Reports from the Sunday Times in England went undercover as lobbyist for American (of course) companies that wanted to bring the WC to the United States.

The fake American lobbyist contacted Nigerian Fifa executive committee member Amos Adamu. Adamu “allegedly” asked for $800,000 to build 4 artificial soccer fields in Nigeria. The money was to be paid to him directly…of course.

In a separate case, president of the Oceania Football Confederation Reynald Temarii asked for payments to fund a sports academy in return for his vote.

I must say, between this incident, the goal issues and Sepp Blatter’s all around actions, FIFA is one classy organization.

So confident in fact that FIFA approved the Finance Committee to take out a $650 million USD insurance policy in the chance that either the next two World Cups would need to be postponed or relocated due to terrorism, natural disasters, epidemics, war, accidents or turmoil.

The World Cup in 2010 in South Africa has bigger issues than the concern that the stadiums or overall infrastructure would not be ready in time, it is the security of the fans. No insurance policy will protect them from the high violence rates in South Africa.

“The United States is once more best among CONCACAF countries, climbing seven places to No.21, while Mexico holds steady at No.24.”

The story found its way onto the Big Soccer Forums and even got a response article from Edgar of Lucruri Neinteresante. In true internet-tough-guy fashion, the Big Soccer Forum post was a continual reminder that most people just like to argue without putting any substance in the argument.

Edgar’s post on the other hand provided a large amount of data that I assume he calculated on his own time which should be applauded. His work showed that Mexico’s “score” had improved over the last month. I am yet to get a response from Edgar himself on what equation he is using and where he got it. A moderator on the Big Soccer forums did provide a link to the official FIFA ranking criteria (below).

I am not saying that Edgar used the above numbers as a base. I have no idea what he used. But his effort should be applauded regardless.

In the end all of this discussion and number crunching still wont sway my opinion that the FIFA Rankings are wrong. Most people say who cares about the rankings, but they do hold true power.

FIFA uses the world rankings to seed Pot A of the World Cup (the top 8 teams). This was controversial in 2006 because Mexico (who would have guessed) was awarded a top 8 seed over the Netherlands and the United States which won CONCACAF. The other criteria is the past 2 World Cups. ( I don’t want to hear the whining of internet tough guys on this, I don’t care that Mexico actually got in, it is history)

The ultimate point is these rankings have a large amount of sway in where you are seeded for both the World Cup and World Cup Qualifiers. So FIFA World Rankings do matter.

Guess which team had the biggest jump? Mexico jumped from 32nd to 24th, over the United States which is currently 28th. So let me get this straight. Since the last World Rankings, Mexico has only played world powerhouse Honduras in Mexico City (and had to come back from behind), and won 2-1.

The United States on the other hand had to play in Guatemala and won 1-0. So how does Mexico jump 8 bloody spots?

Well it must be head-to-head matches against the US. Wait, Mexico has only beat the US twice out of 13 tries this decade, the last time being March of 2005 (that was 3 1/2 years ago). Mexico has been ahead of the US in the World Rankings most of this decade for no real reason. These current rankings show just how flawed the system is.

Mexico does not even dominate their own continent but are the highest ranked in the continent 95% of the time. If the FIFA World Rankings cant even find the best team in a continent (there are only 6 with football teams on them, it shouldn’t be that hard) then how can they establish a proper top ten?

I’m just adding this to the bin of crap produced by FIFA. Here are the current top 10:

1. Spain 1565
2. Italy 1339
3. Germany 1329
4. Netherlands 1295
5. Croatia 1266
6. Brazil 1252
7. Argentina 1230
8. Czech Republic 1134
9. Portugal 1120
10. Turkey 1033

Im not sure what Croatia is doing at #5 and Turkey at #10.