F I F A - Fine For England, Wales, Scotland

[sunny-dave]

FIFA ("proud to be the most corrupt organisation in the world") has now decided to fine our Football Associations for the players wearing poppies.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/19/fifa-fines-english-fa-poppies-scotland

Is it time for us to say "feck off - we don't need either your bankrupt morality or your stinking competitions" and just walk away?

We might then find out who needs the other more - I suspect FIFA need us far more than we need them - at least in financial terms. I'd bet on them making appeasing noises pretty quickly.

If our bluff is called and we wind up outside the FIFA tent then so what?

We never win anything, the odds are stacked against us ever hosting anything again - so let's start our own international competitions and see who prefers us to the corrupt stench which emanates from Zurich and is bankrolled by the even more corrupt arabs.

[New Judge]

"We could cluck our tongues for a while before paying it NJ but what is the point?.

Pay it, move on, get knocked out at the group stage next time.

The fine is less than Wayne Rooney earns in a weekend."

The amount is not the issue. Even if we were granted an "absolute discharge" it would still be wrong to accept the decision. It's about making a stand. The worst they could do would be to disqualify the home nations from their competitions. Since those competitions are fairly tedious entertainment and since we get eliminated early on any way, it would be no great shakes. And UK football would retain its integrity which will be lost if it succombs to this ridiculous nonsense.

[RandyMarsh]

Not much of a football fan eh?

[TWR]

Pay it, you must be joking, sod them & pull out.

[dannyk13]

Call their bluff and don't pay it.

[Ellipsis]

We shall fight FIFA on the pitches, we shall fight in the court houses, we shall fight on the playing fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the forums and the papers; we shall never surrender!!!

[jno]

if wearing a poppy is important to you, be prepared to pay the price for doing so. If you think it's far too important for that, leave Fifa. Membership is not compulsory, so it'll be just another Brexit.

[Togo]

//be prepared to pay the price for doing so//

The "price" for wearing the poppy has already been paid. Lest we forget. Meehh.

[Ellipsis]

I must say I've never thought of the poppy as a political symbol. The politics of whom? You find people of all political persuasions wearing a poppy. It's remembrance of war, not agreement with or promotion of war - quite the opposite in many wearers' cases.

[jno]

by definition, we didn't pay that price, Togo. Others did.

[Togo]

Lest we forget.