for their easy game against Japan on the final day of Round 1. Rodriguez (9.0) is the star here, plus he hogs all of the set pieces, so his inclusion was a no-brainer. Elsewhere in the midfield, we had 16.5 million left to spend on the final 3 positions in our World Cup team. We don’t hold massive hopes for these players, but if one of them manages a rare goal/assist, or is involved in a clean sheet, it should provide a solid 3+ points. We wanted a Brazil player, so chose Casemiro (5.5) due to his high ownership and relatively cheap price. His statistics on a domestic and international level are reasonable. Carrassco (6.5) becomes our third Belgium player, they do arguably have one of the easiest games on paper. He is the opposite wing back to Meunier, although classed as a midfielder. He should be able to chip in with some returns. Lastly, Sanchez (4.5) takes the final place. He’s a nailed started for Columbia, but unlikely to return as a defensive midfielder. 2 or 3 points will do, he’s probably not going to be too useful for our team. These players may be changed. Round 1. Here’s how the World Cup team lines up for Round 1 . We have a 3-4-3 formation, but this may change once manual substitutions are made. Cavani takes the armband as the first premium attacker to feature: low returns would mean that Griezmann, Werner, De Bruyne are allowed future opportunities. It’s likely that Uzoho, Casemiro, Hegazi & Pouraliganji will make up the substitutes bench by the end of the round. The team is lacking any coverage from Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Croatia or Poland, who’s chances we rate highly. We wanted Messi , but his price tag of 12 million was just too high at this stage, with the fixture not tempting enough. Portugal and Spain players are likely to be brought in on our wildcard , following their Round 1 matchup. Croatia should do well against Nigeria, but we didn’t have the room for their premium attackers. Poland, with Lewandoskwki in particular, should perform well against Senegal. We will be looking to own him for their final group game against Japan, if qualification is still at stake. If you’re interested in playing World Cup Daily Fantasy Football with us and many other community members this summer, please download the FREE Starting 11 app today by clicking the banner below – available on Android & iOS. Check out our World Cup Daily Fantasy Preview for your guide of how to play! Brazil: Eternal Country of the Future. “Brazil é o pais do futuro e sempre será.” It was a phrase I would hear often during my time living in São Paulo – Brazil’s financial heart. It was the early 1990s, a time when the country was threatening to be a stable and powerful economy. With a dark humour borne from years of political and economic turmoil, the locals repeated their curious expression over and over… “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be.” Behind the wry laughter lay a weary resignation that despite being a country blessed with so many natural resources, and a land so fertile you could grow virtually anything, the elites lacked the will to change the status quo and let this sleeping giant realise its huge potential. By 1994 – two years after the impeachment of president Fernando Collor de Mello – inflation stood at a staggering 47% a month (4,922 % per annum) causing the then Minister of Finance Fernando Henrique Cardoso to launch a new currency, the Brazilian Real, underpinned by stringent monetary supply (M1) controls. To the amazement of many, the real proved to be resilient and inflation fell to levels Brazilians had not experienced for a long time. Indeed, such was the success of his ‘Plano Real’, Cardoso, known by his initials FHC, was duly elected President of the Republic in a landslide election win later that year and took office on January 1 1995. Over the next four years, the stabilised economy started to grow without provoking the old scourge of inflation and FHC was re-elected, defeating the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) in what was his third consecutive defeat in a presidential poll. However, the seemingly unelectable yet tenacious former trade union leader and left-wing firebrand would have his day, and Lula eventually became the 35th president, assuming the position on the first day of 2003. Assuaging the trepidation of the middle classes, and benefiting hugely from a boom in commodity prices, the socialist administration introduced no punitive taxes, continued to liberate markets, and stimulate growth, whilst at the same time pulling millions out of the abject poverty many had become almost resigned to, with social programmes such as Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) and Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance). In January 2008, Brazil became a net creditor for the first time, after decades of being the world’s largest debtor. Feted abroad by world leaders from all sides, and enjoying record approval ratings at home, by the time Lula reached the limit of his two-term mandate, he was able to anoint his successor and the electorate enthusiastically voted in Dilma Roussef as the nation’s first female leader. Brazil was surely, at last, the country of the present. The era of the BRICs was in full swing. Dilma’s first term ran relatively smoothly and she was rewarded with a second tenure (a fourth consecutive for the once pariah-like Workers’ Party). However, just over three years in to her initial term, a small investigation into money laundering at the Tower (Torre) petrol station in the federal capital Brasilia was attracting the interest of some of the nation’s judges looking into much larger scale corruption. On March 17 2014, while Brazil was preoccupied with holding the football World Cup after a wait of sixty-four years, Judge Sergio Moro in Curitiba issued warrants for four supposedly small-time money launderers using the petrol station or, more aptly, its car wash. Most Brazilians didn’t blink an eyelid. Moro decided to dig deeper and it was then that he discovered that one of the ‘doleiros’ (black-market money dealers) had links with Paulo Roberto Costa, ex-chairman of Petrobras, by far the nation’s largest company, presided over by Dilma Roussef herself between 2003 and 2010 when it floated a partial share offering of $70bn, the largest anywhere in the world in history, making the São Paulo stock exchange (Bovespa) second only to Hong Kong almost overnight. In 2006, Petrobras had discovered oil off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the Santos basin. It was a huge field with an estimated 7,500 million barrels of recoverable oil. President Lula himself turned up for the inauguration, and one field was renamed from Tupi (indigenous people) to Lula (also the Portuguese word for squid for ambiguity’s sake). This created a very bullish atmosphere and with so much money in play and so many construction and service contracts up for grabs, the possibilities for corruption were rife. Judge Moro and public prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, realising that this scandal was potentially bigger than any of its many predecessors, decided to use plea bargaining, not usual in Brazil, and the small guys started to ‘sing like canaries’ in return for reduced sentences. What emerged was off the scale. A few top officials in the company had colluded with an organised cartel of sixteen companies to overcharge Petrobras for construction and service work in return for bribes and kickbacks which amounted to just over 3bn US dollars. The names on the list included the cream of the Brazilian business world. Companies such as Odebrecht, the largest engineering and contracting company in Latin America, and Andrade Gutierrez. As more details emerged, the reach of the scandal surpassed all expectation even in a country so accustomed to corruption. So far there have been over one hundred and sixty arrests and 9.5bnUSD is believed to have changed hands. President Dilma Roussef was impeached and removed from office, although many believe that happened because she had let the investigations proceed and other politicians wanted to impede the process. The man who led her impeachment, devout evangelist and ex-president of the Chamber of Deputies (Brazil’s lower house), Eduardo Cunha, was arrested and charged with taking bribes to the tune of 40m USD. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars in March of this year. In May, the newspaper O Globo obtained recordings of current president, Michel Temer, telling the chairman of JBS – the world’s biggest meat- packing company – to keep paying bribes to Cunha. However, on August 2, the House of Deputies narrowly voted to reject a corruption charge, saving him from trial at the Supreme Court and ignoring the estimated 80% of the populace who wanted him put on trial. Many equate what is happening to a coup d’état. The list of the accused reads like a who’s who of the Brazilian establishment, and includes both ex-presidents Lula and Fernando Collor de Mello, seemingly back to his old tricks, as well as the treasurer and chief-of-staff of the Workers’ Party and Brazil’s erstwhile richest man and golden boy, Eike Batista. The scandal has not even confined itself to the country’s borders, with the Peruvian president having been accused of involvement, the director of Argentina’s Federal Intelligence Agency charged with corruption and the president of the Panameñista party in Panama being dismissed. Many Brazilians, whilst fervently supporting the judiciary, who have become celebrities and receive standing ovations in restaurants and other public places, were sceptical that the great and the good would be punished, but then Marcelo Odebrecht was given a nineteen-year jail sentence along with several other previously untouchable billionaires. Public opinion slowly came round to the idea that things might be changing. This faith was severely tested in January 2017 when a plane carrying Supreme Court justice, Teori Zavascki, in charge of the corruption trials, crashed into the sea just off Paraty in Rio state reminiscent of previous ‘accidents’ in the country’s history. Yet, despite that setback, the process moved relentlessly on. Since then, ex-president and expected candidate for the 2018 elections, Lula has been found guilty of accepting bribes to the sum of 1.2mUSD and handed a nine-and-a-half-year prison sentence. His side have described the accusation and subsequent trial as ‘arbitrary, illegal and unjustifiable’, and many people believe the objective is to stop him running for the presidency next year as, according to the New York Times, he is still by far the most popular politician in the country. He has appealed and will stay free during that process. In the three-and-a-half-year period since Operation Car Wash started, the previously robust economy has constricted quite severely, shrinking by 3.8% in 2015 and 3.6% in 2016, making it the country’s worst ever recession. Investment plunged by 10.2% in 2016, this attributed by many as due to excessively high interest rates. Trade barriers remain high, making both imports and exports expensive. Unemployment reached a record high rate of 13.7% compared to the record low of 6.2% as recently as 2013. In the same period, the number of filings for bankruptcy reached a record and Brazil lost its investment-grade rating. On the other hand, the real rose 20% against the dollar in 2016 and FDI picked up in the second half of the year. Inflation stayed relatively low at 4.5%, although that is probably down to lower demand. Carlos Sawall, chief economist at Banco Safra in São Paulo, is cautious: “We see zero growth in 2017, or maybe just a little bit above that. We should not see any big recovery this year; we will have to wait till 2018.” This is refuted by the Finance Minister Henrique Mireilles who believes that indicators ranging from record soya production to a 15% hike in car output to increased supermarket sales. Like many of his counterparts in the west in the last decade, he believes reduced spending together with budgetary and pension reforms, austerity to many economists, will stimulate a recovery. In July, referring to the 2018 General Election, he stated: “If you ask me who is going to win, I believe that a reformist message will win. The populist position has already been sufficiently tested and the result has been negative. The population is aware of this.” The OECD forecast is confident that the government’s focus on overhauling the taxation system and reining in the bloated pension sector is putting the economy back on the right track. They observed that ‘the economy is finally emerging from a severe and protracted recession and that agricultural exports are on a strong footing’. They believe that unemployment will start to decline only towards the end of the year. They noted that inflation has decreased significantly but that this is mostly due to lower demand and they warned that trade barriers remain too high. Market Realist pointed out that the real rose 20% against the US dollar in 2016, which might show market confidence but could also harm an export-led economy. Supporting this apparent confidence was the fact that foreign direct investment (FDI) had picked up in the second half of last year. Arminio Fraga, ex-president of the Brazilian Central Bank and erstwhile associate of George Soros, in an interview with one of the country’s leading newspapers, A Folha de São Paulo, stated: “The Brazilian economy will only start growing again with any impetus when there is clarity as to the political forces that are going to lead the next government. If there is a swing to populism, that could all go pear-shaped. “Whoever gets elected next year, even if Brazil avoids the extremes in its range of candidates, it will be necessary for the next government to have a degree of competency and motivation that is highly implausible,” he added. Not exactly a vote of confidence. So, it would seem that Brazil is embracing austerity almost ten years after the rest of the world, when strong commodity prices and a robust internal market in part stimulated by the central government meant that the crisis left the country relatively unaffected. One thing is for sure, the stakes in next year’s general election are extraordinarily high, perhaps explaining the establishment’s concerted efforts to keep Lula from running, even if that means incarcerating him. And of course, the congress will be composed of many of the same faces or, as Fraga puts it: “The old Brazil will continue to be very well represented, which will make things difficult”. ‘Brazil is the country of the future and always will be’. Maybe it was premature to write the old adage off.