There's Gold on Them There Pitches

NOTE: This was written in July 2012 just before the Summer Olympics, but I was delayed from posting. The references are dated, but the info is Footielicious!

Eyes front class, and pay close attention. The school bell tolls for Footie 101.

It's a fidgety time for the Beautiful Game, with the Euros fully Euroff'd, the regular footie season a month away, and the Olympics pert near ready to kick off.

This nebulous window provides us with the odd sensation experienced when watching Olympic football. That's football, with all the grandiose flavor of the Games, but without the calories of recognizable players, or the aftertaste of a trophy no one really cares about.

Despite this current lackluster incarnation – featuring mostly unknown players aged 22 or under plus a few over-the-hill veterans sprinkled in for good measure – Olympic football has quite the history. It's a history my good friend “Face,” an American by birth but Uruguayan by culture, is pained to see obscured.

The “Olympics don't irritate me at all,” he told me in a recent electronic communication. “What irritates me some times is that new soccer fans (may da Lord bless them) think that history started 20 years ago. If you wanna talk about NBA you need to know about Bill Russell, or about Babe Ruth if you talk about baseball. Likewise, you need to know about Uruguay if you are serious about soccer. That's all I'm sayin.”

Sage words. Self-congratulate yourself Face – but get a room first – your message has been received.

Long before Fifa was FIFA (you know, the one that conducts business with $40,000 in cash strewn onto hotel room tables, and awards its' signature international event to a blazing-hot desert nation with a population the size of Houston), the then-fledgling international sport organization allowed its' world championship to be determined at the Olympics out of necessity.

Yes class, that's right, the first two FIFA championships in 1924 and 1928 were conducted in the Olympic football tournament. And both were won by (you guessed it) Uruguay.

Add those Olympic victories to the two World Cups the tiny South American nation won in 1930 and 1950, and Uruguay has been FIFA-recognized world champion four times. That's one short of the all-time leaders Brazil, as many as Italy, and one more than Germany.

It should also be noted that Uruguay's 1950 World Cup victory took place in Brazil, against Brazil. As Bond famously said: How do you kill two hours in Rio when you don't know how to samba? Well James, in this case, you win the World Cup.

Perhaps Uruguay's greatest football achievement comes with the 20 officially recognized international titles it's racked up – more than any other nation on earth.

Now class, I'm no Uruguay partisan, but game recognizes game. More people live in Johannesburg South Africa, Ankara Turkey, or Yokohama Japan than the the entire 3.5 million Uruguay population.

And just so you know, Uruguay is current South American champion.

So when the Olympic football tournament kicks off (July 25 for the women and July 26 for the men) realize you are watching the continuation of … something wonderful.

The football's not that bad either. The African nations always put up a much more entertaining fight than in the World Cup, less-recognized nations tend to show more strongly, and at the very least you'll get to have an early peak at players that will be delighting/tormenting you, your favored nation, and favored club in just a few years.

So watch the matches, get a heads-up on some players to watch, and raise your glass to Uruguay for starting it all. Face, I take my steak medium well.

In other Beautiful Game business, defamed Middle East footie impresario Mohamad Bin Hammam has been kind-of cleared of bribing FIFA officials to select Qatar as host of the 2022 World Cup. Bin Hammam, the most recent upstart FIFA presidential candidate, had been tied to the previously mentioned hotel table cash that was miraculously delivered to FIFA executive committee members in Trinidad before they chose the WC's 2018 and 2022 hosts.

The investigation – conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh fresh off of telling Penn State it's a poorly led institution of higher learning – was not able to conclusively link Bin Hammam to alleged bribery, so his lifelong ban from the game was lifted. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport made a point of noting it was “not making any sort of affirmative finding of innocence.”

The FP knows that when there's smoke, there's usually fire, and when there's $40 grand cash on a Triny hotel table, even a simpleton recognizes that as a bribe. But in an organization where bribes and kickbacks are the order of of the day everyday, Bin Hammam's real mistake was trying to take on FIFA King Sepp Blatter.

Though ridiculously wealthy, charming, and well-connected, Bin Hammam found himself compelled to withdraw from the FIFA presidential race the day before a Blatter-initiated FIFA ethics probe into Qatar's selection. Two months later, after the King had had enough of his impudence, FIFA banned Bin Hammam from football for life.

Game. Set. Match. All hail the King.

Those who think these latest inquiry results place the King's throne back in jeopardy, know nothing of power. Two days before Bin Hammam was cleared, a new FIFA investigation was launched. This time led by former U.S. attorney Michael J. Garciaas and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.

And though Bin Hammam's lifelong ban has been lifted, his official FIFA role through the Asian Football Confederation remains out of his reach after a conveniently-recent forensic audit found financial improprieties during his tenure.

King Sepp Blatter ain't nuthin to mess with.

And if you think Sepp is the ultimate power in the football universe, venture back a few decades to marvel at the skill his mentor Joao Havelange used to reign graftily over football.

Now “Joao Sidious,” more than anyone else, propelled football and Zurich-based FIFA into the modern marketing age. But the now 96-year-old Brazilian also did it while handily lining his pockets.

Recently leaked Swiss court documents (from yet another investigation of FIFA) found Havelange and son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira – the defrocked Brazilian football czar – accepted kickbacks from the company Havelange selected to market the WC in the 1990s.

Blatter, who was Havelange's protege and chief lieutenant at the time, acknowledged knowing about the payments after the documents were leaked, but in true pimp fashion, brushed off the corruption claim by asserting that such payments were legal in Switzerland at the time.

He's since positioned himself more sturdily by saying his former liege should be stripped of his honorary FIFA presidency.

In the wake of this latest dust-up, German Football chief Reinhard Rauball has added himself to the King's enemies list by making the mistake of calling for Sepp's resignation. By now, you should know how that story will end.

Questioned by a reporter on Rauball's demand, Sepp took it in stride – perhaps even motioning to an underling to put Rauball's name in his book. Calm as ever, The King suggested he could run for a fourth term, and replied: “Let's see how my health is. I've just been for a checkup and I lost four kilograms (eight pounds).”

And Havelange, the ancient footie demi-god's name graces a stadium set to feature prominently at the Rio 2014 Summer Olympics. Given the recent disclosures of impropriety, some local crusaders want the name changed. But if the old master has any of juju his protege flaunts on a regular basis, the name will only be changed to feature the letters “Havelange” in golden lights.

And now, your footie anecdote:

Fellow Brazilian and eternally buck-toothed footballer Ronaldinho has gotten himself into hot... cola after appearing at a news conference drinking a Pepsi. Unfortunately for the once-great Brasilero turned laissez faire football leach, he was a signed endorser of Coca-Cola.

Now a man who's played for some of the biggest clubs in Europe, and featured in Champions League finals and World Cup finals, should understand marketing and endorsement contracts – especially the ones that fatten his pockets.

But if he hadn't appreciated the power of cola scorned before, he will now, and will grovel at the knowledge that it is the power of the libation lord that made things go bump in the night when he was just a wee Brazilian guttersnipe – or whatever the equivalent would be.

What's bumping now is pocket change rattling in the giant sucking sound his bank account is making. It'll now be deprived of $750,000-a-year Coke was paying him. And for this, The FP bestows Ronaldinho with my least-cherished accolade: What A Dope.

Class Dismissed.