BFF   

“A former England caretaker manager was at the centre of extraordinary events on the final day of preliminary qualifying in Asia for the 2014 World Cup. Peter Taylor’s Bahrain, needing a nine-goal turnaround to progress to the next stage, beat Indonesia 10-0 in a fixture that may yet attract closer investigation from Fifa, but were denied a place in the next round by Qatar’s 86th-minute equaliser against Iran. Indonesia had their goalkeeper sent off after two minutes. The replacement let in a potentially pivotal ninth goal eight minutes from the end. Included in the final tally were two penalties. The referee for the game, Andre El Haddad of Lebanon, has been involved in controversy before. Last year, he took charge of a qualifier between China and Singapore that saw him make several hotly contested decisions. China won 2-1. Taylor, who took charge of England for one game in 2000, was criticised for taking the job in Bahrain, where the pro-democracy movement has been brutally suppressed……….”

Odd: 10-0, especially when the best players of Bahrain are banned by the ruling al-Khalifa clan from playing for joining the protests. I know countries like Indonesia and India are lousy in football/soccer (they are even worse in the real NFL Football). But that is unusual. I am not saying they paid off the Lebanese referee, or that they paid off the Indonesian players and coaches, or that paid off everybody; not even with Saudi money flowing to the potentates in Manama. This is worse than when Saudi Arabia lost 0-6 a few years ago to, I forgot, was it Germany or Argentina or Fujaira or Vanuatum, or was it Fiji?

(FYI: the Turks are in the middle of an investigation of ‘game fixing’ scandal).
Cheers
mhg


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