World football thread.

[Edmond]

Them Nor-Ko ladies be killing it.

North Korea win record third U20 football Women'''s World Cup

North Korea secured a record-equalling third victory in the Fifa Under-20 Women's World Cup on Sunday, beating Japan 1-0 in Bogota.


They became the joint most successful side in the football tournament's history, equalling powerhouse nations Germany and the United States.


Choe Il-son's 15th minute winner capped a superb tournament for North Korea, who won every single game in Colombia.


The 17-year-old forward finished as the competition's overall top scorer, winning the Golden Boot with six goals.


North Korea stormed their way through the tournament, despatching the likes of Argentina, the Netherlands and Brazil en route to the semis.


A 1-0 victory over the United States set up an all-Asian final against Japan - who finished as runners-up in the previous tournament in 2022.




Cute how they decided to do a Romanian Bleach event and all have identical haircuts. #fun

And can now enjoy a comfortable trip home in the knowledge their families will still be alive.

[harrybarracuda]

Is great success. Now family can eat.

[harrybarracuda]

By the time Lassana Diarra played his last game as a professional footballer, on 20 October 2018, he had become a “what if?” player. What if he had stayed more than a single season at Arsenal? What if he hadn’t made the catastrophic decision to leave Real Madrid and La Liga for Anzhi Makhachkala and the Russian league? What if he hadn’t made the even more disastrous move from Anzhi to Lokomotiv Moscow? What if he hadn’t had to pull out of Didier Deschamps’s Euro 2016 squad at the very last moment because of a knee problem?Another injury forced his retirement shortly after a rare cameo for his last club, Paris Saint-Germain, for whom he was no more than a squad player.

Diarra was set to remain a footnote in the history of some prestigious clubs, a series of unanswered questions, something of an enigma – but then we have a legal case, which will finally be settled on 4 October, putting the final full stop to a story that has been dragging on for a decade. It is Diarra v Fifa and if the player wins it could completely change the transfer market, possibly leading to anarchy.

There is a chance that this case is how the double FA Cup winner, French and Spanish champion and 34 times-capped French international will be remembered and how he will leave his mark on football, as the man who brought down the transfer market system as we know it. His lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont thinks so. Yes, that Jean-Louis Dupont, the man who also represented Jean-Marc Bosman in his landmark court victory over Uefa nearly 30 years ago.

It all started in the summer of 2014. Things had been simmering for a while between Diarra and his Lokomotiv manager, Leonid Kuchuk. The Frenchman had made an excellent start to what would be his only season with the Russian club but faded after the winter break and found himself on the periphery of the first team in the new year.

Lokomotiv believed that the drop in his performances justified a drop in his salary, which the player did not accept. The relationship deteriorated to the extent that Diarra missed training on false pretences – according to the club – on a number of occasions, prompting Lokomotiv to terminate his contract (which still had three years to run) in August 2014 and sue him for breach of contract.

The Russian club took the matter to Fifa’s dispute resolution chamber, which sided with them and imposed a ban on the player. Lokomotiv also sought financial compensation from Diarra, to the tune of €20m, the amount of the transfer fee they had paid Anzhi for his registration. The matter was referred by Diarra to the court of arbitration for sport, which upheld the Fifa ban on appeal and ordered Diarra to pay Lokomotiv €10.5m plus interest. “I will accept the situation as I have always done in the past,” Diarra said at the time. Well, not quite.

Diarra had not wanted for suitors after Lokomotiv had unilaterally terminated his contract. The Belgian club Royal Charleroi made him an offer, subject to a guarantee from Fifa and the Belgian football association that they would not have to pay the compensation sought by the Russian club; but when no such guarantee was given, Charleroi pulled out of the deal. This, in the eyes of Diarra, Dupont’s legal team, the French players’ union, the UNFP, and its international equivalent, Fifpro, who are named as co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit, amounted to a restriction of trade and a breach of European labour law.

The player had been prevented from engaging in his profession, as Fifa had refused to issue the international transfer certificate (ITC) which the engaging club, in this case Charleroi, needed to register him with the Belgian FA. Diarra’s argument is that he played no role whatsoever in the transfer discussions which took place between Lokomotiv and Anzhi, but still found himself blocked from resuming his career when he was denied his ITC by Fifa. The question now for the court of justice of the European Union (CJEU) is to decide whether Fifa’s refusal to issue the ITC was lawful or not.

As the ITC regulations constitute the very foundation of how the international transfer system works today, should the CJEU find in favour of Diarra on Friday, Fifa would have to overhaul the process which underpins all of it; and, right now, it looks as if it could be the case.

For this to happen, all the CJEU has to do is to follow the opinion issued last April by its own advocate general, Maciej Szpunar, who said: “There can be little doubt as to the restrictive nature of Fifa’s regulation on the status and transfer of players. By their very nature, the contested provisions limit the possibility for players to switch clubs … The contested provisions … necessarily affect competition between clubs on the market for the acquisition of professional players”.

Szpunar added: “The consequences of a player terminating a contract without just cause are so draconian that it is highly unlikely that a player will go down this route. The contested provisions are designed in such a way as to have a deterrent effect and send a chill down each player’s spine.”

The CJEU is not obliged to base its decision on its advocate general’s opinion, but neither can it ignore it altogether. Legal sources believe Fifa could have made a stronger case for itself when outlining the rationale of its transfer system regulations to the advocate general, and may be able to do so at this hearing. As other recent CJEU decisions have shown, notably in the Uefa-Super League case, European law allows for sports governing bodies to make regulatory interventions which restrict competition and would be considered unlawful outside the sports sphere.

The key is whether those governing bodies can provide the evidence that they are not doing so to pursue their own interests rather than those of sport as a whole. Should Fifa fail to demonstrate this in court next week, Dupont may have reason to claim that we are about to enter the age of Bosman 2.0.

“The likely practical outcome of Diarra will be that the transfer system in football, as we know it, will fall,” was one of the conclusions drawn by the Belgian sports law experts and academics Robby Houben, Oliver Budzinski and Melchior Wathelet – himself a former advocate general of the CJEU – when they examined the case in June.

What would replace it in actual terms is not clear, however, apart from one thing: Fifa would probably lose its overall authority over the transfer market, with collective bargaining involving clubs and players becoming the norm, as it already is in other sports.

How a fluid transition from one system to the next could be effected without creating a regulatory vacuum in world football – and cause chaos in the transfer market – is hard to fathom at this stage, which explains why the prospect of the 4 October decision is seen with such trepidation in some quarters – and nowhere more so than at Fifa.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...-as-we-know-it

[david44]

All good , but only for the lawyers so far.

Solution players allowed if born within 20 miles of the club, case solved.

[harrybarracuda]

Good.

Preston striker Milutin Osmajic has been given an eight-match ban and has been fined £15,000 for biting Blackburn defender Owen Beck.
The incident took place in a Sky Bet Championship match between the two Lancashire clubs at Deepdale on 22 September which ended in a goalless draw.

[dirk diggler]

Aberdeen have won all 12 of their matches in all competitions this season and are the only team in Europe's top 50 leagues to have a 100 per cent record.

We're gonna win the league, we're gonna win the league...

[hallelujah]

McTominay absolutely nailing it in Serie A.

https://x.com/centregoals/status/1842243427435520059

Mind you, I reckon even Pennyshop could do it over there.

[hallelujah]

Jurgen - man of the people, defender of the game's values and traditions - Klopp:

Jurgen Klopp returning to football as Red Bull’s ‘head of global soccer’ | Jurgen Klopp | The Guardian



Red Bulls**t: How 'traitor' Jurgen Klopp tarnished his legacy | FootballTransfers.com


Jurgen Klopp told Red Bull move '''absolutely stinks''' as angry fans blast '''hypocrite''' ex-Liverpool boss for '''selling out''' and taking job with multi-club ownership group | Goal.com

[harrybarracuda]

Convicts playing the Chinkies in the WC qualis on Australia Channel 10. Getting the better of it so far.

[harrybarracuda]

The chinkies are bullying the convicts off the park and winning 1-0.

Lucky for the convicts I typed that, they equalised precisely when I hit send.

Just about HT.

[harrybarracuda]

Deep joy, the convicts have prevailed.

Anything that keeps the chinkies and their badly disguised bunch of fake government-ordered supporters away from the World Cup is a good thing.

3-1 to the convicts in second half injury time.

[harrybarracuda]

I don't know why the Greek manager keeps looking like he's dozing off.

This is comedy gold.

[Edmond]

Was Pickford also an Irish international at junior level by any chance.

[harrybarracuda]

Not just him is it?

They all look completely befuddled.

[Edmond]

Finland 1-2 Republic of Ireland

Italy 2 - 2 Belgium

1 out of 2 isn't bad.

Italy 2 nil up with a player sent off after 40 mins.

Italy still top of their group, above France and Belgium after 3 games.

Greece top with 9 points from 3.

[malmomike77]

Its been a long seaoon........

[harrybarracuda]

Fuck these pointless fucking games.

LONDON (AP) — Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka came off with a leg injury during England's 2-1 loss to Greece on Thursday. Saka was substituted in the 51st minute at Wembley Stadium after he was seen feeling the back of his right leg and stretching it prior to Greece's opening goal two minutes earlier.

[hallelujah]

31 years ago today



Robbed by the ref.




Did I not like that.

[Reg Dingle]

Team looks a lot better balanced with Fodder dropped

[hallelujah]

Team looks a lot better balanced with Fodder dropped

Foden (attacking midfielder): 42 caps, 4 goals.

Maguire (defender): 64 caps, 7 goals.

[hallelujah]

I didn't know we were playing tonight, so I'll stick that on and hold the 37 separate United threads I had planned for another night.



Come on lads!



Ooops! My mistake

[hallelujah]

Due to injuries, the England squad the other night didn't contain a single Manchester United player.

The England squad the other night lost against Greece for the first time ever.

United > England.

[Reg Dingle]

^ Get in

The Poundshop Pikey Pele is in action tonight after the England game....

The bookies know a carthorse when they see one...

[hallelujah]

^ Get in

The Poundshop Pikey Pele is in action tonight after the England game....

The bookies know a carthorse when they see one...

I turned it on just as fat calves was tucking it in the corner!

It's coming h...what competition is this again?

[malmomike77]

Corsley for Utd. Please make it happen.