No One Asked Me But… (June 3, 2015)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… I want to thank the FBI for protecting my family from FIFA. That may sound like some dreaded disease or the name of miniature poodle; it is however, the acronym for the Federation Internationale de Football Association headquartered in Switzerland.

Since the United States is a third rate power in the world of soccer, one must wonder why the FBI is wasting time investigating corruption in this organization. While the NSA monitors all cell phone calls in America, we are continually surprised when a terrorist event takes place. Maybe the FBI could spend a little more time helping the NSA in this area.

I have no problem with Bill and Hillary Clinton receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking engagements. The Republican outcry against this is disingenuous at best and hypocritical at the worst. What a person is paid for their services is between that person and the person paying them. This is the essence of the free enterprise system that the Republicans champion. However, the FBI might want to spend some time searching the e-mails of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the same types of bribes and influence peddling they found at FIFA.

I would not suggest that I know that the Clintons have done anything illegal. However, if the FBI has time to investigate an international sports organization, I would hope they have time to investigate possible national corruption.

Alexander Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry, stated this is “another case of illegal extraterritorial application of U.S. laws.”
This is the very thing that got us involved in Iraq. We decided Sadam’s violation of human’s rights was our responsibility to correct and we now have a destabilized Middle East.

The Russian President Vladimir Putin has jumped into the fray. He says the investigation was an attempt on the part of America to derail Russian’s hosting of the World Cup. I hate to inform Mr. Putin but very few Americans are concerned about who is hosting a sport that brings its own riots with it. Our inner-cities can riot without the help of soccer, thank you.

Sometime in the late 1800’s, an American soccer player realized he could “matriculate the ball down the field,” as an old football coach of mine use to exhort us to do, more efficiently if he were to pick up the ball and run with it. When an opponent tackled him, the game of American football was invented.

In the early 1900’s, another coach decided you could move it even more efficiently if you were to throw it down field. This caused the shape of the ball to change from round to spherical making it easier to pass. Eventually this led to “deflate-gate.”

Except for the elementary school playground, soccer all but disappeared from American society. In the early 1950’s, each elementary school day had a physical education period and a regular classroom teacher was responsible to see that children were involved in some form of physical activity.
I am not sure what the girls did during P.E. as the girls were on the other side of the school where the grass grew.

As for boy’s P.E. the teacher, who was usually less than enthused about the idea of monitoring P.E., found that if he/she had two members of the class choose up sides and threw out a bouncy ball, he/she could have peace and quiet as he/she retreated to his/her classroom. We liked to play softball but softball was a game with rules and students were armed with a bat and a hard ball. Softball required a high degree of supervision, not so with soccer. Soccer had no rules other than if you scored more goals than the other team, you won.

The first boy selected was always Hillary Criters. Yes, his name was Hillary. No, I do not know why. However, he was always the first one chosen.
It was not because he was fast or had any special soccer skills. He was the first chosen because he wore engineer boots. We wore none of those “woosie” shin guards and a good kick from Hillary’s boots could have you limping for days.

The fat kid always played goalie. It was many years later that I discovered there were positions, other than goalie, in soccer; or that one could be off sides. It was only after watching my grandson play soccer in high school that I learned the game had a number of rules.

Our soccer field was a graveled area; not sand, gravel. This area served as our softball field as well.
We also played bicycle polo in this area. Bicycle polo was an after school and weekend activity. It was played by the same, or lack of same rules, as our soccer games. We played it with croquet mallets and a croquet ball.

I well remember the day that one of my best friends was headed for the goal when I stuck my mallet handle in the spokes of his front wheel. He went head first over the handlebars and skidded along the gravel. After a fistfight that would make hockey fans proud, we sat together and picked the rocks out of his arm. We then retired to his garage and replaced the broken spokes.

What is interesting to me is that IRS has also jumped into this indictment of FIFA. The IRS is an organization that does not follow a whole lot of its own rules. A large number of its employees have failed to pay their taxes and it can’t seem to make an American like Al Sharpton pony up the $4 million he owes in back taxes; however, they have indicted FIFA for tax violations.

One must question what jurisdiction the American FBI and IRS have over the Swiss-based FIFA. It is similar to America’s concern over violence in the Middle East. We can’t curb the gang related murders taking place in places like Baltimore, Washington D.C., Chicago, or anywhere else for that matter. Stating they lack the manpower to fight terrorism, the FBI has called on local police for help. Maybe if the FBI and NSA worried more about the terrorist threat and gang activity in the United States and less about world soccer they would have the manpower needed to make Americans safe at home.

Thought of the week…“The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn’t move, kick it until it does.”
– Phil Woosnam
Welsh football player/manager