Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted December 3, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted December 3, 2022 8 hours ago, Michael said: I believe that cricket is the most popular sport in Nepal, while in the Philippines, basketball is the most favoured sport, followed by several other sports ahead of football. International football is pretty popular in most countries. The English Premier League and some of the other top European leagues garner a lot of viewership in most countries. So, I think that combining international football with domestic football, when it comes to football TV viewership, will have most likely skewed that number in India. For all intents and purposes, I don't believe that football is particularly popular in Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Bangladesh either. As for the attendances in the Indian Super League, I think that we'd expect those attendance figures, even if football isn't generally popular in the country, given that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. I never said that I believe that Qatar has a "strong" football culture. They do not have one of the strongest football cultures in the world or anything. The claim was that Qatar do "not" have a football culture. My opinion is, that they do have a football culture that has a presence. Football is played regularly by people in Qatar, whether on the pitches or on the beaches. Football is even played in the summer, when it can get very hot there. It's also regularly watched on TV by many people in the country. Football is also the national sport of Qatar and by far the most popular, even though many other sports are played in the country. It's the national sport, unlike in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines. Moreover, an interesting factual statistic, is that in a match between Qatar and the UAE at the end of 2021, 63,500 people attended to watch that match. The majority of those fans will have been Qatari supporters, as they were the home side. Not a bad turn out for a country with such a small population such as Qatar. I fully understand and respect your consistent stance, even though I don't necessarily apply it myself. I guess my love for football, makes me prioritise watching it, when perhaps I shouldn't on principle, given the corruption in the sport. But if a European Super league does ever come about, you will never find me watching it, as I have strongly been against the idea for years. As for hypocrites, well, you will find them everywhere. There will always be those who complain, but who at the same time buy most of their club's merchandise, and who consistently, pay for football TV subscriptions and season tickets. And I thought we were done with this...Sigh. Football might be by far more popular in Qatar than in the countries of the migrant workers, but that's all completely beside the point, considering that the use of paid fans in Qatar sports events, including football, has been widespread and well known for years. They don't have to be football fans, hell they don't even have to like it, as long as they wear some fan colours, wave some flags and make some noise for a few dollars an hour... As for attendances, all I have to do is to go to youtube, open the official QSL channel, and watch the highlights of the matches so far this season. A picture is worth more than a thousand words, and those videos literally tell me everything I need to know about the attendances. For all it's worth, I do believe that the national team is genuinely better supported - but even then, they still resorted to marching paid fans, flying in "borrowed" ultras from other countries, offering paid sponsorships globally for people to come, and the local supporters were still leaving at HT when their team was losing. That's no fan culture, as much as I'm concerned. So yeah, you don't have to try to convince me; based from everything I've seen, heard and read, I will stand by my opinion that Qatar doesn't have a football culture, or if it has any, then it's at its very, very beginnings. That's the best I can give you lol. There's nothing wrong with it either, but as I said earlier, I simply don't support the idea that World Cups can simply be auctioned off to whoever throws the most money at FIFA, especially when the bid has been originally deemed unsuitable and "high risk" by FIFA themselves. As for the rest of your post, I love the sport too, but I don't love the multi-billion entertainment business it has become. It's not "just" corruption either, it's all the changes that happened throughout the decades and turned it into a system where money is now the only thing that matters, and the social and communal aspects and responsibilities of the sport have deteriorated or disappeared completely, while the interests of local match going fans who have always been the backbone of every club are silently brushed away in favour of more lucrative global TV rights, advertising and sponsorships. But this is going completely off-topic, it's not the place to discuss this, and as I said, we just have fundamentally different views about what the sport is or should be, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael 1,116 Posted December 3, 2022 Share Posted December 3, 2022 5 minutes ago, nudge said: And I thought we were done with this...Sigh. Football might be by far more popular in Qatar than in the countries of the migrant workers, but that's all completely beside the point, considering that the use of paid fans in Qatar sports events, including football, has been widespread and well known for years. They don't have to be football fans, hell they don't even have to like it, as long as they wear some fan colours, wave some flags and make some noise for a few dollars an hour... As for attendances, all I have to do is to go to youtube, open the official QSL channel, and watch the highlights of the matches so far this season. A picture is worth more than a thousand words, and those videos literally tell me everything I need to know about the attendances. For all it's worth, I do believe that the national team is genuinely better supported - but even then, they still resorted to marching paid fans, flying in "borrowed" ultras from other countries, offering paid sponsorships globally for people to come, and the local supporters were still leaving at HT when their team was losing. That's no fan culture, as much as I'm concerned. So yeah, you don't have to try to convince me; based from everything I've seen, heard and read, I will stand by my opinion that Qatar doesn't have a football culture, or if it has any, then it's at its very, very beginnings. That's the best I can give you lol. There's nothing wrong with it either, but as I said earlier, I simply don't support the idea that World Cups can simply be auctioned off to whoever throws the most money at FIFA, especially when the bid has been originally deemed unsuitable and "high risk" by FIFA themselves. As for the rest of your post, I love the sport too, but I don't love the multi-billion entertainment business it has become. It's not "just" corruption either, it's all the changes that happened throughout the decades and turned it into a system where money is now the only thing that matters, and the social and communal aspects and responsibilities of the sport have deteriorated or disappeared completely, while the interests of local match going fans who have always been the backbone of every club are silently brushed away in favour of more lucrative global TV rights, advertising and sponsorships. But this is going completely off-topic, it's not the place to discuss this, and as I said, we just have fundamentally different views about what the sport is or should be, I think. Yes, they have paid some fans to attend games, but again that's to help fill up the very large capacity stadiums that they have. Even if they paid fans for their national team, it would for example have been at most, 1 or 2 thousand of the 63,500 at most for the Qatar v UAE game. Which is a small number, relative to such attendance figures. Moreover, at club level, you can never expect stadiums with capacities of 89,000 or 69,000 or 45,000 to ever be full, or even half full for a small country like Qatar. The most to expect would be 2 or 5 or 10 thousand for an average league game. So it's no surprise that there would be plenty of empty seats in an 89,000, a 69,000 or even a 45,000 capacity stadium. Anyway, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one, as you have your own opinions. I pretty much agree with the rest of what you wrote and no, I don't think that we have fundamentally different views about the sport. You are the one taking the correct moral position, by consistently not watching these major tournaments. I have given in to my love of the sport and relate to all the joy it brings people, despite the corrupt world that surrounds it. Sadly, in our capitalist world, money will always come first, and it very unfortunately, brings with it all the ills that negatively affect the beautiful game of football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 7, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 7, 2022 https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/wm-2022-in-katar-50-prozent-weniger-tv-zuschauer-bei-der-fussball-wm-a-96009b4b-b34c-4298-8dc1-cee9eb783c0a 50% less viewership in Germany than in previous' tournaments. And that's for all the games, so it's not just because Germany are out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6666 1,310 Posted December 10, 2022 Share Posted December 10, 2022 No way this is a coincidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 10, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 10, 2022 5 hours ago, 6666 said: No way this is a coincidence. Oh wow, what the fuck. A statement from his brother: “My name is Eric Wahl. I live in Seattle, Washington. I am Grant Wahl’s brother. I’m gay. I am the reason he wore the rainbow shirt to the World Cup. My brother was healthy. He told me he received death threats. I do not believe my brother just died. I believe he was killed. And I just beg for help,” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spike 5,103 Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 I don’t buy that they assassinated him one bit, they aren’t that stupid. If he were a Qatari national maybe, but they wouldn’t do this in such a transparent manner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUFC 1,501 Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 19, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 19, 2022 13, ,89 Mio watched the final in Germany. The last final 4 years ago had 21,3 Mio viewers. ARD and ZDF both complaining about the bad ratings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted December 19, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted December 19, 2022 3 minutes ago, Tommy said: 13, ,89 Mio watched the final in Germany. The last final 4 years ago had 21,3 Mio viewers. ARD and ZDF both complaining about the bad ratings. What is Messi wearing? A Sith lord's cloak?... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 19, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 19, 2022 Just now, nudge said: What is Messi wearing? A Sith lord's cloak?... When I first saw a picture of that, I thought he's wearing some sort of lingerie. Apparently one of the Sheikhs put it on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,360 Posted December 19, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted December 19, 2022 4 minutes ago, Tommy said: When I first saw a picture of that, I thought he's wearing some sort of lingerie. Apparently one of the Sheikhs put it on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 19, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 19, 2022 21 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said: The uploader has not made this video available in your country Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,360 Posted December 19, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted December 19, 2022 9 minutes ago, Tommy said: The uploader has not made this video available in your country Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Tommy 12,613 Posted December 19, 2022 Moderator Share Posted December 19, 2022 13 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said: What a circus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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