Archive for August 2013
EU to Make Football a Fundamental Right
rights in the UK and Belgium where FIFA and UEFA proposed to switch to a pay system for important games in highly popular events like the Euro Cup and World Cup. Despite the fact that neither country has set foot near a semi-final in over a decade, the ECJ ruled that EU member states are permitted to decide what games have "major importance" to their markets and should thus be available via free broadcasting channels.
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil would not have been affected by such a pay structure, but UEFA and FIFA were hoping to implement something similar for the 2018 cup in Russia. One broadcaster commented, "If we don't have a subscription service for these finals we have to find major advertisers to recover those losses. At this point some of the only options are companies like Benetton and god knows the Russians aren't going to be happy with that."
UEFA and FIFA reactions following the ruling fell between disappointment and visible anguish as money signs quickly faded from executives' eyes. One UEFA spokesperson went so far as to say that the loss of potential revenue impacts funding for things like "supporting humanitarian projects" to which ECJ Vice-President Koen Laenarts responded, "That justification is totally illogical. What sense does it make to buy a few football boots for kids in the Brazilian favelas if there are hundreds of thousands of starving football fans here in Europe?"
Though the newest announcement is not legally binding, talks about including it in an upcoming treaty change at the EU level have already been swirling among the European heads of state. UK Prime Minister David Cameron is speculated to be using it as enticement to stay in the EU after his woefully regretful decision to put UK membership in the EU to referendum in 2017. "If we can show the British people that Europe is useful, that it has Britain's interests in mind, I'm confident the people will see the right decision. The only decision." As they say in Europe, the only things certain in life are death, taxes and free football.
Pistols at Dawn to Decide Fate of Gibraltar
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| Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. |
In
a dramatic bid to put a definitive end to the growing confrontation over the future of
the rock of Gibraltar, José García-Margallo, the Spanish
Foreign Minister has challenged the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to
a duel. The duel, to be fought with antique duelling pistols, will decide the sovereignty
of the rock of Gibraltar and its inhabitants. Should both miss with pistols, then swords will have to be resorted to settle the matter.
It
is proposed to hold the duel at dawn on the airport runway that connects
Gibraltar with the Spanish mainland, just before the arrival of the scheduled EasyJet flight from Manchester.
More
contemporary forms of winner takes all competition were apparently considered by
Mr. García-Margallo’s special advisers, such as a best of three, rock, paper, scissors contest; or even more audaciously,
a who has the largest manhood competition. However, these were decided against
due to concerns over their legal validity and a lack of clarity has to how
large Mr. García-Margallo’s manhood in-fact is.
Instead,
it was decided that a 300 hundred year old problem required a 300 hundred year
old solution. As this is entirely a question of old fashion honour it should be settled according to the customary mechanisms which offer remedy
for it.
If
there’s one thing that we at More Europe!
are good at however, it is knowing when there is more to a story that meets the
eye. Consequently, we sent an unpaid intern, under the guise of a dueling
consultant, to offer their services to Mr. García-Margallo and
try and get to the bottom of this enigmatic story. In the conversation that followed
a shocking discovery was made. Our intern gave us a rough account of what he
was allegedly told:
I don’t give
a flying one about the local fishermen of La Linea and certainly not about tax
evasion; but I do care about relieving people’s minds from corruption scandals,
economic mismanagement and unemployment. What better way to do this than
through populist razzmatazz? I don’t know why we never thought of this before. The
voters will love it and to be honest, after all their suffering, I think they
deserve it. I’ve been consulting Christina Fernandez on populist razzmatazz and
I was so impressed with her expertise that I agreed we team-up at the UN and
put those pirate Brits in their rightful place. I think we can both agree that
this is Spain’s primary national interest.
It
is still not clear whether Mr. Hague has accepted the duel and its terms. Our
sources tell us however, that on receiving the hand written challenge from the
Spanish Ambassador, he exclaimed very loudly, “By jingo, I’ll see this through!”
It was further agreed in cabinet that there were definitely some votes to be
had in shooting a foreigner, particularly a European, as it would demonstrate
that the government was “tough on Europe”.
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| More than just a rock, a lot of national honour at stake. |
