The fix will be on, soon, undoubtedly.....Switzerland, head quar.........ping pong, Shanghai, 007
World Cup Draw Incites Conspiracy Theorists
It is anyone’s guess how the 32 teams in the 2010 World Cup will be grouped by the draw Friday in South Africa, but one thing is for sure: the event will elicit sightings of things as far-fetched as U.F.O.’s and the Virgin Mary’s image on a potato chip.
Soccer luminaries, with the help of the honorary hostess Charlize Theron, will pull plastic balls out of pots to determine the eight first-round groupings of four teams each. Someone will inevitably claim that the draw was rigged. No proof? No problem. Not since “Forrest Gump” have table tennis balls supposedly been so vulnerable to manipulation and sleight of hand.
Television networks around the world will be on alert. They will replay the video forward and backward, in regular speed and slow motion, seeking evidence of plots and schemes, as if this were a sporting equivalent of the Zapruder film.
At the draw for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, Sophia Loren picked a ball that placed the United States in the host team’s group. Considering that the Americans had not played in the World Cup in 40 years, this struck some as akin to putting the Yankees in the same group as the winner of the Little League World Series.
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