Hrm…

I may have miscalculated this. Technically we’re still only at step 2 as I proposed it but with the North American and Asian equivalents of UEFA also against it, UEFA on a strike of sorts and people seemingly real mad at Infantino that might be the last step after all.

It’d be real funny if this caused the ouster of Infantino and he won’t even get a third term.

Still, I am not yet 100% convinced it won’t happen, or in some watered down version perhaps.

Well, that’s why I added links…

Sure. It’s genuinely a problematic situation. I’ll include the Washington Post too.

More of a general point: there’s little pan-European media and it isn’t well known. What’s mostly consumed is Anglo-Saxon, either from the US or the UK - neither of which are part of the EU and even the UK media sphere is barely European. They have different agendas, lack the cultural and institutional knowledge and measure the EU and Europe alongside their own standards. It frames the conversation in Europe, directly and indirectly, in a way not beneficial to Europe.

Most Europeans don’t even recognise this is happening, and has for decades, and indiscriminately share things from the US or UK, including the worst of media outlets. It has consequences and plays a key factor in Europeans failing to recognise the US as anything other than an equal and an ally which they most certainly are not (and never truly have been).

The NYT and the WaPo are two of the most established newspapers in the US and considered papers of record, both are probably also the most read US newspapers outside of the US (alongside the WSJ - which is less problematic but leans right and is not as neutral as many Europeans consider it to be). All have a history going back well over a century, and a reputation that goes along with that.

Both have issues with framing. Even if the facts are technically right, the way they are presented can make things seem different than they are. There’s a massive difference in how republicans are represented vs democrats, and more globally the right vs the left. Their difference in coverage of Biden and Trump is an extreme example of this.

WaPo was acquired by Jeff Bezos (Amazon) a few years back and he has editorial influence. One of the most notable things is that he told the opinion writers can only write about personal liberties and free markets. Anything to challenge this is no longer allowed.
Bezos also blocked WaPo from endorsing Kamala Harris in the last US election (whether or not you supported her isn’t the point - the point is that a supposedly editorially independent paper did not get to make its own decisions).

As for the NYT, there are many issues and controversies. To focus on the two big, current, ones: their coverage of the war in Gaza (I’ll let wiki do the explaining) and the incredibly biased writing on transgender people which has caused genuine harm. Alejandra Carabello (clinical instructor at Harvard) has done a tremendous deep dive going back several years.

As a side note: the parody NYT Pitchbot is a nice one to understand their pattern.

There’s so much more but this was already three times longer than I intended to write.

I’ll get off my high horse now.

Do we really need the US perspective on Europe, which by its very definition isn’t neutral and often hostile? Especially the NYT which… well, there’s been a bit of a downfall in quality and neutrality to put it mildly.

Honestly, football isn’t my thing but from the little reporting I saw UEFA (and others) came out swinging against this but the next day the tone was already considerably different.

The single fact that Infantino seems to have widespread support, also in Europe, for a third term to me basically tells the whole story. From the countries that were awarded the tournament in recent history, to the ‘Today I am’ speech, the FIFA Peace Prize, the influence from Trump… somehow that’s acceptable.

FIFA was incredibly corrupt, people got charged and somehow the next guy is even more corrupt.

So yeah, I have little hope.

My guess:

1. UEFA says no.
2. UEFA says really, really no.
3. EU issues warning.
4. FIFA says yes.
5. UEFA says yes.
6. EU says nothing.

I struggle to understand why they would create such a gigantic caveat that undermines the entire law unless the goal is to undermine it.

unfuckingbelievable