World Cup is a Colossal Bore

Soccer is the fine art of diving.....

As the hockey season winds down, I am reminded why soccer is such a colossal bore and while billions and billions of people all over the world are fans, over here in Canada and the USA, most native born cannot stomach the sport, with good reason.

Yes we mere mortals are told that we do not properly understand the sport, that it is a game of anticipation and it is that anticipation that is to be celebrated.
Really?
The Chinese Water Torture is also about anticipation.
 
What's not to understand about a sport where the object is to put the ball in the opponents net, something that happens barely often enough.

So here is my top ten reasons to hate soccer and skip the World Cup in Brazil altogether.

10. Low scoring.  Just too few exciting plays around the goal and way too few  goals.

09. Lack of complexity. How come all those fancy backward/forward, inside/outside soccer moves that we see players strut in practice are NEVER seen in a real game.

08. Diving players. It's just pathetic to see these so-called 'talented' athletes pretend they've been fouled by an exaggerated dive. It's even more pathetic that referees who are standing too far away fall for these antics more often than not. Cheating defines soccer.

07. Refereeing. The field is gigantic and the two referees have no chance to accurately call the game. Considering the rampant diving, it's ridiculous that every big game is contested by the losing team complaining about poor refereeing. And how about no video review for goals. What century is soccer in?

06. The field is too big. It takes forever to get from one end to the other and so most of the action is in the utterly boring mid-field.

 05. Penalties. They play too large a role in the game. It's hard enough to score in soccer but ridiculously easy to score on a penalty kick awarded near the goal. The free kick  is just too large an advantage when the success rate is 87%. Considering that most penalties in soccer occur after a dive, it somehow doesn't seem fair.

04. Game-fixing. The Sport is rife with cheating on and off the field and any sport you can't bet on with confidence is no fun at all.

03. The time clock. First problem is that the clock counts up not down, a senseless state of affairs, when the only thing that counts is how much time is left to play. Then there is the fact that soccer hasn't learned how to stop the game clock at an appropriate time as in the case of a player being carted off the field. Instead the game is extended by the referee after time runs out, but nobody knows for how long until the end of regulation time. Confused? Yup......

02. FIFA. The organizing body makes the International Olympic Committee look like choir boys. The governing body of soccer known by the acronym of FIFA the shadiest international sports body in the world. Bribes are alleged to be in the millions otherwise how on Earth can you explain awarding the 2022 World Cup to QATAR,  a tiny middle eastern oil with no soccer stadiums or even soccer teams, a country that regularly hits 50 degrees Celsius in the summer when the tournament is scheduled to be held.

01. Hooliganism. The sport attracts the very worst elements of society and this across the continents. From skinheads to Nazis, antisemites and various other racists. A large proportion of soccer fans are a drunken band of brawling misfits who tear up cities and towns across the world.

And here's a bonus reason ... The annual soccer stadium disaster that invariably happens somewhere in the world, caused by a deadly grandstand collapse, fire, or just general overcrowding and poor safety measures, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds of deaths.

Yay, soccer!!