By Blaidd Drwg
Dave Richards is chairman of the English Premier League, one of the major soccer leagues in Europe, as well as a board member of the FA, England’s governing body for professional soccer. At a recent conference, Richards had the following to say:
“England gave the world football. It gave the best legacy anyone could give. We gave them the game,” said Richards, who is also a Football Association board member. “For 50 years, we owned the game … We were the governance of the game. We wrote the rules, designed the pitches and everything else.
“Then, 50 years later, some guy came along and said you’re liars and they actually stole it. It was called FIFA. Fifty years later, another gang came along called UEFA and stole a bit more.”
To me, this sounds like sour grapes that England has been mostly irrelavent in the international soccer world since the 1960’s. It makes sense – you can play soccer in some form almost anywhere in the world, regardless of economic standing which has allowed places like Brazil and Argentina to develop world class programs, since frankly, they have a much larger talent pool to draw from. I also think Richards’ rant may have been fueled by a little alcohol:
After the conference, Richards slipped and tumbled knee-deep into a museum pool from which he was rescued by Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman and fellow FA board member.
“We were walking across to our table in a dark courtyard area,” Gartside told the BBC. “There were three fountain areas nearby, no pool. They had switched off the lights.
“He thought he was stepping on to flat marble, but his foot went down into the water, he fell over and hurt his leg quite badly.”
Both the EPL and and FA tried to distance themselves from Richards’ comments:
“Sir Dave Richards is not representing the FA at this conference and his personal views are in no way shared or endorsed by the FA,” a statement said. “The FA greatly values its relationships with FIFA and UEFA, which it is working hard to strengthen.”
The Premier League also disassociated itself from its chairman’s comments, saying in a statement to The Association Press that, “Sir Dave is attending the conference in a private and personal capacity and his comments in no way reflect the views of the Premier League.”
Internationally, I have had a hard time taking England seriously on the pitch. Now, I am not sure I can take them seriously at all when it comes to soccer.
FlatbreadGarden 
That’s old timey provincial stuff all right. And sour grapes too.
I don’t think anyone really “invented” the concept of kicking a sphere around. Once people were kicking it around it would have been natural to add targets or objectives.
Kinda like baseball or cricket:
“We’ll hit the ball with a stick”.
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll run to an objective, and whoever does it the most times wins.”
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I just love how quickly the bodies that Richards is part of have distanced themselves from his statements. The game is global moreso than any sport and there is no way that you would be able to have anything like the world cup without a govenrning body like FIFA. I am pretty sure that Richards was hammered and he does have a tendency to run his mouth off anyway.
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