…but still no word if the same is true for Lionel Messi.
Archive for the ‘2008 Olympics’ Category
After the CAS ruling, Diego and Rafinha are allowed to play in the Olympics
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008Messi will NOT be playing the Olympics
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008On kind of a loophole. According to the Court of Arbitration for Sport:
"The Olympic Football Tournament Beijing 2008 is not included in the Co-ordinated Match Calendar and there is no specific decision of the Fifa Executive Committee establishing the obligation for the clubs to release players under 23 for this tournament. The requirements to justify a legal obligation of clubs to release their players for the Football Tournament Beijing 2008 on the basis of customary law are not met."
Two cool Olympic-related posts (and I just learned something new)
Monday, August 4th, 2008After all the drama that happened around Lionel Messi wanting to play for Argentina in the Olympics instead of staying with Barcelona for that time period, Fifa is now reviewing the U-23 law for football clubs. They’re doing it now so the issues that came about with the whole Messi situation don’t come up during the next Summer Olympics, held in London on 2010. Also, Chris Rivers over at EPLTalk has a great article on how the U-23 law is affecting Premier League clubs already.
I had no idea about the U-23 law until I thoroughly read these two articles. The way it works under current Fifa law is this: all clubs must release all of their players that are 23 or younger to international play when the time comes. Each international team can also draft a maximum three players that are over 23. I totally didn’t know this and I’m happy to have learned something new today.
This issue has popped up before during my short life as a footie fan: in late 2007, there was a big row over the amount of players that clubs were going to lose to the upcoming African Cup of Nations tourney…Fifa didn’t get involved in this. I’m not sure if they’ll actually do anything this time but since this complaint has come up before, they’ll need to actively confront it at some time. That time may be now.
Random News 8/3/08 (Gol TV, Bojan Krkic, Messi, Ronaldo)
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008Just some things that I found…very interesting:
GAME OF THE DAY: Arsenal v. Real Madrid in a Emirates Cup game on GOL TV at 11AM EST.
Also according to their homepage (which is kinda buggy right now along with the rest of the site), GOL TV will no longer be available on Dish TV, which is a BIG problem for me. But I just checked and it’s on right now, so I dunno. Needless to say, I will have some SERIOUS issues if this happens and WILL consider breaking my contract for a move to DirectTV if this is true. Will call Dish later on today to confirm this. TV rights football have a very interesting role in the business of Soccer-I don’t fully understand this role so I’ll be researching it more and more. (Courtesy GOL TV).
Apparently, Arsene Wenger has expressed interest in Barcelona teen wunderkind Bojan Krkic. As Krkic came up through the Barcelona youth league, Bojan isn’t leaving them anytime soon if you ask me. Still, it must be nice for Bojan to be wanted and to get recognition as a great player from some like Wenger (Courtesy FC Barcelona Blog)
Speaking of Barcelona, Xinhua News Agency discuss how Lionel Messi will be joining Boca Juniors star Juan Roman Riquelme in the midfield of the Argentinian Olympic Soccer team. It’s a general news article BUT it hyped me to the fact the Argentina’s first games is against the Ivory Coast. So it’s Messi/Riquelme/Mascherano/Gago/Aguero vs. Cissé/Eboué/Kalou/Touré/Zokora. That’ll be good. (Courtesy Xinhua News Agency),
Setanta’s got a story that Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) may move to the Premier League. With this, all he’ll have to do is join a Bundesliga squad afterwards and he’ll have played in every marquee football league. Unfortunately the link’s broken as of this post. Will remove it if things don’t shape up (Courtesy Setanta)