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The Soccer Thread (Version 12) — Revenge of the Backup GK

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Webster, Aug 13, 2021.

  1. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Qatar being Qatar.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The tiny Arab nation of Qatar has for years employed a former CIA officer to help spy on soccer officials as part of a no-expense-spared effort to win and hold on to the 2022 World Cup tournament, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

    It’s part of a trend of former U.S. intelligence officers going to work for foreign governments with questionable human rights records that is worrying officials in Washington and prompting calls from some members of Congress for greater scrutiny of an opaque and lucrative market.

    The World Cup is the planet’s most popular sports tournament. It’s also a chance for Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, to have a coming-out party on the world stage.

    The AP’s investigation found Qatar sought an edge in securing hosting rights by hiring former CIA officer turned private contractor Kevin Chalker to spy on rival bid teams and key soccer officials who picked the winner in 2010. Chalker also worked for Qatar in the years that followed to keep tabs on the country’s critics in the soccer world, the AP found.

    The AP’s investigation is based on interviews with Chalker’s former associates as well as contracts, invoices, emails, and a review of business documents. …

    Chalker also promised he could help the country “maintain dominance” over its large population of foreign workers, an internal document from one of Chalker’s companies reviewed by the AP shows. Qatar — a country with a population of 2.8 million, of whom only 300,000 are citizens — is heavily reliant on foreign-born labor to build the stadiums and other infrastructure needed for the tournament. …

    The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of documents from Chalker’s companies, including a 2013 project update report that had several photos of Chalker’s staff meeting with various soccer officials. Multiple sources with authorized access provided documents to the AP. The sources said they were troubled by Chalker’s work for Qatar and requested anonymity because they feared retaliation.

    The AP took several steps to verify the documents’ authenticity. That includes confirming details of various documents with different sources, including former Chalker associates and soccer officials; cross-checking contents of documents with contemporaneous news accounts and publicly available business records; and examining electronic documents’ metadata, or digital history, where available, to confirm who made the documents and when. Chalker did not provide to the AP any evidence to support his position that some of the documents in question had been forged.

    Many of the documents reviewed by the AP outlining work undertaken by Chalker and his companies on behalf of Qatar are also described in a lawsuit filed by Elliott Broidy, a one-time fundraiser for former U.S. President Donald Trump. Broidy is suing Chalker and has accused him of mounting a widespread hacking and spying campaign at Qatar’s direction that includes using former western intelligence officers to surveil FIFA officials. Broidy’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. Chalker’s legal team has argued the lawsuit is meritless.​

    World Cup host Qatar used ex-CIA officer to spy on FIFA | AP News
     
  2. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    LOL.

    Soccer.

    LOL.

    (Don't @ me. I went to Cosmos games when that was a thing. A schoolboy chum was the club's last first round draft pick.)
     
  3. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    LOL @ you. Why do you feel the need to come onto the soccer thread if you don't like it? Sod off, wanker.
     
  4. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    One of Portugal or Italy will not make the World Cup

    upload_2021-11-26_11-37-56.png
     
  5. UPChip

    UPChip Well-Known Member

    Also, one thing that was announced today is that the fourth-place team in the CONCACAF Octo will be playing the Oceania champion (read: New Zealand), which means the worst case scenario for the US now means a one-off against a team whose median talent level is (MLS/lower European league starter), as opposed to the alternatives, which are looking like Japan, Australia, Peru, Chile or Uruguay.
     
  6. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    Still, it's something best avoided. Strange things happen in one-off games, and letting a World Cup place ride on a neutral field in the Middle East summer against a team that is well-drilled and will pack their defensive third is just begging for something to go wrong. Let Panama deal with that particular headache.
     
  7. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    LOL. Soccer. LOL.

     
  8. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

     
  9. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

  10. Spartan Squad

    Spartan Squad Well-Known Member

    A whole new meaning to cock block

     
  11. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    Down goes Barca. First time in forever that they don’t get out of the group stages. Well, at least they have a stable financial system in place to weather this kind of a storm.
     
  12. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    "Midriff."

    <laughter>
     
    Spartan Squad and Webster like this.
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