I am not getting hugely excited about the 2026 football World Cup to be held across the three countries of USA, Mexico and Canada with England’s first match about 10 days away. Apart from the scandalously high ticket prices, though, as we were talking briefly about the World Cup in our Pilates session the other day, I decided to look up some features of this particular event and discovered some items of interest. One such item is that 25% of the matches are likely to be played in temperatures of 80° and above which must have consequences for the health of the players. FIFA are introducing the ability to have a two minute drinks break half way through each half which is surely sensible. I wonder whether the high temperatures will militate against the northern European teams and in favour of the African and Asian teams more accustomed to this humidity and heat. But FIFA have tweaked some of the rules for this competition and one, in particular, caught my eye. This is that VAR and assistant referees can both be alerted to, and sanction, the grappling (even to the ground) between players which often takes place at corners. This is a rule change of which I wholeheartedly approve because it is an ugly feature of the present game that players can, at present, grapple with each other whilst preparations are being made for a corner kick to be taken. It will be interesting to see how this rule is both interpreted and enforced but I personally would make shirt pulling an instant ‘red card’ (i.e. sending off) offence but this is such a feature of the modern game that referees feel powerless to do anything about it. I would make only two observations at this point. The first is that as a boy taught how to play football in the 1950’s, we were given instructions how to male a legitimate ‘shoulder charge’ and anything else was considered illegal (not that we would have considered anything else) The second feature that football could learn from rugby union is to outlaw any backchat or confrontation of players with the referee, with the only exception being the captain who is allowed to make (presumably polite) enquiries of the referee as to the reasons for a particular decision from which (in theory) the captain can attempt to fine-tune the behaviour of players in his/her team and the game can become more free-flowing. But a think a rule change of this magnitude is not even on the horizon and would fundamentally alter the character of the modern game. If I were a football referee in the modern game (God forbid!) I suspect that I would take as my role model ‘Pete’ in the comedy ‘Outnumbered’ where as a football team he finished off by giving most members of the two opposing schoolboy teams red cards thus reducing the game to a 5-aside (which is not a bad idea). On the other side of the Atlantic, the US House of Representatives have belatedly voted to rein in Trump’s war powers (when the war looks practically over, in any case) The US House of Representatives passed a measure that seeks to halt President Donald Trump from taking further military action in Iran. The 215-208 vote was successful after four Republicans joined Democrats in a public show of disapproval of the war, which began in February. This is the fourth attempt by the House to rein in Trump’s war powers, which critics say lack congressional approval. The House resolution still needs approval from the Republican-controlled US Senate. Even if it were successful in the Senate, the measure is unlikely to fully curb military action against Iran. The Senate advanced a similar resolution in May, after seven previous failed attempts, but it has yet to reach a full floor vote. The vote on Wednesday marked the latest sign of division within Trump’s Republican Party, coming just days after a revolt by conservatives in Congress led his administration to pull back plans for a $1.8b ‘anti-weaponisation’ fund for political allies.
Yesterday was going to be quite a busy day because I had my normal Tai Chi class in the morning at which I suspect I am slowly becoming somewhat more adept but it takes time to acclimatise to the moves after a decade of doing Pilates. After the class, I had a coffee with my Bank Manager friend and we exchanged some thoughts specifically on the organisation of funerals (the mother-in-law of my friend had died at a ripe old age and she had outlived almost anyone who could come to the funeral so it was going to be quite a small affair) There were also some regulars there with whom she exchanged some black humour jokes before it was time for us to leave. Then I paid a visit to my local Asda store. both to use an ATM and also to buy some fruit (fresh and tinned) that I had forgotten to purchase the other day. By this stage, it was getting pretty late in the morning so I pressed on straight away with a different kind of lunch as I knew that I had to leave the house in plenty of time to get to a neighbouring village hall in which my Spanish conversation class is held. You would think it would be easy to get to a village only some five miles distant but because of the massive works on the A38 which seem to have extended for a couple of years now, the most direct route had the road close and the next obvious shortcut was also closed. However, I managed to navigate my way to the village hall even without a SatNav and got there in plenty of time. There are three males there as well as our tutor and a very experienced (female) teacher of both Spanish and French but we three males all have a background in IT which happens to an amazing coincidence. On getting home and sorting out my future U3A meetings I have an unfortunate clash in a fortnight’s time and I cannot attend two meetings at the same time so for one of them I have had to tender my apologies. I am surprised this does not happen more often but commitments tend to bunch around Wednesdays and Thursdays – Fridays are often the days when one is going away for the weekend and Monday and Tuesday may be too early in the week for some people!