"If FIFA is truly a non for profit organisation, surely the proceeds from tournaments and sponsorships should be used for football development globally, rather than opulence and fancy living."
Golden eggs, magic beans, cinders and hair, giants and Englishmen, red hooded girls beware There was one story that dominated the headlines yesterday and it had to do with the beautiful game, the only true sport that is global, football. Before you correct me and say, soccer, just remind me where the word soccer appears in the acronym FIFA. Nowhere. Admittedly that is French, or let us say, Swiss French. I might not be 100 percent right about that, the translation to English for FIFA is: International Federation of Association Football or the International Federation of Soccer. Potato, Tomato. Administrators somehow seem to think that they are greater than the sport itself, if it were not for them, none of this awesomeness would be possible. That is why the world needs people like Kerry Packer, just to remind everyone that the sport is greater than all of the collective. Didier Drogba summed it up once, in which he said after Chelsea had won the league this year: Chelsea will be here long after I am gone.
Judging from the massive photo of a pensive looking Sepp Blatter on the Fifa website, it seems to me that he thinks he is bigger than the sport that he presides over. I mean, really, take a look: Statement by FIFA President Blatter. The FT article was pretty solid, suggesting that 150 million Dollars in bribes and kickbacks have been taken (and paid) over a 20 year period. My goodness. US indicts 14 over 'rampant' Fifa corruption. Let us presume that Sepp Blatter knew nothing of this wide scale corruption, then he is an incompetent buffoon for not knowing and presiding over this organisation, and the electorate of the 200 plus body should vote in the other folks immediately. If he knew everything, then the same applies. Luis Figo, all Barca, Real and Inter fans love that guy, he is a legend of the game, a competent fellow, he speaks five different languages should be the next guy. Can't speak German though, I am sure he can learn that one.
My only observations are as follows. If FIFA is truly a non for profit organisation, surely the proceeds from tournaments and sponsorships should be used for football development globally, rather than opulence and fancy living. A group by the name of IEG (according to the WSJ: Corruption Allegations Reach Into Highest Levels of Soccer's FIFA) suggest that the sponsorship rights to the FIFA events cost around 190 million Dollars in 2014. Both Visa, Nike and McDonald's have all raised concerns over the current revelations. See: Visa's Updated Statement on FIFA. I reckon that if the sponsors start throwing in the towel, the money unwind (the scramble as the pie gets smaller) will reveal who has been swimming without trunks.
The real stars of the sport struggle with the fame and all the cash thrown at them, engage with past and present to see football as a career path for many. After all, it is ultimately the fans that turn up time after time, watch all the big matches on their screens that "make" it what it is. Kerry Packer knew that and Didier Drogba is right, the proverbial pandora's box has been opened, it cannot get back inside the brown envelope box. Pretty apt that there is a Greek mythological comparison here, considering where we currently find ourselves with the talks between the Europeans (the rest) and their Greek brothers and sisters.
An observation from yesterday from one of the readers, you can all be contributors you know and we encourage that over at Vestact:
"I was fortunate to travel to Greece in 2010 with a friend who works for NATO and got to meet many Greek locals. 2010 was probably the time the initial cracks started to show in their economy. Many of the Greek people blamed the Olympic Games held a few years earlier for the problems, saying it was something their country could not afford. What also stood out to me was the number of unfinished houses. For example, many houses are one or two stories high and have people living in them, yet there is partial structure for an additional floor. When asked why these houses are not complete, I was told it is for tax avoidance as no property tax is paid on houses which are not complete. Another issue they complained about was that tourism was not as popular as it previously was with many European visitors choosing to holiday in Turkey and no longer Greece. Not sure if this is still the case. Anyway, I think that Greece is an awesome country to live in, with a great climate and very patriotic people. They need to find some way to make money again to pay off their debt and I don't think politicians have the answer to this. My opinion, entrepreneurs and hard working people are the ones who will get the economy going again."
I suspect that with Greece in real terms being cheaper now than in the past (2010) there are possibly more tourists. People go where they think that they can get a better deal, tourists that is. Tourist visits are picking up. Arrivals have gone from 15 million in 2010 to nearly 18 million by 2013. I will let you in on a little secret, I am visiting there in a little inside of 4 weeks, I shall be there at the end of June. I shall have a smart look around and see if I can chat to the locals and ask them what they think. Are Greeks "lazy" (I suspect not), are Greek people dodging taxes, I will ask how it all works. The one thing that I have learnt is that no shops are open on a Sunday. True story. Can you imagine that?
Company corner
Hey, when do I get my money from the South32 unbundling from BHP Billiton? Good question. I called around locally and could not find anyone who knew the answer yesterday. I trawled the SENS messages and the website of BHP Billiton to find some clarity, there was none. Then I though to myself, that is dumb, why did I not think of calling the company in the first place. So I searched online and in SENS messages and found that the South African media contacts were not in South Africa, there was a fellow in London and a woman in Melbourne. I called the fellow in London, his colleague said that he was out, I sent an email and got an out of office. Oh dear. So in hope, I called Melbourne and chatted to a very friendly woman who said that she would get the investor relations people to call me. I thought in the interim that I should send an email to a fellow in London who was on their investor relations page.
And then I thought, ah well, perhaps he will call in a bit, or email me back. And he did, he was polite and gave me the feedback that I needed. He said that the folks who had the South32 shares and were selling them in the market as part of the program (of taking the cash portion) had given them a timeline of 8 weeks maximum for having concluded the sales, effective from last Monday. So, we are a week and a half into that! That is both good and bad news. Bad news in that I had indicated earlier that we would have seen the money by now, that was my best guess, for which I must apologise profusely and secondly it is good news as we will all get an average price that is marginally higher.
Polite man, nice man, delivering a message that I was not too excited to hear, that it is going to take us around 8 weeks to get the cash from South32, at longest, expect the cash in the account in around 5 weeks from today, towards the beginning of July.
Things that we are reading
An interesting look at how the polar ice has changed over the last 20 years - The cryosphere today. This year the ice is almost the same size as 20 years ago but both years are smaller than the 2003 size.
You are not a true fan until you build your headquarters to look like the Starship Enterprise - This Chinese executive may be the biggest “Star Trek” fan on the planet
Robots are only as clever as the code that runs them - Robots are learning how to limp like animals
A very interesting article on Gold mining is South Africa - Could SA's gold mining industry be gone by 2020?. The striking statement to me was this: "It's not about grades, it's about efficiencies and cost. We're taking out as many ounces of gold per employee now as we were in 1907 when we were using picks and shovels."
And they all lived happily ever after. The story today is that the Chinese markets were absolutely kiboshed. The word kibosh originated in England and carries a simple meaning, flogged, a word that you could be more familiar with. To flog. The Shanghai composite ended down over six percent. Yes, true story. The Peoples Bank of China sold stakes in some of their banks, if they think that it is overvalued, perhaps you should too. Then again, when have central banks got things that right about equity markets? More importantly and rightly so, Chinese brokerages have tightened margin requirements, everyone is now expecting the authorities to step it up, which could lead to aggressive selling. If nothing, the Chinese market is very wild, it is young, not even 25 years old in the current format.
Sent to you by the Vestacters, Sasha, Michael, Byron and Paul.
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