Despite us hanging FIFA out to dry with our take on the disgraceful ticketing and other issues around the World Cup in 2026 on our recent Episode 16, here we are, 9 episodes later and we cannot ignore another scandal and another blatant attempt to take the piss out of fans in favour of a desire to MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY.

And this was recorded BEFORE Donald Trump "won" the completely fictitious "FIFA Peace Award", which I am certain we would have caned in this episode had we recorded after the World Cup Draw debacle.

We hate the World Governing Body of the game we love and think that every other fan will have the same opinion.

Welcome to Episode 25 of The Half & Half Scarf Football Podcast with Nick & Dom.

We do however start with a celebration of:

• Scotland
• Northern Ireland
• Wales
• The Republic of Ireland
• Norway (Dark Horses to Win The World Cup)?
• Curacao
• Cape Verde &
• Haiti

We look at the demise of Italian football at international level and why the FIFA qualification process makes it harder to qualify from Europe than most other regions - and why FIFA seem to love this? Thanks to Pellegrino Riccardi & Mark Mortimer on Linkedin for sharing the following link on this:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pellegrino-riccardi-24425a9_italys-football-collapse-a-leadership-activity-7396152496743661569-HuAF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGZUtIB7fehCgVOGNaPEGmSPZrP2n-4paI

Why attracting 48 teams to the tournament is a great idea for FIFA but why they also don't want ANY of the minnows to progress beyond the initial group stages.

Finally, we also consider final 4 seeding - which is an utter sham and a fix and why CR7 Cristiano Ronaldo is the ONLY player in world football to warrant the execution of a never before used Article 27 of the Governing Body Rules - setting him on probation for a recent red card for violent conduct rather than taking his ban, whereas the bans seem to be remaining in place with a case to answer for two other players in EXACTLY the same situation.

Is this also MONEY related, or just a case of "who you know"?

Whatever, it is, it is yet another disgrace!

We think proper football fans will enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.

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