When the J-League was formed in 1992, Japanese football officials had the challenge of trying to create an image for the new league. Soccer had relatively little history in the country and so the officials began, essentially, with a blank slate. The J-League could become anything marketers wanted it to be.One thing Japanese marketers wanted to do was differentiate it from the most popular sport in the country, baseball. One way they would do this was by creating a distinct “soccer” attitude, which would stand in contrast to Japanese baseball players, who are, as Steven Brull wrote in the International Herald Tribune in 1994, “treated like salaried employees, expected to toe the corporate line in all aspects of their behavior.” J-League players, on the other hand were to “act like those in other countries, expressing their idiosyncrasies by celebrating goals gleefully, wearing their hair long, or even growing beards.”
Yokohama F. Marinos player Daisuke Sakata (shockingly) sports long hair and a goatee
Jafar Panahi is a reknowned Iranian filmmaker who chooses to deal with controversial topics in his work. His movies (Crimson Gold, The Circle, among others) have been heralded abroad and banned at home. In many ways, then, it’s incredible that Jafar Panahi was able to make his latest movie, Offside, about women trying to sneak into an Iranian stadium to watch a soccer match.
Panahi knew that taking on the subject of female football fans in Iran would be controversial, and so tried to make his movie quietly so as to avoid the censors. In an interview, he described how even his best attempts to avoid notice were ultimately unsuccessful.
We tried to be very discreet and avoid any mention in the press. However, five days before the end of the shoot, a newspaper published an article stating I was directing a new film. The military immediately gave orders to interrupt the shoot. We were instructed to bring them our rushes to be verified. I immediately announced to the official in charge of cinema in Iran that this was out of the question, and that I would not allow a single soldier during the final days of the shoot. Luckily, there were only a few scenes left to shoot, inside a minibus, so we just left the military zone and continued filming sixty kilometers outside of Tehran.
But the difficulties Panahi faced from overzealous authorities is nothing compared to those encountered by the subjects of his movie. They are the female football fans who so desperately want to watch Iran play Bahrain in a 2005 match that would decide which team would go to the World Cup.
The movie opens on a bus, as Iranian fans make their way to the Azadi Stadium to see the crucial qualifier against Bahrain. The scene is joyous, with fans hanging out the windows and singing, psyching themselves up for the game. But one fan is more nervous than excited. This fan, it turns out, is a she and shes are not allowed into stadiums in Iran.
The female fan (we never find out names of any of the women in the film) is going in disguise, trying to avoid the glare of police at the stadium. But her cover is blown by her own nervousness and she is taken to a holding pen, along with other female football fans.
It’s in this holding pen, which is really just metal barricades shaped into a rectangle, that the majority of the movie takes place. The action of the movie, if it can be called that, is mostly the captive female fans attempting to persuade their captors to let them watch the game. Those looking for dramatic shots of the action on the field will be sorely disappointed; this is a movie about the repressive realities of contemporary Iranian life that just happens to have a crucial World Cup qualifier as its background.
The Azadi Stadium is as good a place as any to show many of the injustices that exist in Iran today. The rationales that the female fans are given for not being allowed into the stadium are as numerous as they are absurd: women will be harmed by the coarse language in the stadium, they should not be looking at attractive young male players, soccer is just not a women’s game, etc. The most argumentative of the detained female fans points out that Japanese women were allowed in to a game at the same stadium and wonders if “my only problem is I was born in Iran?”
The soldiers who become the women’s captors are hardly enthused with having to keep the fans from watching the game. One soldier is completely disinterested in his work, another continually sneaks peeks at the game, and a third laments that his conscription has taken him so far from his family farm. The root of the problem does not lie with the soldiers; they are merely forced to carry out the unjust laws created by those above them.
That seems to be the point Panahi is most interested in making. Individually, Iranians may support female fans’ right to go to the stadium, but the authorities in the country create a system that forces some citizens to oppress others.
Panahi also clearly hopes that Iranians might take collective action to stop these injustices from occurring. When a female fan escapes from her captor with the aid of some male fans, it is impossible not to see Panahi’s desire that more Iranians take a stand against injustice in their country. As the famous quote goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Jafar Panahi
Offside is undoubtedly an interesting, it is not the most engaging movie. Its topic may be unique, but the film itself is all too predictable. The soldier least interested initially in the female fans’ plight comes to see their perspective by the end of the film. The women are detained, but in the end are released onto the streets of Tehran to celebrate with their countrymen and women. Watching Offside, you’ll rarely be surprised by what’s coming next.
The one surprise in the movie is how little soccer there is. Leaving the theater, my friend and I concurred that we would have liked to see shots of what sounded like an intense game. Of course, as we quickly realized, not showing the game was an intentional decision on Panahi’s part and that we had little right to complain. We, two twenty-something American men, had been denied a peek at the game during the ninety-minute movie; women in Iran have been denied the right to watch soccer for their entire lives.
I thank Adam Spangler at This is American Soccer for the heads-up on two interesting articles that Soccer America ran this week on the connections between Latin America and soccer and the United States.
First came SA’s piece on SUM (Soccer United Marketing), a company set up by MLS, to promote all types of games being played in the United States. The article details the work that SUM has done to coordinate the many games being played on American soil, many of which do not involve American teams (in 2005, for example, the US beat Colombia in front of 7,000 fans while close by Mexico played Argentina before 52,000). Because SUM is run by MLS, it has the fledgling league’s interests in mind. It promotes MLS at international friendlies and other games, hoping to attract these fans to the American league.
While SUM appears to be doing a good job of bringing interest and money into American soccer, a second Soccer America article details the disturbing trend of Mexican-American players leaving this country. Mike Woitola writes about several youngsters who have returned to their parents’ homeland to play professionally. One, Sonny Guadarrama of Santos Laguna, has even been called up to the Mexican U-20s. Why are players like Guadarrama going to Mexico to start their careers? Woitola writes that “more Latino players from the USA are looking to Mexico, whose clubs may have a better appreciation for their style of play.†He quotes an American college coach who concurs, saying that MLS ignores smaller, more technical players.
Sonny Guadarrama played at Campbell University before heading to Mexico
While running the risk of sounding like Paul Gardner, I have to agree with the assertion that American soccer in general values size and strength over technical ability. Growing up as a fairly technical but not huge player myself, I was often kicked around by larger and less skilled opponents. I know I’m not alone. Look at the American national team today and who can we claim as truly technically skilled. Landon Donovan, perhaps, but put next to nearly any Brazilian, his skills would pale by comparison. And has America ever produced a true #10? It’s not that we don’t have the talent to produce technical players, it’s that our coaching generally ignores such players. Hopefully, this exodus of Mexican-American players, albeit small at this point, will be a wake-up call.
Another interesting point that this articles raises, albeit indirectly, is the increasing number of players with more than one nationality. As the pace of globalization has continued to increase, the number of people moving across borders has also skyrocketed. The number of people with more than one nationality is also increasingly substantially. Professional soccer players in such a predicament often have a difficult choice to make in terms of the country they represent internationally. Take these few examples: Kevin Kuranyi (eligible for Panama, Brazil, and Germany), Owen Hargreaves (Canada, Wales, and England), and Nery Castillo (Uruguay, Greece, and Mexico). It will be interesting to see in the future how the issue of players with more than one nationality will choose which country they represent.
Nery Castillo (in red) playing for his club team, Olympiakos
Latin America may produce some of the most technically skilled players in the world, but their organization of the game often leaves something to be desired. Those in charge of the game in many countries are inept at best, corrupt at worst. Take, for example, the “Byzantine system” of promotion and relegation that exists in many countries in the region, which Brian Homewood wrote about for Reuters this week. The details vary in leagues across the region, but the point in all of these systems is to protect the big teams from being relegated. By deciding who goes down based on results over several seasons, big clubs experiencing one difficult campaign are often spared from the drop. Homewood gives an example from Brazil, which has historically been one of the worst offenders in this regard:
In 1999, Gama went to court after being relegated and forced the 2000 championship to be scrapped altogether. A massive 108-team tournament called the Copa Joao Havelange was created in its place.
Fortunately, however, Brazil appears to have turned a corner, with a logical system that is enforced. The result, writes Homewood, is that big clubs are going down when they deserve to and “the Brazilian second division, until recently a twilight zone shunned by the public and media, is flourishing with televised matches and attendances often bettering the top flight.”
Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, visited Stanford this past week (thanks to my brother, who’s a student there and told me about it). Laporta gave a speech in which he extolled the virtues of the Catalan club. He talked about Barca’s “pioneering global alliance with UNICEF†as part of the club’s goal of “positioning the social identity of the club.” Laporta continued: “Football makes an incredible amount of money these days, and it is only right that part of the money goes to less fortunate people.” Such statements are a far cry from most professional clubs, concerned only with results and profits.
Joan Laporta speaking at Stanford on May 7
While Laporta clearly has more of a social conscience than most club presidents, I can’t help but wonder if some of these policies are less altruistic than they appear. Barcelona’s decision to wear UNICEF logos on their uniforms will likely win them sympathizers, thus increasing their support, which will probably increase jersey sales, and in the end make them more money. It reminds me of socially responsible policies that some businesses have adopted. While sponsoring charity events is a great thing to do, it’s not like the company is not benefiting from having their name plastered all over the place. That said, it’s better that companies and soccer clubs at least think about social issues, rather than simply focus on their own narrow interests.
Moving to Europe, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the largest bloc in the Scottish assembly in last week’s election. That victory is notable because the SNP advocates Scottish independence. But it’s notable to this blog because the SNP victory came in spite of some high-profile soccer people’s call for Scots to keep the UK united. This is slightly ironic, of course, because soccer is one of the few areas where an independent Scotland exists. In any case, Sir Alex Ferguson and Alex McLeish’s appeals “urg[ing] every patriotic Scot to help maintain Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom which has served Scotland well” failed.
Jonathan Wilson continued his excellent series of pieces on soccer in Eastern Europe, this week taking us to Hungary. There, a Hungarian-American named Geroge Hemingway has bought Ferenc Puskas’s former club, Honved, and is looking bring back their glory days. Hemingway is not doing it completely for nostalgia; he also wants Honved to turn a profit. And as Wilson points out, with “for a gamble of £5m - two years’ worth of investment - there was the possibility of reaping the riches of the Champions League group stage: £40m or so directly, plus the knock-on benefits of increased exposure.” American owners in England are big news, but their dollars are affecting soccer across Europe.
Some quick hits to finish off:
Bill Redlin, the morning announcer on my local public radio station, WAMU, said last Monday that DC United had beaten Chivas 2-1. That was all correct, except that he pronounced Chivas like “shivas,” as in sitting shiva.
In another indication of how far football in England has come in recent times, a post the blog Two Hundred Percent discussed the Forgotten Football Disaster that was the Bradford Fire of 1985. In contrast to the luxurious surroundings of many stadiums today, the folks at Two Hundred Percent say that “You have to think very hard about it, but the simple fact of the matter is that the majority of English football stadia were unsafe in the early 1980s.” Ian Plenderleith said much the same thing in an April 30 interview with the podcast EPL Talk. There will also be those who talk about how great things used to be, but I think it’s important to recognize that advances in stadium safety are beneficial to all.
I recommend Tom Dunmore’s reflections on MLS. As an Englishman watching the Chicago Fire this year, Dunmore is, as one of the comments puts it, a “modern day de Tocqueville.”
And for a bizarre sport to finish off, how about Irish road bowling? Basically, you have to roll a “bullet” down a road, sometimes for miles, and hit a target. It’s big in West Virginia, apparently.
In 2005, just before his country’s World Cup qualifier against Japan, Lee Han Jae said, “To beat Japan and win a World Cup berth has been my dream.” What might at first appear simply to be a typical pre-game quote becomes more interesting when you know that Ri was born in Japan. How is it that a Japanese-born player would dream of one day beating the country of his birth?
Lee Han Jae
Lee is not a typical Japanese player. The Sanfrecce Hiroshima player was born in the Japanese city of Kurashiki, but his family comes from North Korea (thus making him eligible for that country’s national team). Lee is a member of the large, but often ignored, ethnic Korean minority group in Japan.
The Korean community exists largely because of Japan’s colonial past. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, thus forcibly making its people Japanese subjects. For the next 35 years Japan occupied the Korean peninsula and brought many people to Japan as laborers. It was only in 1945 that Korea regained its independence, as Japan’s defeat in World War II led it to relinquish all overseas territories. But many of the ethnic Koreans living in Japan remained in that country and their descendants, like Lee Han Jae, make up the Korean community in Japan today.
Koreans in Japan have experienced widespread discrimination. Japanese identity has long been based on the idea of ethnic homogeneity, an idea challenged by minorities like the Koreans. For a long time, Korean immigrants’ children were denied citizenship, despite the fact that they were born in Japan.
The Korean community in Japan has itself experienced divisions. The war that split the peninsula into two countries soon after World War II also affected ethnic Koreans in Japan. While most came from South Korea, some hailed from the North. Those who supported North Korea formed the Chongryon organization to support the communist government’s ideals. This group continues to receive support from the North Korea government today. A large part of this money funds schools in Japan, which, not surprisingly, have a pro-North Korea bent.
Despite its mistrust of the North Korean regime, the Japanese government tolerates such schools because they are not officially accredited. As University of Iowa anthropologist Sonia Ryang writes in her article How to Do or Not Do Things with Words: The Case of Koreans in Japan, “In exchange for not being academic schools, Chongryun schools had carte blanche to teach about North Korea, Kim Il Sung and other political matters they themselves deemed to be important” (226).
German team FC Schalke 04 are currently in first place in the Bundesliga. If they win the championship, it will be their first league triumph since 1958. A Bundesliga title would be quite an achievement for a club that had an estimated 100 million euro debt only a few years ago.
This turnaround has been made possible in no small part by a massive sponsorship deal with Russian energy giant Gazprom. This lucrative sponsorship (25 million euro per year, which beats out Bayern Munich’s 20 million euro deal with Deutsche Telekom) has helped Schalke immensely, but may ultimately prove even more beneficial to Gazprom.
All sponsorship deals are intended to bring benefits to the corporations that sign them. But the Gazprom deal is different for two reasons: 1) the company is a joint venture of private Russian industry and the Kremlin and thus reflects political as well as economic interests, and 2) the results Gazprom hopes the deal will achieve are far more clear than in most sponsorship agreements. As Rob Hughes wrote in the International Herald Tribune last year, the deal “represents a direct line connecting soccer, commerce and political power.”
Created from the privatization of the former Soviet natural gas industry, Gazprom has never completely lost its connection to the Kremlin. Today, it is a public company, but one in which the Russian government continues to maintain a majority stake. It only began allowing foreign ownership of its stock in 2005.
As a company controlled by the Kremlin, Gazprom has often reflected official government policies. The most obvious manifestation of this has been the recent occasions in which Gazprom has cut flows of gas to neighbors with which it has disputes. Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia have all felt the wrath of Gazprom.
Ukranians protest Russian gas cuts in 2005
As gas was cut off to these former Soviet states, supply to Western Europe was also affected. Pipelines which normally carry gas through Eastern Europe ran dry, meaning access to gas at the Western European outlets decreased and prices increased. Not surprisingly, some anger arose among those in Western Europe, who began to wonder if Gazprom (and thus Russia) could be counted on to reliably supply energy. A German resident of Gelsenkirchen, where Schalke is based, told the BBC in March, “The Russian government, by the leverage which they have over several energy firms, has found it easy to put pressure on Ukraine, on Lithuania and Latvia. Why should they one day not put pressure on Germany?”
It is this mistrust that Gazprom’s sponsorship of Schalke is intended to counter. And what better way than to sponsor a popular team in Germany, a country which gets nearly a third of its gas from Russia? After all, how can you hate the team whose money just helped your team buy a new striker?
Gazprom officials have been clear that improving the company’s image is a large part of the Schalke deal. Claus Bergschneider, head of marketing for Gazprom’s German operations, has said, “In marketing, you have a natural sequence of ‘Know It, Love It, Buy It’.”
Knowing Gazprom and perhaps loving it will come as Germans see the company’s logo on Schalke’s shirts. At least, that’s what the company is hoping. By improving its image with the German people, Gazprom wants to lower the chances of the German government seeking out other energy suppliers.
Recent changes in EU laws also now make it possible for Gazprom to sell directly to German consumers. The Russian company hopes that its name being seen by millions of soccer fans will lead them to arrive at the last step of the “natural sequence” and buy gas from Gazprom.
Two weekends remain in the German Bundesliga. If Schalke can win their remaining matches, they will become champions for the first time in nearly half a century. It is nearly certain that the team from Gelsenkirchen will be playing in the Champions League next year. Schalke’s fans will be ecstatic to see their team’s royal blue jerseys playing in stadiums across Europe. And carried on these jerseys will the logo of Gazprom, a company with as much to gain from Schalke’s success as the team itself.
Yes! I’m improving European opinions of a Russian oil monopoly!
The economics of the Premier League (EPL) and the global rush to buy English teams proved to be the topic du jour this week. You know the league is making a splash worldwide when it gets a long article in the American news weekly Time Magazine. That article showed how the EPL has gone from a troubled and unprofitable league in the 1980s to last season, when it earned around $2.5 billion in revenue worldwide. Adam Smith writes that “The Premiership’s triple play - losing the hooligans, luring big money at home, expanding overseas - has made it the envy of other sports leagues.”
Losing the hooligans and getting more UK-based money have been necessary prerequisites to the EPL’s success, but it is really the overseas expansions that has made the league into the economic juggernaut it is today. The EPL, for example, gets $1.23 billion a year in TV rights outside of the UK, nearly a quarter of its total income.
This worldwide reach has had both positive and negative effects back home. Sponsors are eager to sign up, knowing their brand will get worldwide exposure. Martin Sullivan, CEO of insurance giant, AIG said his company’s sponsorship of Manchester United wasn’t about the UK market, but instead “buying Asia.”
Flush with cash, English clubs can now lure the best players from around the world with high salaries (there are over 300 foreign players in the EPL). Fans in England have been treated to a footballing master class in the past few years as world-class players have come to their once humble league. But as their league has become more and more financially successful, it has also attracted less wanted newcomers: foreign owners. As Richard Scudamore recently told the Sunday Telegraph, “One of the consequences of becoming of interest globally is that you’re going to attract global interest not just in a fan sense but in an owner sense.”
Many of these new owners are Americans and Mark Zeigler gave a run-down of the Yanks who recently have bought into or are planning to buy into the EPL. The main reason for these wealthy businessmen to buy English teams is, not surprisingly, economic. Ziegler quotes David Carter, executive of USC’s Sports Business Institute saying, “What you’re starting to see is that this isn’t about a love for soccer. It’s about the love of money. These guys understand that sports is a global opportunity for them, and they see an opportunity for growth.”
Americans George Gillett (R) and Tom Hicks (L) recently bought Liverpool
Also unsurprisingly, many English fans are not happy to have their beloved clubs seen simply as growth opportunities. The clubs being bought up have long histories and deep connections to the communities where they sprung up. This connection was evident in local owners (Adam Smith points out in the Time article that Manchester United “was led through much of the ’60s and ’70s by an enterprising local butcher”) who had little interest in profiting from clubs. Indeed, the idea that club directors were not to profit from this work was codified by the FA, as David Conn points out in an article for Sports Illustrated.
The history of the game supports the gut instinct of many fans that these men were supposed to remain true to their own descriptions of themselves as “custodians” of the clubs, and not make money out of them. The FA imposed rules on the clubs’ constitutions that prevented directors being paid salaries and limited shareholders’ dividends.
But, as Conn points out, this rule was largely ignored as teams became publicly listed companies, a change which ultimately made it possible for wealthy investors to come in from outside and take over local clubs.
The economic success of the Premier League is a double-edged sword, especially for English fans. They are happy to see their make money which can buy them better players, coaches, and ultimately success. But they also worry that these profits are bringing in characters who only see potential profit and are ignorant of the clubs’ histories and tradition. Economic success has fundamentally changed the Premier League. The only question is whether these changes are positive or negative.
While the new American investors got the lion’s share of attention this week, Patrick Barclay had an interesting article in the Telegraph headlined Chelsea Owe it All to Yelstin. Barclay writes that the recently deceased former Russian leader “was responsible for creating the so-called ‘oligarchs’, among them Roman Abramovich.” It should also be pointed out that Portsmouth’s new owner Alexandre Gaydamk is the son of Arcadi Gaydamak, another Russian who profited enormously from Yelstin’s breakup of formerly state-run Soviet enterprises. Perhaps Bill Clinton had a Reagan-esque moment with Yelstin in private: Mr. Yelstin, tear down these state-owned monopolies and enrich oligarchs who can later invest in Premier League teams. Perhaps not.
Thanks, Boris!
Private ownership of clubs is becoming more and more commonplace in England, but this is not the case in Argentina, where Neil Clack writes in that “Argentinian law currently states that football clubs must be non-profitable organisations, owned exclusively by supporters.” This law, however, is being questioned because some see it as allowing the notoriously violent barra brava fan clubs to flourish. Writes Clack in the Sunday Herald,
The [Argentine] government looks to Europe and sees that privately-owned clubs don’t have the problems brought by democracy and elections. In Argentina, with hooligan groups counting for so many votes, it is in the interests of club presidents to keep them sweet, supplying them with free tickets and travel, turning a blind eye to criminal activities.
The Argentine police have not been terribly successful in controlling violence wrought by the barra bravas. This lack of success, Clack writes, is partly due to past excesses. Police, Clack writes, “are obliged to take a cautious approach, at first, as a result of the legacy of the military dictatorship, when police brutality was extreme. Nipping the problem in the bud is certainly not the policy as they line up with riot shields in front of the fighting, but taking little action.â€
Argentine police arrest fans in February
There was an interesting series of articles in the Guardian this week on the Arsenal women’s team, including a great set of photos of the team in action. Arsenal has largely dominated the Women’s Premier League (they haven’t lost in the competition since 2003) and this year achieved something new: winning the Women’s UEFA Cup, the equivalent of the Champions League. In doing so, they beat Sweden’s Umea, who can count the brilliant Brazilian Marta in their ranks.
I have to admit that I pay far less attention to the women’s game than I do to the fellas. I do wonder, however, if we may be reaching a sort of critical mass in women’s soccer. Since the first Women’s World Cup in 1991, the competition has been dominated by a few countries (USA, Canada, China, Germany, Norway, and Sweden). Even in the successful 1999 tournament in the US, most of the teams at the competition were extremely poor (see, for example, the Americans’ 7-1 victory over what was promised to be a “strong” Nigerian team).
It would be nice if there were more teams who could put out strong teams in the women’s game. I recognize the many impediments against doing so (most notably, sexist attitudes against women playing soccer in many parts of the world), but believe it’s only a matter of time before this happens. Brazil’s rise in the past few years has been phenomenal. Could England be next?
An Arsenal Ladies player holds her cleats
Though it’s not soccer-related, I was fascinated by a New York Times article on alleged bias in refereeing in the NBA. According to an academic study, “players who were similar in all ways except skin color drew foul calls at a rate difference of up to 4% percent depending on the racial composition of an N.B.A. game’s three-person referee crew.” It’s important to note that this nobody claims that the bias is intentional, or even conscious. The Times reporter, Allan Schwarz, quotes another academic who says that: “There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious, or subconscious, attitudes. When you force people to make snap decisions, they often can’t keep themselves from subconsciously treating blacks different than whites, men different from women.”
In an interview with the radio show Marketplace, Schwarz says that players deny the existence of bias in referees’ decisions, but claims that this does not disprove the study.
I think need to remember this type of bias . . . the whole point behind it is it is not detectable by the person who experiences it. Or certainly not detectable in any accurate manner. It is a phenomenon that can only be diagnosed through a very large amount of interactions and data. And no individual player could possibly amass that type of experience
Others, including the NBA itself, also dispute the results of this study. That said, I wonder what the results would be if someone were to try to do a similar study in soccer. Many European leagues have players of all different backgrounds, although the referees are almost exclusively white. Actually, aside from Uriah Rennie, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a non-white referee in a top level European match. Given that, would there be similar results to those of the study reported on in the Times? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to find out.
Uriah Rennie chats with Sir Alex
Finally, a few quick hits to finish off:
A player in the J-League was suspended for violating the substance abuse policy. It turned out, though, that he had taken an IV filled with a garlic infusion. I don’t know if it’s more strange that he was taking garlic via IV or that he was suspended for doing so.
The blog Rank and Vile reported on the fight to bring a “proper rectangular stadium” to Melbourne. Currently, the local team, the Melbourne Victory, are forced to use the Telstra Dome, a facility designed for Australian Rules football.
It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that African players in Europe were relatively rare. Now, they are everywhere, as a recent Reuters round-up shows.
Ehud Olmert currently has single-digit approval ratings. Not surprising, then, that there have been protests urging him to resign. I like the red card reference used by protesters.
And a bizarre sport to finish off. Parkour, anyone? I have no idea how to describe it exactly, so check out the Wikipedia article on it or the recent write-up it got in the New Yorker.
