Final thoughts on the shameful football World Cup. 1. The Jabulani ball was a disaster. Barely half a dozen goals were scored directly from free kicks. Top players kept shooting way up into the sky. 2. The standard of refereeing was absolutely rock bottom. The Dutch thugs were beating up opponents and feigning injury since the beginning, especially against Japan, Brazil and Spain, yet not one player was sent off until the second half of extra time yesterday that is after 650 minutes of football. This English ref, Harold Webb seems to see less than a person with mature cataracts in both eyes. He was single handedly instrumental in the Swiss victory over Spain when he refused to show yellow cards despite persistent foul play by the Swiss cynically upending any Spanish player who had the ball. Yesterday De Jong should have been shown a straight red for going in with his studs into the chest of Xabi Alonso but he got only a yellow. Seems that every effort was made to make it third time lucky for the Netherlands but Spain just managed to hang on. FIFA is an autonomous body making enormous amounts of money from fans of football all over the world. Football is a people's game played by legions of poor all over the world. It is time that FIFA is seriously investigated and controls exercised over it. Perhaps it could be put under the control of UNESCO so that the money could be invested in education. 3. Del Bosque was the coach of Real Madrid where he won the Serie A and Champions League several times. Yet he was thrown out for no obvious reason since when Real have not won anything. Yesterday he won the World Cup and showed how stupid Real were.

India is probably among a very small group of countries where the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI has to seek permission to arrest a thieving civil servant. The CBI wants to proceed against fellow called SI Patel of the National Highway Authority or NHAI for awarding road building contracts to certain private contracts. The NHAI wants to see attested copies of documents seized by the CBI before deciding whether permission will be given to CBI for proceeding with the case. As is usual, Patel is not the only one in CBI radar. He was probably sharing the loot with several others for protection which is now being provided by his colleagues. When the has inbuilt protection for thieves is it any wonder that virtually all civil servants are filthy crooks? However, does a similar law grant such protection to innocent citizens? Absolutely not. How can you protect criminals if citizens were protected by the police? One Mr. SM Varghese filed a complaint against a company, Jay Polyester alleging money laundering, circular trading in diamonds and other financial irregularities. You would think that a country suffering regular terrorist attacks would value such a whistle blower and reward him but no. Punjab Police are after Mr. Varghese who has fled to Singapore. Punjab Police actually went to Kochi, Kerala to arrest Mr. Varghese's elderly mother who obtained bail from Kerala High Court and is now hiding in fear. The police then went to Mumbai and picked up an acquaintance, who suffers from HIV, took him to Punjab and tortured him. When the government is the worst enemy of the people what can people do except fight back. Hence the Naxals.

Probably to relieve the stress caused by the recession, obstinate unemployment and the massive oil spill the US government treated us to a great farce called the ' great spy exchange.' Ten people of Russian origin were arrested for spying on the US for many years. Most of these people lived in nice suburbs, owned homes, had jobs and even had children born in the US. The charge was that they were exchanging coded messages written in secret ink using drop boxes. Something out of a 40 year old John le Carre novel. Messages such as, ' Did you meet the terminator in California? No, the elephant's bum is bigger.' These people were probably illegal immigrants living comfortably without permit. They were rounded up and used as hostages to free four real spies from Russia who were all Russians, three were in Russian secret services and one a scientist. None of the ten wanted to leave the US but were threatened into confession because of their illegal status and then thrown out. Truth is that the country which is really spying on the US is China. Even US government officials say that China has large numbers of spies in the US, most engaged in stealing industrial secrets. One fellow was passing secrets from the top secret nuclear research lab at Los Alamos. China has no respect for US patents and intellectual property rights allowing citizens to pirate movies, music and software and to sell fakes of every known luxury brand. Yet the US dares not flex its muscle with China because China has accumulated $ 2 trillion and continues to buy US securities. Without Chinese support the dollar would sink without trace. To see the mighty US cowering in fear!

Seems that a company based in California, USA called Control Component Inc which makes valves has been bribing government owned companies in India. Among them BHEL, NTPC, Bhilai Electric and Mahrashtra and Haryana State Electricity Boards. What the freeloading press is trying to hide is that you cannot bribe a company, you bribe individuals. Apparently the company pleaded guilty before a US court of bribing people in 36 countries to win lucrative contracts. All Indian politicians are criminals and about 99.99% of the uncivil servants are thieves but since they control the police and the investigating agencies the citizens of India are powerless to give them just punishment. Criminal politicians even contest elections from prison while being on trial for murder as Amarmani Tripathi did. The best example of our criminal justice system or complete lack thereof is the news that Mr. Sajjan Kumar will be charged with the murder of one person in the anti Sikh riots of 1984. That was 26 years ago just before the Union Carbide tragedy in Bhopal. Everyone knows that nothing is going to come of this case because Mr. Sajjan Kumar is of the Congress and the Congress knows how to protect its murderers to protect any stain coming on The Family. Meanwhile our most revered Prime Minister of the Congress visited Kanpur whereupon the whole city was locked down resulting in the death of an 8 year old boy because his family was unable to take him to hospital. The family will probably not dare to sue the police and the Prime Minister out of terror because as everyone knows the Congress bleeds for the aam aadmi.

It was billed as the World Cup for Africa but is turning out to be the greatest humiliation for black Africa. We now know that Spain will be playing the Netherlands for the trophy on sunday and the Dutch speaking Afrikaners will be cheering for the Netherlands, the country of their ancestors. We do not know what has been decided? Will it be a case of third time lucky for Netherlands or will Spain be allowed to win the very first time they have managed to reach the final. Will the blacks be cheering for a Spanish victory? Come what may Mr. Jacob Zuma, who prides himself on his Zulu origins, will have to present medals to the Dutch team and may even have to hand over the cup itself. There is bound to be talk of integration, of racial harmony in the Rainbow nation and of how South Africa staged the biggest sporting festival in the world but the Afrikaner will not see it that way. For the white Afrikaner it will be proof of superiority of the Dutch over the blacks none of whom, except Ghana, could get past the group stage. It will not matter that this Netherlands team is a team of thugs committing dangerous fouls against opponents all of which went unpunished. What will matter is that the President who was dancing at his fourth ( or was it his fifth ) wedding a few months ago will be hanging medals around the necks of the people who are of the same stock as the people who confined Mr. Zuma's people into Bantustans only allowing them to come to white suburbs to work as servants. The murder of Eugene Terreblanch is still fresh in their minds and how they will enjoy. It was indeed a well organised World Cup.

About a month back a small news item reported that the Central Bureau of Direct Taxes, CBDT or income tax fellows are planning to brain wash our children on the advantages of paying taxes. They will target 10 to 18 year olds to teach them the ' need for taxation in civil society.' They want to teach children about the ' rationale for taxes, how the government raises revenue and spends it, role of government in society ' and other such laudable topics. All this stuff will be included in the syllabuses from class 5 through to 12. Question is, will they tell the truth or will they be feeding our children some romantic garbage about the collection and spending of taxes in India? Will they tell the children that they will be paying the highest rates of taxes in the world when they grow up? Will they be honest about the fact that after paying so much of their hard earned money they will not get any services from the government? That criminal politicians and thieving uncivil servants will steal more than half the money. That criminal politicians are allowed to travel with fat ugly wives, drug taking criminal children, servants, friends and relatives for free at our expense. That criminal politicians are allowed free rail passes for life. That the police are a bunch of criminal enforcers in uniform who will protect criminal politicians as in Bofors and child molesters like Rathore. That once you have cast your vote for whichever criminal sleazeball who has been allotted a ticket you will be irrelevant till the next elections come along. That the government will waste your money on useless shows such as the Commonwealth Games. Our innocent children will not be told the truth. Instead they will be fed garbage until they grow up and are sickened by the truth. That is how Naxals are formed.

There has been a lot of hue and cry lately by what is know as ' honor killings ' especially in the Hindi belt. Young men and women have been killed for intercaste marriage or for marrying within the same ' gotra.' Only Hindus will understand the meaning of gotra which is a kind of ' house ' like they have in schools. It is forbidden to marry within the same gotra as it is to marry outside one's caste. It may seem confusing but is really simple. Since one is supposed to marry within the same caste one should not marry within the same gotra to prevent consanguineous marriage with all the genetic problems that leads to. Staying in the same village young people have been unable to stop falling in love and marrying within the same gotra thus incurring the wrath of the village council or ' khap.' The pro Congress, anti Hindu press has been frothing on about honor killing, crime against women, the curse of the patriarchal system, blah blah blah without researching the real reasons for these crimes. The real reason is the division of Hindus according to caste started by the Congress after independence and carried on by all other criminal politicians to win votes. Thus Hindus are divided into Scheduled Caste ( traditionally untouchables ), Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes or OBCs. These people are given preference for seats in elite colleges even with very low marks, get good government jobs and promotions even though patently unfit. A couple of years ago there were pitched battles between Gujjars and Meenas in Rajasthan over getting ST status. So called minorities get bail easily after killing Hindus. Since minorities are already slaughtering us what does it matter if we kill each other?

Today was all India bandh day. The strike was called by opposition parties to protest the rise in prices of petrol. As is usual the strike will be patchy allowing both opposition and government to claim victory. Businesses will suffer losses in areas controlled by opposition parties where thugs armed with sticks and stones will be out in force to prevent people from going to work and shops from opening up. Daily wage earners will lose a whole day's wages. The tragedy for the country is that all politicians from all parties are dishonorable liars. The government is lying when it says that it has merely removed subsidies on petrol when they are charging 100% taxes on every liter and the opposition is lying when it claims that the strike is being called in the interest of the people. Truth is that petrol is taxed by both central and state governments so in states controlled by opposition parties they are the criminals responsible for the high prices. So why is the Congress dominated government so adamant about increasing the prices of fuel? The reason is that the government is nearly bankrupt. The lying freeloading press is keen to point out that our foreign exchange reserves are in excess of $ 250 billion but it is the internal debt that is out of control. Instead of a tax refund, which is a one off expense for the treasury, the Congress chose to give 80% pay rises to useless, thieving civil servants to win last year's elections and is now unable to manage its debts. UP is said to owe Rs. 1.8 trillion which is set to rise to Rs. 1.98 trillion this fiscal. The state power distribution companies have huge losses on their books. What other debts are being hidden from us who knows. When will the lies explode into the open and what the people will have to suffer only God knows. Or maybe even He doesn't.

Most Indians are devastated at the defeats of Brazil and Argentina at the football World Cup. Now that we know the semi finalists it is time to indulge in some conspiracy theories. Brazil is the only country to have won the World Cup in Europe and that was back in 1958 when they beat Sweden in the final. After that it seemed decided that no country will win outside its own continent. Thus european teams won in Europe while South American teams won on their own continent. In the 2002 finals in Japan and Korea there was no asian team good enough to be made to win the Cup so Brazil won for the fifth time. Last time we reverted to norm in Germany where the final was between France and Italy with Italy winning on penalties. This time the World Cup is in Africa and again there is no African team which is really good enough to be champions so this time it seems to have been decided that it is Europe's turn. I had a premonition so did not see the Brazil game. Seems that Brazil were one goal up in the first half and completely lost it in the second half which is impossible to believe. It would not be so bad except that it was against Holland, a cynical, brutal, calculating team of thugs. They are said to play a ' pragmatic ' game. In reality they play ugly. The way they beat up the Japanese is unforgettable. Yet not a single red card. Uruguay has been allowed to progress to be cannon fodder for the Dutch so they are sure to be in the finals. Maradonna has gone with six forwards. Yet against the Germans they could not even get near the 18 yard line. Normally effervescent Maradonna stood passively as if he knew the result beforehand. In the land of Afrikaans and apartheid is it Holland's turn to lift the trophy. Fantastic irony.

Seems that Finland has made it a legal right for every citizen to have access to broadband at 1 mbps and has promised to increase it to 100 mbps by 2015. In India we do not have the right to a continuous stable supply of electricity even though the price keeps increasing. In 1971 during the war in East Pakistan, what is now Bangladesh people in Calcutta were advised to place thick curtains on the windows and to switch off all lights if the warning siren sounded. This was called black out and was in fear of being bombed by Pakistanis. In the event the siren never sounded and we had our lights on throughout the war. Now we have black outs at any time of the day or night and completely without warning. However, it is not called black out but is euphemistically called ' load shedding.' The black out may last from a few minutes to 24 hours. Phoning the electricity department is of no use because the disconnect all phones and sit around happily drinking tea. Who cares if the food in your refrigerator spoils and you suffer financial loss? Who cares if a person with a broken leg has to wait for hours in agony because no XRay can be done? Shops selling frozen foods or ice cream cannot suffer the loss of throwing out their stock so they let the food thaw inside their freezers and refreeze when electric supply is resumed. This results in severe gastroenteritis in people, especially children who love eating ice cream in summer. Obviously poor people suffer much more because they go to cheaper places while the middle class select more expensive shops with power backup. If only we could gather all criminal politicians and thieving civil servants in one shed and leave them without any electricity for a month. Lovely thought.

It has become almost a crime to be a Hindu in India. Criminal politicians have created an environment of hate against Hindus with a view to be seen as ' secular ' and get the votes of so called minorities who are already some 25% of the population and breeding like rats so that they outnumber Hindus in a couple decades. Lying freeloading journalists constantly equate Hindus with the Taliban and write hate articles. Even the courts seem to have been influenced. Thus a fast court convicts a Hindu for Kandhmal riots and sentences him to jail but another court grants bail to a Muslim implicated in the Best Bakery bomb case. Hinduism is secular. Since no one has seen what God looks like and it is doubtful if he is a white haired man with a flowing beard we have many Gods and Godesses. Yet Hindus never fight among each other saying that my God is greater than yours. We do not fight wars because we do not convert others and do not go to heaven by killing or converting kafirs and heathens. One God fellows have been fighting and massacring each other and ' non believers ' for thousands of years. They claim to worship the same God but differ in who their prophets are. Prophets appeared at different times in the past and preached to the people. They did not write down their words. Their words were written down, often after many years, from the recollections of their followers. Prophets were human and so must have suffered from human conditions such as constipation or a pimple on the bum. However to make their religions credible prophets are worshiped as perfect and no one is allowed to question the written word on pain of death. This makes it easy for them to kill infidels. We Hindus do not want to kill or convert. Please do not kill or convert us. Just leave us alone to choose our own hell or heaven.

Slyly and hoping no one would notice the government has added a 10.3% Service Tax on air tickets. Domestic passengers will have to pay upto a maximum of Rs. 103 and passengers for foreign flights have to pay upto a maximum of Rs. 515. Already air travel is horrendously taxed in India. Taxes are calculated on the original price of the ticket so even if an airline is offering tickets at low prices the added taxes make them unaffordable. Then there are airport taxes which are mandatory. Taxes on fuel can be anywhere upto 30% adding enormous tax burdens on airlines. Criminal politicians do not allow domestic airlines to show the breakdown of various costs in the prices of tickets so that passengers remain ignorant of the fact that they are being looted but on foreign flights taxes and fees are clearly shown to be equal to the basic price of the ticket. This makes air travel too expensive for some 95% of the people. However 5% of one billion is 50 million which is about equal to the entire population of Great Britain. The lying freeloading press is thus able to headline that air travel is booming in the country. This has been the winning strategy of the Congress gang since independence. Classify cars, air travel, restaurants, multiplexes as luxury and tax them so heavily that they are out of reach of the ordinary people. Then beat your breasts about the hardship of the aam aadmi, dole out animal grade food grains at subsidised rates at taxpayer expense and get votes of a populace still locked into bullock cart age. If only we could tell the cattle class people to stop being aam and demand to be khas perhaps, just perhaps, we could get rid of the filth.

Seems that the Prime Minister's Office, PMO has written to the Department of Telecom, DoT to transfer all licensing issues regarding 2G and 3G to an empowered Group of Ministers, eGoM. This was done with the consent of the Prime Minister and has effectively taken away all powers from the Minister of Telecommunications, Mr. Raja. Mr. Raja arbitrarily awarded 2G licenses to two companies ignoring the suggestion of auctioning the licenses by the Prime Minister. The companies sold their licenses making billions of rupees. There are allegations of a scam worth billions of rupees and the recent auction of 3G licenses indicates that the government may have lost Rs. 1 trillion in fees and taxes. While the people of the country are being hit by a double whammy of increasing taxes and inflation Mr. Raja, his friends and officers of DoT are able to get away after making billions by defrauding the government. Now the Prime Minister has shown his mistrust of Mr. Raja openly by taking away his powers. In any civilised country in the world Mr. Raja would have been sacked and serious investigations instituted. Not here. The Congress needs support of various gangs to stay in power and if sacking Mr. Raja results in new elections the troops will be unhappy. The only way to wealth is by accumulating loot which can only be done if you are in power. Will Mr. Raja resign at the insult which is akin to a public slap on his face. No chance. If he resigns he will get no further opportunities to enrich himself. Take all the insults and shoes across the face and hang in there. Opportunities will come. After all public memory is short. No sharam, no izzat.

Seems that a high powered committee has found 44 deemed universities to be unfit. Of these 29 were granted their status between 2007 and 2009 when Mr. Arjun Singh was the HRD minister. In some cases the order granting deemed status came directly from the minister's office. This is being reported as a scam by the HRD ministry with Mr. Arjun Singh in charge. What is not being said is that Mr. Arjun Singh was and is a Congress man and was HRD minister in a government led by the Congress during those years with the present Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh in charge. Are we expected to believe that those in Congress hierarchy were unaware of what was going on? Surely there was a system of dividing the booty. So why has the freeloading press suddenly decided to jump on Mr. Arjun Singh? Has it anything to do with Bhopal and Union Carbide? Mr. Arjun Singh has denied any responsibility in allowing Mr. Anderson to flee India thereby indirectly implicating the then Prime Minister. Any smear on The Family is absolutely unacceptable to Congress. Mr. Arjun Singh should have obeyed the law of omerta thereby taking all the blame on himself. Instead he has implicated the capo di tutti capo and all the luparas are out for him. The Congress has parasitised this country for over sixty years and thinks that it has a God given right to do it for ever. In a country where 60% of people are illiterate The Family is presented as royalty and power is genetically transferred. Mr. Arjun Singh has dared to tell the truth, albeit indirectly and he will the rage of the entire gang. Does anyone else have the guts to tell the whole truth?

I do not get it. We are constantly told that India's growth rate is 8.5% for this year but inflation is 10.5% which, to me, means that our real growth rate is -2%. That however is not the whole story. Flats in Delhi which were selling for Rs. 3.4 million in 2001 are now selling for Rs. 21 million, an appreciation of over 600% in 10 years. Against this background the government has raised petrol price by 6% without regard for inflation which would suggest that the government is desperate to raise revenues by any means, never mind the consequences. Our press being freeloading liars we never get the true picture but the reality suggests that the rupee is like confetti and the government is desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy. Yet the rupee which was 55 to the dollar two years ago has hardened to 46 today. The Japanese yen is trading just below 90 to the dollar even though Japan is still in deflation. This despite the fact that China is buying $ 2 billion dollars worth of american treasuries everyday and has accumulated over $ 2 trillion to date. Japan and Korea must also be buying up dollars to keep their currencies from appreciating and hurting exports. What does this say about the American economy? Can China go on buying US treasuries infinitely? What happens if it floats the renminbi and everyone piles into it or it accumulates so much that it has more dollars than the American government? Seems that those in power have no clue and are just waiting for ' something to happen.' Americans must stop spending and start saving but this will hurt US companies as well and unemployment at 10% will get worse. Scary. Wish someone could explain.

Football is not war but it comes second in terms of the loyalty and passion it generates especially among men. Players are treated as stars and receive huge salaries from their clubs, the equivalent of Rs. 10 million a week. Players who are representing their countries at the World Cup in South Africa wear their countries' colors and carry their flags. Each game starts with the playing of national anthems of both countries. Sadly some players seem to have come along for the ride without any loyalty to their flag or concern for their fans. Smaller countries such as Slovenia, New Zealand and Honduras battled away valiantly but unfortunately could not get past the group stage. South Korea, Japan and Slovakia have progressed to the knock out stage through hard work, team spirit and skill. The progress of USA is especially romantic. Down 2-0 against Slovenia they did not give up. They battled to 2-2 and then suffered the heartbreak of seeing their third goal ruled out by the referee for unknown reasons. Against Algeria it was goalless until the last minute of injury time when Donovan scored for a famous victory and a place in the next round. Even Italy fought away to the last kick of the match including a fight with the goalkeeper of Slovakia but their aging bodies could not keep up with their younger opponents. At least they showed some pride. Against this background the pathetic and contemptible display of selfish petulance by the French is sickening. Whether you like the coach is immaterial. You must put in 100% of your effort for your flag. It is not just soldiers who should show loyalty. I hope the French people find some way to really punish these traitors.

So what is happening inside China? Suddenly there is a rash of strikes by workers at foreign factories such as Honda and Toyota. Before that there were suicides at Foxconn which is a Taiwanese company supplying to computer giants such as Apple. Foxconn increased salaries by 30% and then again by 70%. If they are able to double salaries of workers and still hope to make a profit it shows how the workers were being brutally exploited before nine people committed suicide. This is the country where the communist party is in total control and where you would expect a paradise for the proletariat. Exactly the opposite is true. No one has any rights and strikes are usually banned. When children died of melamine mixed in milk protesting parents were beaten up and threatened into silence. When children die of water poisoned by manufacturing companies no one is allowed to cmplain. So why he strikes in foreign owned factories? Are the strikes being organised by the party only against the Japanese? Or has China decided to make it so difficult for foreign owned companies that they sell out to local competitors and move out? This will allow Chinese manufacturers to take over ready made plants along with the knowhow to move up the value chain. Instead of exporting low cost rubbish they will be able to manufacture high end products for export what Lenovo has been able to do after buying out IBM's personal computers division. Saving face is very important to the Chinese because they know that they are a brutal uncivilised people. They want to become the most powerful nation on earth. God help everyone if they succeed.

On the same day that the US started delivering the latest batch of F16s to Pakistan President Obama sacked General McChrystal who was overseeing the war in Afghanistan. Seems that an article in Rolling Stones magazine quoted the general making disparaging remarks about Obama and Vice President Biden. The general had apologised publicly for his error but was sacked anyway. Obama may feel that he is a big boss who can throw his weight around but now that he has freed the general is how is he going to control him. If the war in Afghanistan starts to go sour or if a lot of soldiers are killed, which is a real possibility, then the general could suddenly become a star who had had been sacked by a vindictive president for being right. Having blathered his way to the White House Obama is suddenly finding that action is much more difficult than hot air. The explosion in the Gulf of Mexico was bad luck but he was wrong to think that he could handle it with hot air. On the one hand people are very very angry about the delay in controlling the oil spill, on the other hand they are angry at the moratorium on new wells in the gulf because it means no jobs to be had. His attempts at dumping all the blame on BP, a British oil giant and his intemperate language has made British people unhappy especially as they see no blame coming to US companies such as Halliburten. Being a slave nation the British can do nothing but if they sense unfairness in his handling of BP there could be public pressure to withdraw from Afghanistan. India should cancel Obama's proposed trip to India in protest against supplying arms to Pakistan but we will not. The tragedy of India is that the supine who supported Union Carbide still rule.

The Criminal Bureau of Investigation, CBI has found that health ministry officials connived in granting medical colleges affiliations in exchange for money. Former chief of the Medical Council of India, MCI Dr. Ketan Desai was arrested for demanding Rs. 20 million from a private medical college for granting recognition. Now CBI is investigating over sixty such colleges which were granted recognition in the last three years. The agency has questioned top health ministry officials but has not arrested anyone as yet. The CBI has conducted raids on two medical colleges, one in Bareilly and one in UP, which were denied recognition three times by the MCI but were granted recognition by health ministry officials is exchange for vast sums of money. So what is new about this? Barring an extremely small group of individuals the entire civil service consists of thieves and bandits. Only those with criminal tendencies would want to spend their entire lives uselessly shifting files from one desk to another, being despised by every Indian and having to obey orders from low class criminal politicians. Imagine spending your entire adult life doing nothing constructive, watching colleagues and seniors taking bribes or stealing from helpless people who have come for help, covering up crimes of predatory thugs such as Rathore and bending over to sleazy politicians that make your skin crawl. In the past higher rungs of the civil service attracted good students from all over India but today they come mainly from states which also supply most of the notorious criminals in the country. Of course, no one is going to carry out such an audit.

Although its position is dependent on the spending of fanatical fans FIFA does not care about their enjoyment. Every World Cup they unveil a new ball for the sponsorship money it brings them and every time players complain about being unable to control it. This time seems to be worse than before. When players like Christiano Ronaldo shoots miles above the crossbar from freekicks there must be something wrong with the ball or the way it is introduced. Had the ball been introduced one year back every player would have had time to practice with it but what does FIFA care. Time for governments to kick FIFA around because the money is coming from fans and hence from different countries. The refereeing has been rarely good, mostly ordinary and at times disgraceful. In the match between Spain and Slovakia the Swiss players were determined not to let Spain play. The referee kept blowing for fouls thus recognising the offences but did not issue any yellow card for consistent fouling. Spain lost. In Germany v Serbia the ref was issuing cards for minor offences. Klose was sent off, Germany lost. In Slovenia v USA the ref disallowed the third USA goal which baffled everyone. It was a draw but USA lost two valuable points. In Netherlands v Japan the Dutch beat up the Japanese in the first half hour. Robin van Persie should have been sent off for at least three deliberate, dangerous fouls but the ref saw nothing. Japan lost. In Chile v Switzerland the ref completely lost it. One Swiss player was red carded. Switzerland lost. Finally, ESPN, the official presenter starts with a girl shouting what sounds like ' enapo ' which apparently means ' just do it.' Is ESPN, an american company, helping NIKE, also american, in some ambush marketing to shaft Adidas, the official sponsor but German? Fascinating.