Klotzbucher.com

Two years later this still has the same effect on me:

You read it here first last month - money quote:

I believe Blatter might be underestimating the difficulty of getting something done/changed in the European Union.

It looks like I was right. Transfermarkt.de is reporting that EU commissioner Vladimir Spidla announced that the EU will indeed start infringement procedures against any EU country allowing this rule.

The Lakers might not have won this game (their first loss in this year’s playoffs), but the game was close enough to let you think they can at least win one in Utah. Kobe did not play well in the first half, but came back with a vengeance in the second. Check out this move, one of the sickest ever in Playoff History:

As every football fan knows, the so-called “Bosman Ruling” changed European football dramatically. Until 1995, club teams could not field more than three foreign players at one time. The ruling prohibited “imposing quotas on foreign players to the extent that they discriminated against nationals of EU states”. Since then, some leagues such as the Premier League and the Bundesliga have altered beyond recognition, with teams such as Schalke or Arsenal often failing to field even one player who would be eligible for the national side of their respective league’s Football Association.
This clearly disturbs many people and I had heard for some time that FIFA President Sepp Blatter would like to introduce a rule called 6+5. See this from Fifa.com:

At next month’s FIFA Congress in Sydney, one of the items on the agenda is the 6+5 rule which is endorsed by the DFB. In your estimation, when will each team in the Bundesliga for example have to start every match with six players who are qualified for the country they are playing in?
At the Congress in Sydney, we not only have to discuss and approve the 6+5 ruling as a system but also work out a time scale for its implementation. At the moment there is still opposition from the European Commission in Brussels since this ruling supposedly goes against the freedom of choice of employment. We do not want to get into any quarrels with a political organisation, but there is no rule that says that there have to be eleven foreign players in a team. A lot of the politicians in Europe we have spoken to approve of the wording and the principal behind the 6+5 ruling.

When will it become a reality then?
First of all I would once again like to express my thanks to the German Football Association for their support in this matter and also to Dr. Zwanziger and Franz Beckenbauer who are very much behind us on this. The implementation is based on contracts that are currently in force and means that starting with the 2009/10 season we will have four nationally qualified players, then five and finally six so that the system is functioning by the World Cup in 2014. It is not morally right, and competition loses all balance when the big clubs buy 25 top players to deprive other teams of them and then hoard them because they can only have 11 on the park.

I believe Blatter might be underestimating the difficulty of getting something done/changed in the European Union. Apart from that I’m actually not quite sure I would welcome such a move. While it would clearly make club competitions more interesting, it would also severely disadvantage clubs from countries which weak national sides. I could easily imagine a club such as Chelsea or Real suing the UEFA because they always would have to field six English (Chelsea) or Spanish (Real) players. The English and Spanish squads simply are not as good as the Italian or French squads (if you disagree, please feel free to use the comment function) - making it more difficult for some clubs to compete than others.

So even if the FIFA do get this into EU law, I think there could be a window for law suits based on fair competition legislation. We’ll see!

My buddy Chris and I are watching the Spurs (hopefully) go out against PSV right now. However, Chris is a Spurs Fan - God knows why - so he just started bugging me to write about Berbatov… As I am in the hospitality business, I aim to please, so here is a video on Berbatov:

Last year, I posted my take on women receiving the same prize money as men in grand slams. Now the French Open have just ended, with Justine Henin and Rafael Nadal both winning their third straight French Open. With one difference: Henin’s match lasted just over an hour (and was a lopsided affair) while Nadal’s match against Federer lasted more than three hours and was a lot closer. This is not the exception, this is the rule in tennis these days - but in a few weeks’ time, Wimbledon will be paying the women’s single winner the same prize money as the men’s single winner, even though Men’s Tennis is the superior product as it is more attractive for TV - which is where the competitions receives its money from. Wimbledon was the last grand slam not to give in to political correctness where it was not appropriate, but now that is over.

I truly believe gender should not be an issue when doing the same job - but women’s tennis is clearly an inferior product, and always will be until they need to win three sets to win a match. They are not doing the same job.

It’s nearly 2am here and I am watching Sharapova vs. Golovin - Women’s Quarterfinals at the US Open. Before this Match, they showed a repeat of Haas and Safin going to a tie-break in the fifth set - Haas recovering from being down 1-3 to win the tie-break 7-5. Watching women’s singles now makes me think about something I heard a few weeks (or months) back, during Wimbledon: “Wimbledon insists it’s fair to pay the men more than the women. The women call it sex discrimination.”

Everybody who knows me a bit knows I have no problem whatsoever with female emancipation - if at all, I think it’s long overdue. However, I find the idea of paying the women’s grand slam champion the same amount of money as the men’s champion ludicrous.

First of all, the women play “best of three sets”, while the men have to play “best of five”, which leads to longer (and very often better) matches throughout the tournament. It is not unusual for a women’s match to be over in 60-80 minutes, an average men’s match tends to go on for 2-3 hours, especially in later rounds. Thus, one can definitely argue that men have to work longer and harder to win their match and go through to the next round.

Furthermore, men’s tennis is far more contested at the top - there is very little competition in women’s tennis until the final few rounds, most matches end 6-1, 6-2 etc., while in men’s tennis, it is not unusual for a Top-10 player to lose against an Top-100 player - matches are entertaining from the first round onwards.

Given these circumstances, the only reason I would accept for equal prize money would be if the TV ratings were higher for women’s tennis - leading to more revenue for the tournament. Perhaps because many guys enjoy watching the likes of players such as Anna Kournikova or Maria Sharapova on the tennis court. That, however, is not the case - the market has decided - and continues to do so: men’s tennis is more enjoyable for spectators. Seems as if Kournikova and Sharapova make their money off the court.

If people should really disagree with this perception, it is up to them to change it - boycott men’s tennis: if men’s TV Ratings should suffer, the market would lead to equal prize money eventually. But somehow, nobody seems to be doing that, only Martina Hingis has suggested that players should boycott tournaments which do not offer women equal prize money - I’m not so sure that is a smart idea, as it is bound to lead to the classic prisoner’s dilemma, some players will definitely want to take advantage of other boycotting the tournament - and no single player has the star power to make a really significant difference to TV ratings.

By the way, this match seems as if it will take a lot longer, as both players are having tremendous difficulties with their serves, but that doesn’t make it very attrative to watch. I want to watch Hewitt vs. Roddick, as I am pretty sure that it will be a far better match than this terribly poor match. Sometimes I really wish Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Gabriela Sabatini would come back, women’s tennis was a lot more watchable in the 80s and 90s as today. Unfortunately, that match will only begin when this one is over - please ladies, have mercy with me!