Why the Red Card on the FIFA World Cup of Corruption?

In the wake of Attorney General Loretta Lynch pulling out a red card on 14 F.I.F.A officials for an alleged World Cup of Corruption, Russian President Vladimir Putin opined that the Americans were offsides. 

It is bizarre that Putin purports that the United States is culminating a three year investigation in order to interfere with the F.I.F.A. election of Joseph Sepp  Blatter, but that sort of agiprop distracts from the Russians continuing to mass heavy firepower on the Ukrainian border. But then again, Putin's Russia used the Sochi Winter Olympics as cover for initially invading Crimea in 2014.

To answer why the Department of Justice issued a 47 count indictment over F.I.F.A. corruption, it is worth noting that the plots were hatched in the United States and utilized the U.S. banking system.  It is wrong to think that the F.I.F.A. case does not affect American politics either.  The United States missed out on winning the 2018 World Cup to the Russian Federation's Sochi bid and the out of the box award to Qatar in 2022.  The U.S. would be a natural backup in case either the Russian or Qatari bids fall through.

Moreover,  the Clinton Foundation received between  $50,000 and $100,000 and partnered with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association.  President Bill Clinton was said to have been so upset at the US losing the 2022 World Cup bid to Qatar that he smashed a mirror.  But the Qatar 2022 tried to make it up by giving the Clinton Foundation  $250,000 and $500,000 as well as the Qatari government pitching in between $1 million and $5 million.

This may only be the beginning of the F.I.F.A. fallout. Suddenly the business of soccer has become very exiting.  Goooooooooooool!

h/t: Steve Bell

Cristiano Ronaldo's Mother Tried to Abort the Unborn Soccer Superstar

Dolores Aveiro, the mother of Real Madrid (and formerly Manchester United) soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, helped author a candid autobiography with ghost writer Paulo Sousa Costa titled: Mãe Coragem "Mother Courage" which was recently had its lusophone launch in Lisbon.  Aveiro had wanted to dub the book "A Woman Is a Woman" as a nod to German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht's  "Man Is a Man".  But "Mother Courage"'s subtitle: "The Life the Force and the Faith of a Fighter" better explains her homage to the struggles of mothers.

In the book, Ms. Aveiro revealed that when she was pregnant with Cristiano on the Portuguese  archipelago of Madeira  in 1984, she tried to abort him.  Dolores Aveiro reasoned that she was 30 years old, already the mother of three children and her poor gardener husband was an alcoholic.  When doctors rejected her reasoning, "Mother Courage" tried to do the dirty deed  herself with a homemade abortifacient concoction of warm ale and running until she dropped.  Fortunately for the F.I.F.A. world, her attempts to abort were unsuccessful.

When Cristiano Ronaldo learned that his mother tried to kill him in utero, he seemingly took it in good spirits, joking about who pulled the purse strings in the house.  Perhaps it was a coincidence, but Ronaldo was not present for the book launch, nor was one of his brothers. Dolores excused the absence, since she claims that he knew what she would say.

Had Dolores Aveiro been successful of getting rid of a pregnancy problem when she felt under mental duress, the world would have never seen the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro.

Marveling at Super-Pope Francis via Graffiti Art

Artist Mauro Pallotta with his graffiti art "Superpope" Francis (photo:  Andreas Dueren/CNA)

Mauro Pallotta is a 41 year old artist and sculptor based in Rome.  But Pallotta may better be known as a celebrated street artist based on widespread notoriety of his graffiti "Super-Pope" Francis on the Via Plauto, a tiny cobble stoned street in the Borgo Pio district near St. Peter's Square in Rome (Vatican City).

Pallotta (a.k.a. Maupal) was inspired to do the piece one evening when he was reading a comic book and the image of the Pope appeared on television.  Pallotta opined:

“I thought of representing this Pope, Francis, as a super hero of the Marvel (Heroes), simply because, according to me, he is one of the few people who, having a real power as a Pope, he uses it for the good like the superheroes of the American Marvel.” 

It dawned on the artist that this Pope also had superpowers in the form of humility and empathy.

Pallotta likened Super-Pope  to  "It's  a little bit like Greek mythology brought to modernity.”   In depicting Pope Francis as a superhero using his papal authority for the good, the pontiff is shown as a pop style dressed in his understated white cassock, simple shoes and an iron pectoral crosscross as the Super-Pope carrying a black briefcase labeled "Valores" (meaning values in both Latin and Spanish).  This symbolizes that the first New World  Pope only carries his Christian values.

A red and blue scarf is hanging out of the briefcase, which is for the Argentine San Lorenzo de Football (soccer) club, which the Pope been a fan of this underdog team since his boyhood.

Graffiti art in Buenos Aires, Argentina of Pope Francis and San Lorenzo Football Club (photo TripAdvisor)

Pope Francis greeted players from San Lorenzo at the Vatican in December after a Wednesday general audience to congratulate them on winning the Tornial Incial championship.

 Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken of the spiritual values of sports teams.  His Holiness exhorted Argentine and Italians sports clubs that:  "[R]ugby is like life because we are all heading for a goal, we need to run together and pass the ball from hand to hand until we get to it".

The artist explained that the San Lorenzo soccer scarf brought Super-Pope Francis to being human.  However, considering Pope Francis' connection between sports and spirituality, carrying  the San Lorenzo scarf with his values "baggage" , it can be seen as a reminder that even a "Super-Pope" needs the support of his underdog team to achieve the goal of advancing the kingdom of God.

Vatican Communications embraced Pallotta's Super-Pope folk art tribute by posting it on  its Twitter feed.

The Super-Pope graffiti art lasted but a day, as Rome's decorum police acted faster than a speeding bullet took down this street art in record time.