What cost are we willing to pay for a World Cup?

Looks like Peter Hargitay, the kinf of spin, doesn't like being bowled a good old Aussie googly. It's a very Australian trait to question things and also cut through the crap to find out what is really going on out there. We're straight talkers, that is when we're not star struck or brown nosing. Jennings is NOT discredited and is in fact one of the few journalists who does not bow down to FIFA or the IOC. Neither organization is confortable with him asking questions about their corruptibility. Hall was one of the few people to take on the old corrupt Soccer Australia and report the terrible gongs on there. His reports helped get the Crawford enquiry up. Guess hwta came out of that? Lowy and the FFA and Hargitay's latest pay day. How ironic. If Hargitay (and Joey Gaetani) are not happy for some quetions to be asked about where out money is being spent then maybe he can take his consultancy to another country that doesn't care.

Wow - Peter Hargitay reads The Roar!

Indeed they both are. So Art, you support a child abuser who makes good films. What is your problem with Hargitay, a PR man with some excellent contacts working on our World Cup bid?

Davidde, you like everyone else are entitled to your opinion and while The Roar is dedicated to opinion pieces, it's not as though this is the only forum for such journalism, all the journo’s you mentioned manage to get their agenda’s out there somehow and “opinion pieces” are the ideal vehicle for this. However to claim that your piece was your own opinion is nonsense and anyone who believes it hasn’t read your article properly. Here is the basic structure of your piece: *Intro – Speaking negatively of agenda’s, leading into the topic of the piece on TWG and your opinion on that *Pre-Body – this is how you lead in: “So who is Hargitay? Well you can read about him on this site and this piece but here are a couple key facts about him. “ *Body – negative facts about Hargitay *Conclusion – you ask the readers for their opinions So you fill us up with some negative “key facts” about Hargitay and then tell everyone that you’re “genuinely curious to know how [we] feel about it.” You haven’t given us your opinion on anything other than that you think journo’s shouldn’t have agendas, you have “regurgitated” some facts – all of which were negative -, asked a few rhetorical questions to excuse writing the piece and then asked Roarers to draw their conclusions from that. I urge everyone to re-read the article, no-one can possibly agree with this statement Davidde: “No agendas masked by the pretense of unbiased reporting, simply opinion”. How is it unbiased to use terms like "Spin Doctor"? The term "Spin" itself is a pejorative term by definition, a "Spin Doctor" therefore is also a negative term for someone whose job it is to “spin” things in a positive light. That you double-checked your facts with reliable sources I would expect of someone who makes a living from writing but you only put one very negative set of facts out there and then put your own “spin” on them (which is different from giving us an opinion) for us to read and allowed us to base our opinion on them.

Ofcourse it is Freud. Just like everything else. That's why there is no point getting your knickers in a twist about things. Anyway, I went to www.imdb.com and got the following results Chinatown - User rating 8.5 70,028 IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 8.5 / 10 The Pianist - User rating 8.5 115,239 IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 8.5 / 10 So there you go both excellent film according to the hoi polloi

Matter of opinion.

I advise Mr Polanksi to contact Mr Hargitay and Mr Rich and see if they can get the Irsaeli lobby to persuade President Obama to give him a pardon. The Israeli lobby did the job for Mr Rich :) Freud - The Pianist is as a very good piece of fillm making. But, Polanksi's best film is Chinatown.

Roman Polanski anyone? I've mentioned his name a few times and it seems either no-one knows him or no-one cares. Why is his alleged sexual assault from 30-odd years ago acceptable? If it isn't, why have most of us seen "The Pianist"? List off Hargitay's crimes and I don't mean doing his job, being a "Spin-Doctor" for a company responsible for the worst chemical mishap ever.

Actually, Hitler did quite a few "good" things which are still visible in Germany today but his legacy will forever be the genocide of Jews.

Art, I wasn't suggesting it was the same guy, but perhaps part of the dynasty? Hmmn, car crash eh? You should always check the brakes carefully on those rented cars.

Gaz - it looks like the man who threatened to knock out Mickey Rourke died a few years ago when he crashed his ferrari. http://imagine-contact.com/usenet/fetchMsg.php?id=111002 TEARS were being shed yesterday as word spread that Count Roffredo Lovatelli Gaetani - the handsome former boxer who dated a string of beautiful women, including Ivana Trump - was dead. The 50ish Ferrari dealer drove off the road in a rented car as he was driving solo Thursday night toward Argiano, his ancestral home in Tuscany, one of the oldest castles in Italy. He'll be buried there by his family, which produced two popes. Roffredo's brother Christofero died years ago when his parachute didn't open. He is survived by two brothers, Gelazio and Luca. His longtime girlfriend, Svetlana, was home in Lithuania when she learned of his death. Taki Theodoracopulos - who famously boxed Roffredo for three rounds in the 1980s (and lost by decision) at an Upper East Side match attended by Claus von Bulow and Reinaldo Herrera - was mourning in Paris. Roffredo, who used to go sailing with Gianni Agnelli, was also good friends with Giuseppe Cipriani, Sylvia Martins, Laura Steinberg, Ramona Ridge and Silvano Marchetto.

Thanks for the links Gaz. Reading about the lifestyles of the rich and infamous is a pleasant distraction after being bogged down in all this sports opinion.

I'm just wondering if Joey Gaetani is connected to the dynastic family of the same name, who socialize with people like Marc Rich, Ivana Trump and the Kashoggis (another lovely bunch). "It was the perfect hors d'oeuvre for the evening: A desiccated core dressed in cloying sweetness, at once irresistible and slightly lethal. Mr. Gaetani stood at the bar of Mortimer's. Even though this was his crowd, he did not seem to be relishing the new attention coming his way. He had been in this situation once before. Several years ago, Mr. Gaetani had come to the defense of the model Carré Otis at a time when she was having relationship troubles with the actor Mickey Rourke. Mr. Rourke had crashed Vogue magazine's 100th-anniversary party in 1992, which Ms. Otis attended. When things got ugly between them, Mr. Gaetani stepped in to aid Ms. Otis. Two years later, Mr. Gaetani, an accomplished pugilist, challenged Mr. Rourke to a boxing match. Alas, the gossip columnists were denied the opportunity of seeing the socialite punch out the lights of the actor, although Mr. Gaetani did assert that when Mr. Rourke "hears my name, he quivers like a dog in a storm." Perhaps Mr. Gaetani remembered this moment in the limelight as The Transom asked him what had brought him and Ivana together. "The Red Cross Ball in the South of France," he almost mumbled..." http://www.observer.com/node/39723 http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20133628,00.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/11400916@N07/2202086310/ Just asking....

ok the first tournament where we drew to laos was the qualification to the U16 Asian cup (which was a qualifier for U17 world cup). Surprisingly Ange kept his job. Ange then said that the reason why we only drew to Laos was because Australian team had to go to school whilst Laos kids didn't have to. I'm not too sure that's the best excuse in the world. He then led the U20 socceroos in the AFC youth championship. Lost to China in the group stages which meant that Australia finished second in the group and had to face South Korea in the quarter finals instead of Jordan. They lost to South Korea and hence failed to qualify to the World Cup (semi finalist qualify to that tournament) Really two failures like that and Ange really should get sacked Now Foster was incredibly rude in that interview and was over the top as usual. However he was right that ange should have fallen on his own sword after two debacles like that.

I think the difference is that hiddink face up to the charges and tried to defend himself in court. Was convicted, found guilty and Hididnk then paid his fines and was given a suspended jail sentence. Therefore hiddink didn't try to escape the justice system Hargitay alledgedly according to this article moved to another country to avoid paying for the court order the money owed to by the government. Both party committed wrong doing. One ran away from it and the other faced up to it.

We didn't qualify for the u16 asian cup..I thought they were talking about the world cup. Well fair cop Ange that is a very bad result.

Ange was coping it for having a draw with a Chinese team “someone we should never lose too” No, I australia ldid lose to the Chinese team. There was nothing factually wrong with that statement It was australia who drew to Laos and were eliminated and hence failed to qualify to the U16 Asian Cup that Foster mistakenly said that we lost to. However saying that, Australia really should never draw to Laos and that draw was as good as a defeat. Ange asked fozz "if we brought in a technical director, would he say the way we develop players is good or not." Foster replied direct quote "He would say it's good enough to beat Laos and good enough to beat China. He would also say it would need serious improvement like we all say. So we agree with you" So I don't think there's much of a contradiction for him blaming about lack of technique to compete at the world stage and yet saying our technique is good enough to beat Asian oppositions. Jan Versleijen's qualification kind of proved that.

For anyone interested - Mr Rich's PR Machine see to it that nothing gets missed. Check out these retractions. Keep up the good work Joey :) http://www.marcrich.ch/mrh_corrections.php?id=26 Sunday Independent (IRL) CORRECTION APPENDED In our edition of 18th June we incorrectly suggested that American billionaire, Mr. Rich, had spent over a decade "on the run" and that he had "escaped jail" following an alleged Presidential pardon for "fraud" conviction in the US. It has been pointed out to us by Mr. Rich's attorney, and we fully accept, that Mr. Rich was never tried or convicted for fraud and consequently was never "on the run" and never "escaped jail". We apologise unreservedly to Mr. Rich for our error". (Published on June 25, 2006) The Evening Standard MARC RICH In an article on 3 October 2005, we reported that Marc Rich was convicted in the US of racketeering, tax evasion and other offences. In fact, he was charged but never convicted – and was subsequently pardoned. We apologise for the error. (Published on October 20, 2005)

I also am interested to see how they treat Ange I can’t remember his exact quotes but Foster seemed to be somewhat positive towards Ange when commenting on the Bne Roar match. Perhas Foz is aware that the video of him having a go at Ange about “results” makes him look stupid when he now praises the current regime. Especially as Ange used the same excuse “lack of technique” that the Dutch use. Ange was coping it for having a draw with a Chinese team “someone we should never lose too” according to Foz and yet we still do at various levels and recently with our supposed best ever crop of young players technique wise (the current u16’s) we drew at home with someone far further down on the totem pole than China.

... and who is Joey Gaetani, just out of interest?