The World Cup won’t be held on Mt. Everest

FIFA officially opened its new $196 million headquarters in Zurich on Tuesday in a fierce rainstorm, both literally and figuratively. Said Czar-for-Life Sepp Blatter: “The sky is touched with tears but we can live with that because football also has to live in all weather conditions and rain is a gift from heaven.”

Yes, football must live in all weather conditions as long as those weather conditions are found at altitudes of 8,200 feet or less. As you likely have heard, FIFA has decided to ban all international football matches played in extreme high altitudes citing concern for players’ health and unfair home field advantage.

The decision has left those in the Andean Community of Nations crying foul and has led Bolivia’s football loving president Evo Morales uttering phrases like: “He who wins at altitude, wins with dignity. He who fears altitude has no dignity.”

Morales also called for people in Bolivia’s highlands to play football in the streets on Wednesday in a mass demonstration of high-altitude sport. That might be the coolest call to protest I have ever heard.

I tend to side with Morales and the high altitude loving folks. It might be unpleasant for players to play above 8,200 feet and it might cause them to take part in unique training rituals, but is it any worse than playing in the middle of the day in a country with extreme heat and humidity? Is it unfair for countries that never see freezing temperatures to play on the road in cold weather? Has the high altitude really helped Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador in international competitions?

Meanwhile, the FIFA conference opens in the brand spanking new building with outgoing Scotland Football Association president John McBeth crying fair is foul, and foul is fair. McBeth had the audacity to call Blatter a “tricky customer” and to question the integrity of FIFA officials, which inevitably will mean that Mr. McBeth will no longer be able to suckle from FIFA’s golden nipple.

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Category: South America, World Football