How shameful UEFA, FIFA, IOC and IPA are. Public opinion finally forcing them to abandon their usual greedy pretence that sport is above politics. China can kill and discriminate its minorities, Russia can invade two countries and still get major sporting events while the freebies flow because sport is 'neutral'. Suddenly as it looked like they might get punch-ups in the Olympic Village and they may appeared to be useless, amoral, blinkered businessmen only concerned with their pockets as people died, they do a complete U-turn. I am sure they are hoping the funerals, show trials and executions will be over and forgotten by the time Qatar's world cup built on immigrant slave labour (who died on their thousands) in a country with few human rights is ready to kick off.
Perhaps you should add the UK to your list for supplying the arms Saudi are using in Yemen and a whole list of other infractions.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
@DevC said:
Perhaps you should add the UK to your list for supplying the arms Saudi are using in Yemen and a whole list of other infractions.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
@DevC said:
Perhaps you should add the UK to your list for supplying the arms Saudi are using in Yemen and a whole list of other infractions.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
Your whatabout defence of a much maligned wealth creator who seems to have found an effective, though legally suspect, way around local planning jurisdictions is touching @DevC , but to go back to my original point...in this case the UK (though not perfect) isn't an international sporting body turning a blind eye to wrong-doing.
@DevC said:
Perhaps you should add the UK to your list for supplying the arms Saudi are using in Yemen and a whole list of other infractions.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
It's possible to be against both things.
I agree and while being unequivocably critical of Russia's actions in Ukraine, also to be highly critical of Nato - in particular US and its lapdog the UK - actions for its part in provoking the conflict. I hope lessons are learnt on both sides once this conflict ends but can't say I am over optimistic.
In the meantime I am uncomfortable with individual people with learning difficulties being denied permission to say ski so that other people can make political gestures.
In the meantime I am uncomfortable with individual people with learning difficulties being denied permission to say ski so that other people can make political gestures.
@DevC said:
In the meantime I am uncomfortable with individual people with learning difficulties being denied permission to say ski so that other people can make political gestures.
In the meantime I am uncomfortable with individual people with learning difficulties being denied permission to say ski so that other people can make political gestures.
That's quite a specific new law.
As soon as someone says ski things start going downhill very quickly
@NorthumberlandBlue said:
He needs to be taken out.
Special forces need to kill the bastsrd.
Unfortunately I suspect there would be another megalomaniac warmonger from within the Russian Federation to immediately replace him.
Maybe but don't forget Khrushchev beat Beria in '53 by sailing under the radar; building alliances while just looking like a paper-shuffling committee man.
Yeah, and presided over the '56 invasion of Hungary. But also decried Stalin's regime of terror in his secret speech of the same year, abolished the gulags, curtailed the secret police, allowed a certain degree of freedom of speech and engaged with the West in a certain amount of diplomacy, including becoming the first Soviet leader to travel to Britain, just before Eden went on his Suez misadventure.
Khrushchev was probably the most liberal leader of the Soviet Union bar Gorbachev. But as your example shows us, you have to stretch the definition of liberalism pretty far when it comes to Russian leaders.
Idiotic to place Russian military capability in US "back yard".
Perfectly reasonable for Ukraine to part of NATO and hence have West's military equipment in Russia's "back yard"?
Always walk in your "enemies" shoes.
Russia fears NATO aggression. The key NATO players (US, UK, France) have invaded and attacked many countries in recent times.
As far as I know, there are no NATO nuclear weapons, based in Eastern Europe, but I am happy to be schooled. I think Ukraine is going to be a big ongoing problem for Putin, whatever happens. He forgets they are also 'Russian' and will probably carry on fighting for years. The problem Russian nutty leaders have these days is....it is not 1956...and information is not so easily prevented, they have economic exposure to the rest of the world...and I do not believe even the most hardline want to go back to applauding eight hour speeches, buying dollars from crooks on street corners, only being able to go to holiday dachas, queuing for basics, only playing Belarus and China at sport, only Steven Seagal movies in cinemas, and someone doing Ed Sheeran covers with the lyrics changed to be about heroic Putin and record tractor production. They certainly won't in Ukraine. Russia may be paranoid, and our 'statesmen' too busy cheering the 'end of communism' to recognise that and do anything remotely sensible but there is a reason the nations around want to join NATO. Which is playing out before our very eyes. Whether or not Ukraine had been a neutral country (like Belgium and the Netherlands in the 1940s!) the situation would have been the same. I understand now, both Finland and Sweden (previously worried about membership) are looking to apply to join NATO, But that is just an excuse, Putin and democracy cannot co-exist. Poor as the Western governments may be - Putin killing journalists and Opposition leaders, fixing elections, jailing or assassinating opponents, fuelling corruption, funnelling funds through Switzerland and state doping of athletes have been leading to something like this and is nothing to do with NATO. One hopes there is someone high enough to rein this in before the nukes start flying or one of the power stations does another Chernobyl. If Putin does go...the next leader will have to be far perhaps more Khruschev than Brezhnev.
If we are not all vapour before the play-offs, of course!
If the war escalates, the season is curtailed and Wycombe somehow make the play-offs on PPG Alan Swann's meltdown will make Chernobyl look like a back garden barbecue.
Comments
I love the cycling, but its governing body is right up there with the worst of them.
They provide a valuable sporting outlet and support for the nation's asthmatics apparently.
Breaking news. The IPG have ruled that Russian and Belarusian athletes can compete as neutrals.
How shameful UEFA, FIFA, IOC and IPA are. Public opinion finally forcing them to abandon their usual greedy pretence that sport is above politics. China can kill and discriminate its minorities, Russia can invade two countries and still get major sporting events while the freebies flow because sport is 'neutral'. Suddenly as it looked like they might get punch-ups in the Olympic Village and they may appeared to be useless, amoral, blinkered businessmen only concerned with their pockets as people died, they do a complete U-turn. I am sure they are hoping the funerals, show trials and executions will be over and forgotten by the time Qatar's world cup built on immigrant slave labour (who died on their thousands) in a country with few human rights is ready to kick off.
Perhaps you should add the UK to your list for supplying the arms Saudi are using in Yemen and a whole list of other infractions.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
Don't tell me they've seized your superyacht?
Yeah and my plastic duck - bastards.
In passing of the 196 countries in the world, over the years we’ve invaded 174 of them.
Singing “we are top o’ the league, we are top o’ the league”….
It's possible to be against both things.
Your whatabout defence of a much maligned wealth creator who seems to have found an effective, though legally suspect, way around local planning jurisdictions is touching @DevC , but to go back to my original point...in this case the UK (though not perfect) isn't an international sporting body turning a blind eye to wrong-doing.
I agree and while being unequivocably critical of Russia's actions in Ukraine, also to be highly critical of Nato - in particular US and its lapdog the UK - actions for its part in provoking the conflict. I hope lessons are learnt on both sides once this conflict ends but can't say I am over optimistic.
In the meantime I am uncomfortable with individual people with learning difficulties being denied permission to say ski so that other people can make political gestures.
Anyway back to Ascot United.....
Nobody is stopping them from saying ski, don't worry.
That's quite a specific new law.
I see the Chuckle Brothers legacy lives on....
That's going to make my life difficult!
He needs to be taken out.
Special forces need to kill the bastsrd.
@NorthumberlandBlue I know @DevC can be trying but that's a bit extreme.
???
As soon as someone says ski things start going downhill very quickly
Slippery slope.
Your quite right there Dev.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/paul-chuckle-hints-chuckle-brothers-23450937
Unfortunately I suspect there would be another megalomaniac warmonger from within the Russian Federation to immediately replace him.
Paul Chuckle?
Maybe but don't forget Khrushchev beat Beria in '53 by sailing under the radar; building alliances while just looking like a paper-shuffling committee man.
The idiot that placed Nuclear Missiles on Cuba @aloysius?
Yeah, and presided over the '56 invasion of Hungary. But also decried Stalin's regime of terror in his secret speech of the same year, abolished the gulags, curtailed the secret police, allowed a certain degree of freedom of speech and engaged with the West in a certain amount of diplomacy, including becoming the first Soviet leader to travel to Britain, just before Eden went on his Suez misadventure.
Khrushchev was probably the most liberal leader of the Soviet Union bar Gorbachev. But as your example shows us, you have to stretch the definition of liberalism pretty far when it comes to Russian leaders.
Idiotic to place Russian military capability in US "back yard".
Perfectly reasonable for Ukraine to part of NATO and hence have West's military equipment in Russia's "back yard"?
How many countries have NATO invaded or attacked since its conception?
Always walk in your "enemies" shoes.
Russia fears NATO aggression. The key NATO players (US, UK, France) have invaded and attacked many countries in recent times.
As far as I know, there are no NATO nuclear weapons, based in Eastern Europe, but I am happy to be schooled. I think Ukraine is going to be a big ongoing problem for Putin, whatever happens. He forgets they are also 'Russian' and will probably carry on fighting for years. The problem Russian nutty leaders have these days is....it is not 1956...and information is not so easily prevented, they have economic exposure to the rest of the world...and I do not believe even the most hardline want to go back to applauding eight hour speeches, buying dollars from crooks on street corners, only being able to go to holiday dachas, queuing for basics, only playing Belarus and China at sport, only Steven Seagal movies in cinemas, and someone doing Ed Sheeran covers with the lyrics changed to be about heroic Putin and record tractor production. They certainly won't in Ukraine. Russia may be paranoid, and our 'statesmen' too busy cheering the 'end of communism' to recognise that and do anything remotely sensible but there is a reason the nations around want to join NATO. Which is playing out before our very eyes. Whether or not Ukraine had been a neutral country (like Belgium and the Netherlands in the 1940s!) the situation would have been the same. I understand now, both Finland and Sweden (previously worried about membership) are looking to apply to join NATO, But that is just an excuse, Putin and democracy cannot co-exist. Poor as the Western governments may be - Putin killing journalists and Opposition leaders, fixing elections, jailing or assassinating opponents, fuelling corruption, funnelling funds through Switzerland and state doping of athletes have been leading to something like this and is nothing to do with NATO. One hopes there is someone high enough to rein this in before the nukes start flying or one of the power stations does another Chernobyl. If Putin does go...the next leader will have to be far perhaps more Khruschev than Brezhnev.
If we are not all vapour before the play-offs, of course!
If the war escalates, the season is curtailed and Wycombe somehow make the play-offs on PPG Alan Swann's meltdown will make Chernobyl look like a back garden barbecue.