The Kick Project

Pic: thejocal.com The 1974 World Cup was the first one I ever saw. By virtue of it being the first one Australia had qualified for, it was beamed live to our shores. I can't remember if I watched any of it live, as it would have been at odd hours here and I was just a kid, but I do remember watching the Socceroos eking out a credible 2-0 loss to East Germany in the rain – Ray Richards skidding across the puddles in what seemed like a 20 yard slide tackle – and I do recall the final. And Cruyff. We lost the great Dutchman last week and it was a sad moment for me, as it must have been for many. In that final, Cruyff with his two-striped kit – he famously refused to wear the tri-stripe Adidas kit – the magical number 14 and the the arrogant, cool of one of the greats in his prime was the undoubted star in the firmament. I didn't know much about football then, but I was Holland all the way. Why? I reckon it was the pop star swagger of the likes of Rep, Neeskens, Ha...

Pic: Daily Mail We at The Kick Project take girls playing sport very seriously. We reckon both girls and boys can gain significant benefits playing organised sports. Increasing the numbers of girls in sport, in particular, is a vital goal for the well-being and health of not only the feminine half of the population, but to all society as a whole. While we respect all cultures, we are often disappointed that some cultures frown on women and girls playing - or even watching - sport. Our position is that we respectfully disagree with that position. But part of the problem we - and other like-minded organisations - face, is that there are too few positives to point to, even if the seemingly "liberal" western world. One case which has come to prominence lately has been here in our home country of Australia. Australian Example The Australian women's football (soccer) team, known as The Matildas recently went on strike, refusing to play unless better pay and condit...

With news that FIFA bigwigs Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and Jerome Valcke have been "red carded" by FIFA and will have to sit out the next three months, it looks like finally the dead wood is being pruned at the world game HQ. However, worse may be yet come. What can be done to get the people's game back to the people? The current danger is that as the poison is leeched from FIFA, nothing will be left. If corruption is as rife as many - including us here at The Kick Project - believe then more will be shown the door and still more, aware that the gravy train has terminated, will move on voluntarily. The result may well be a vacuum at the heart of the world's most valuable sport. The immediate consequences of this may be no Confederation Championships and no World Cup in three years time or beyond. That's bad enough, but the real concern is who or what will fill this void. There are essentially three likely outcomes. One, would be to hand FIFA over to e...

While The Kick Project welcomes the  decision to remove ex-FIFA Vice-President  and head of CONCACAF, Jack Warner from any official role in the world football family, we would caution that this is not enough. While Mr Warner appears to have dragged the game through the mud in the quest for personal aggrandisement, we feel his story should not be allowed to act as a diversion nor should he be a sacrificial lamb. By all accounts, FIFA corruption goes deeper than even Mr Warner's voluminous pockets. FIFA claims that "In his positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, as well as other money-making schemes," But Mr. Warner took himself out of FIFA four years ago and resigned all his official positions. It's no surprise he is non-plussed by the ban. He is  reported to have said on Facebook , "if in September 2015 (some 4 years and 5 months after) the FIFA wants ...

Pic:Lockerdome.com A good friend of The Kick Project, Jared Genser, founder of the human rights activist group Freedom Now, alerted us to this piece he co-wrote with well-known Chinese dissident Yang Jianli, in the Wall Street Journal, on the sometimes fraught relationship between big sporting events and human rights. It's an issue that's dear to our hearts here, especially given the plight of migrant workers employed to help construct the facilities for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 (the same year as the Beijing Winter Olympics) It's Important reading. Let's hope it focusses more attention on the negative impacts of big sport in relation to human rights and social justice so as to better harness the many positive outcomes sport can generate. BEIJING OLYMPIC SCANDAL REDUX August 7, 2015 Beijing has been selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the first city tapped to host both the Summer and Winter Games. In deciding this, the Internationa...

Pic: Ottawacitizen.com Recently, a game between North Korea and Finland became a political - yep - football. During the FIFA Women's Under-20 World Cup in Canada, fans of Korean unification turned out to support the DPRK, aka North Korea, and to show their unbiased approach to the coming together of the two Koreas,  separated after the Korean War 60 years ago. This was intended to make a non-violent statement, using the peaceful focal point of football as the vehicle. All well and good you might say. Not for FIFA. As you can read here in this eyewitness account, a FIFA official moved in and shut the support down.  The official cited FIFA regulations which require there to be no political statements in a FIFA sanctioned game. This looks to be a can of worms, allowing hypocritical applications of the rule to suit common or accepted prejudices. For instance, women are not permitted to attend many games in the Middle East (I recall a Socceroos World Cup qualifier ...

I must admit, I wasn't as moved to gushiness by the German world cup performance as this commentator in Die Welt. But, I accept the contention that the win and the way it was done did much for a nation still questioning itself over two world wars. However, football, even if via a victory in its biggest event, has shown before it can medicate an ailing nation. While Germany wasn't exactly ailing before Brazil 2014, it is still stooping into its future by virtue of its dark past. If the World Cup win allows this generation of Germans to stand a little taller and walk more easily into the future without the burdens of their parents and grandparents holding them back then who can complain? While not allowing any of us to forget history, that has to be a positive for all. Peace has to be good for the losers, even for the initiators of war, not just for the winners. Read more here  Gestures like this from Arsenal's German international Mesut Ozil will certainly help sp...

Hands up if you did... Interesting take on the World Cup and the break-down of national borders it purportedly represents. Read more here 

This was sent in response to my post yesterday on FIFA and how we might democratise the organisation. Looks like a promo for a longer documentary, but not sure. Anyway, its nice work and asks some vital questions, which remain - crucially - unanswered. Check it out.

With so much ado about FIFA's risible descent into farce, there's a lot of accusations and blame being thrown around. While it's fair to say FIFA and its head-honchos have stuffed up big time, many are also casting a jaundiced eye over those who have dipped into the FIFA trough and who would likely benefit from the status quo. Among them are the 180 or so national football associations who failed to join the English FA and others standing for ethics and call for a cessation of the entire voting process - including for the latest World Cup votes - pending a complete review of the corruption allegations (although the FA, to be fair, has a vested interest in having a recount on the World Cup bid as it may have a chance of winning it this time). Among them, I'm sorry to say, is the Australian FFA, rightly lambasted by former player and now commentator Craig Fozzie Foster in the local Australian press (and on his TV spots) on the weekend for falling into line and disgr...

This very good piece from the BBC is a great backgrounder to FIFA's current traipse through the mud of its own making. Highly recommended listening for football fans everywhere. As a not for profit in football, not unlike FIFA in some aspects at its founding, we at The Kick Project are very wary that becoming too tethered to sponsorships and revenue streams can damage our culture irrevocably, as well as, ultimately, that of our sponsors. It serves no longer term purpose of any positive nature. Easy (and appropriate) to be critical of those involved, but let's take the moment for what it is: an opportunity to learn from past mistakes. Lessons for us all here I think.

When I first heard that Qatar has won the 2022 World Cup, I admit I thought it was all over. The World Cup as a magical, beautiful and uniting event was, in 2022, to be run through the mud of vested interests, corrupt decision-making and the special insanity of money over morals. I still feel that to some extent. But this article gives me hope.  It is true that the first Arab World Cup may indeed be a means not only to promote Arab culture in general but can unite the Arab world and allow it to rise to the potential it offered during Europe's Dark Ages, when it effectively ruled the world in cultural sophistication. We can only hope the organisers and FIFA move the event in such a direction.

FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin Hussein, half-brother of Jordan's King Abdullah II, plans to introduce "new work ethics" in Asia, he told AFP in an interview on Thursday. "We want to introduce new work ethics, not ones based on coming from above, but through working hand in hand with the national associations," said Prince Ali, who on January 6 unseated South Korean Chung Mong-Joo as FIFA vice-president. "This is very crucial because sometimes when it comes to work and development and football, they will take a model, let's say a European model, and they want to implement it completely on the continent." The prince has become the youngest member of the FIFA executive committee at the age of 35 after rallying Arab support behind him. "We have different countries, different societies, different economic backgrounds," he said. "We have to build things on a case-to-a-case basis. We want to fulfill that," he added, calling...

This detailed article shows the dangers of using football for politics. Clearly, the Kremlin has dabbled too far into the beautiful game and now it has become a political soup in which us v them battles are waged and where the actual game is marginalised. Clearly, the incident that set off the latest riots in Moscow had nothing to do with football. What is shameful is that football becomes the rallying point for the violence and a means to emphasise ignorant views. It may seem this blog is obsessed with Russia, but its the site of the 2018 World Cup people.....is this really the best the football world can come up with?

Winners of the bid for the 2018 World Cup, Russia, have been given the equivalent on a stud-run down the shinbone as racist nutters in the capital rallied for the bad ol' days in the Red Empire (yeh, I know this is a little old, but I've been on a break...) Not for the first time, football has been used as a popular point of interest or front around which to send all manner of bigoted rubbish, particularly targetting non-white immigrants, students and visitors in Russia, into orbit. How will Russia face this dilemma? Will it allow it all to just simmer away and try and ignore it or will it come down hard, at the risk of alienating some of the government's own support base? They've got 8 years to sort out generations of racism.

A Wall Street Journal article focusses on South Korea's unsuccessful pitch for peace as part of its World Cup bid. Being pipped by similar arguments for Qatar and Middle East peace is no cause for shame as Qatar had more money to throw at FIFA than anyone (Is it just me but doesnt moving stadiums to "third world" countries as Qatar is proposing seems a little redundant in the face of starving hordes? And isnt all that air-conditioning an environmental nightmare and how are poor countries going to afford it when the stadiums are plonked in their backyard?) Meanwhile, the Koreas face off on other sporting fronts . Such a shame, as this article I wrote for Australia's National Times just prior to South Africa (it also popped up in the Jakarta Post and a few other pages), that the Koreas didnt meet in South Africa. Given they could only meet in the late knock-out rounds the chances were always slim, but I for one would have backed a bit of draw-rigging to get them t...