I have spent the last 10 days watching the Champions League and UEFA Cup quarter finals and have reached a conclusion about the standard of referees. Absolutely terrible.
I just finished watching the Tottenham Spanish Cheats match and could hardly believe some of the decisions. Every time one of the long haired Spanish cheats was so much as brethed on it was a free kick. However according to the fat bald Austrian incompetent in charge a rugby tackle in the area is not a penalty, stampng on an opponents head is not even worth a free kick, deliberate handball is not worth a yellow card, pushing in the back from a free kick is not a penalty either but one late tackle and a collapse and roll worthy of an Socar is enough for a red card if you playe for Tottenham. Although I am not a Spur fan I think they have been very badly tretaed after the ridicuous penalty in the first match and the non-award of three penalties tonight. I wonder if UEFA gave the referees istructions to make sure cheats prosper.
It was the same in most of the games. I think only Lubos Michel in the Man Utd Roma game actually had a good match. But he was helped there as Roma gave up after 3.
Bayern Munich also were on the end of a terrible performance in the first match with the award of a penalty for a perfectly good tackle. Man Utd were playing 12 in Roma in the first game and so on. Generally very very poor standards of referee performance. As for some of the acting performances, UEFA have got to introdue video review to make sure retrspective action is taken against the players like Gattuso who fign injury to stop and attack and then when the play is stoped for tretment are suddenly okay, but after the drop ball the ball is kicked way back to the goalkeeper. There is a name for this, cheating and Spanish and Italian teasm are masters at it.
Actually I was wondering how a team found guilty of bribing referees is allowed to compete in the Champions League, AC Milan of course. In addition the level of violence at Italian matches should have led to UEFA kicking them all out. But of course it did not happen, you have to wonder what the punishment would have been if the teams involved were English or Turkish as it seems to me that no matter how bad things are in Italy they never get punished.
The response of the Roma police to the Man Utd supporters was also interesting. Only put ploice on the Man Utd side and then when the Roma fans have run out of missiles to throw, the crowd runs n the terraces towards a barrier separating the supporters, you start to bet the crap out of one set of fans only! Then you justify it afterwards by saying you had no choice. I see when person is lying on the floor and you continue beating him with a stick that is acceptable even he has not attacked you in the first place. Interesting how the Italian mind (assuming they have one) works. They demand that GI's swo shot an Iatlian agen in a car that crashed through a checkpoint in Iraq are handed over for trial but the facists thugs....oops sorry police who attack unarmed supporters and use excessive levels of force have no identification and therefore cannot be prosecuted for what was in effect assault and battery. Hypocrites but what do you expect from a country that tolerates blatant racism and facism on the terraces and generally in life, name me a black Italian National Team soccer player........
I like the old joke bout Italy Q: Why is Italy shaped like a boot? A: Becos you cant get all that shit in a shoe.
Sums it up perfectly I think.
Oh well.
So Friday we have the small matter of Galatsaray beating Genclirbirlgi (I hope). Well they will have to play better than they did last week!!!! But then thats not tooo difficult..just so long as we win and can make sure of a UEFA Cup place for next season to help with the 33million of debt we have accumulated. I have to wonder how that happened coz it certainly is not on transfer fees and salaries!!!!!!
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Genocide or not
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Tulin Daloglu
April 10, 2007
One would assume that the question of whether what happened between Turks and Armenians during World War I constitutes "genocide" is not an important issue in American politics or the American consciousness. Yet for Turkish Americans, it remains a constant source of anxiety and fear of discrimination or reprisals if they express a different point of view. Generations later, even in this country that celebrates freedom of speech and debate, they feel that publicly discussing the issue will engender more hate.
"I can still remember my friends' parents saying, 'What are we going to do if our daughter marries a Turk?' " said Angelina Kara. Born in Istanbul to a French father and a Turkish mother, Angelina, 30, was raised as a Christian, married a Muslim Turk, and lives in California. "These parents never thought while raising their children in Istanbul that [the children] might eventually one day at least date a Muslim Turk. They threatened to cut their children off if they did."
"Non-Muslim communities live within their own circles in Turkey," Angelina said. "They marry within their own religion. Frankly, they feel superior to the Muslim Turks ... I remember visiting my Armenian friends. They were not encouraged to make friends with the Turks. They made friends with other Armenian kids going to the Sunday school at church. During the summer, they were usually sent abroad to their relatives or worked with their fathers."
Angelina's is a unique perspective on Turkish social norms. Not all non-Muslim Turkish families distance themselves from Muslim Turks, but she notes that a significant number prefers to live in a separate world. Angelina and her husband, Tolga, seem to deal with their worlds by celebrating their ethnic and religious differences. Yet she worries that in Turkey, the distance between the two will ultimately jeopardize the country.
In California, this young Turkish American couple sees firsthand the hard work of the Armenian American lobby for a non-binding congressional resolution that would declare the mass killings of Armenians on Turkish soil "genocide." But there is another side. Tolga remembers his grandmother: "Until she died five years ago, she wept for her father. She used to tell stories about World War I, and how the Armenians raided their home in Erzincan late at night and took her father and uncle. Days later, they found her uncle's body dismembered on the side of a small stream. They never found her father."
Tolga says that until he moved to California, he'd accepted the past as a tragedy of war. But his experience in the United States has opened his eyes to how deeply Armenians hate Turks: "One day I saw a young man staring at me in a bad way. I did not understand it, and thought I was being too sensitive. A few days later, I ran into him again, and he stared at me in the same way -- this time pointing his finger. I asked him what his problem was, and he kept pointing -- so I called the police. He was an Armenian, but [because there was no physical altercation] what he was doing was merely an exercise of free speech."
Turkey does not have a great record on free speech -- but that has been changing. Over the last several years, academic conferences and television programs have publicly debated the Armenian accusations. The United States, however, has been less favorable toward such public conversations. Last year, the University of Southern California cancelled a conference titled "Turkish-Armenian Relations: The Turkish Perspective." A press release from the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) read, "The ANCA-WR, working with USC Armenian student groups, Alumni and school supporters, was able to demonstrate to USC officials the misguided and sinister nature of this panel which led to its cancellation."
A few years ago, Armenian students at USC protested the annual Turkish Night organized by the USC Turkish Student Association. The USC Daily Trojan reported that "the dance was shut down for safety," and that a party-goer who requested anonymity out of concern for his safety called the protesters "hostile-looking and intimidating."
Recently, a concert at Brown University titled "The Armenian Composers of the Ottoman Period," in which two Armenian and two Turkish musicians were to perform, was cancelled. Its aim was to bring together Turks and Armenians through music, but the Armenians who agreed to participate faced tremendous pressure to keep their distance from the Turks.
Many Turkish Americans fear the Armenian American community's power in the United States. They don't understand why no doubt exists about what happened between Armenians and Turks. They wonder why no one remembers the murdered Turkish diplomats by Armenian terrorists or numerous silenced academicians. They feel that the "genocide" claims feed an industry -- influential Armenian committees, non-governmental organizations and academics promoting their "truth" -- attached to politics. They understand that politicians need to get elected and must satisfy their constituents' needs. But they also demand an environment free of intimidation and fear.
Tulin Daloglu is a free-lance writer.
Amazing how every discussion comes back to the genocide debate.
Anyway, I only watched two matches this week, the Man. United match and the Bremen - Alkmaar match. Not much of a sample but I thought the referees were quite good in both games.
Now, time to head for the pub for pre-match drinks. Fingers crossed I will come back to this blog sometime tonight in an extremely loud, condescending and offensive manner.
Good on yer Oz Kanka.
I do not intend to discuss in-depth politics here, except perhaps to say that we in Turkey have moved on into the 21st Century. The Armenian `thingie` has been consigned to history !!!
As for tonight, I am wearing red and black and will be screaming, shouting (and yes.... swearing) alongside Oz Kanka for YooRo footie to return to Turkey's FIRST City.......... ANKARA !!!!
Well Oz, if you read the post you would see that I also felt the Man U ref was okay, it was the Tottenham and Milan games that were really bad this week.....and the Milan and most other games the week before.....and I really do not understand why kevork has posted this stuff here??????
Rightio, I'm back and I'm not extremely loud, condescending or acting in an offensive manner (not much anyway).
Have to say though that the ref tonight had obviously checked out your post on how to be a complete one-sided .......
I think you can guess what that last word was.
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