northlondon comments

credit to Qatar. They came close to shocking the soccer world last night,when no-one gave them any chance against unbackable favourite Japan. Their fans showed passion too, it seemed they were so loud they almost lifted that roof! Maybe 2012 was an inspired choice after all?

Of course, with a 1 man advantage (thanks to a 'non' 2nd yellow for Yoshida which was outrageous and led to their second), only 1 yellow card shown for 21, yes, 21 (!) fouls and an additional 40 seconds added to injury time to allow one more attack for Qatar, they were inspiring indeed. Although, with all those Brazilian names in the team was it actually Qatar's national team ?

Oh please Burakumin, the tournament has been a disaster. If Qatar weren't in the contest, more than half of those "passionate fans" would have walked out long before kickoff.

I totally agree. The tournament attendances have been a disaster. Blatter..

Great result from the Japanese, despite all the odds being against them. A few interesting points from last night.

The Qatari oil dollars definitely made their way into the officials bank accounts. Qatar committed more fouls (21) than Japan (17), yet only received 1 yellow card compared to Japan's 3 (the last of which was a very dubious 2nd yellow and red for Yoshida).

Injury time of 3 minutes was shown at 90 minutes, which then mysteriously changed to 4 minutes and even then the referee allowed Qatar a final attack on goal, finally blowing his whistle 4 minutes and 40 seconds into injury time.

The tournament attendances in Qatar have been a major disappointment. Only 20,000 fans for their national team playing at home in an Asian Cup quarter-final against Japan ? What is going to happen when they host the World Cup ! Are you watching Blatter ?

Zaccheroni and Hasebe need to learn to hassle the referee and the 4th official when the lack of yellow cards are used for all the fouls stopping Japan's play. Zaccheroni and Hasebe just left the officials alone who were happy to punish Japan and not Qatar. The only way to highlight the corruption is to kick off. Arsene Wenger/ Cesc Fabregas or Alex Ferguson/ Rio Ferdinand would have been literally throttling the referee and the 4th official last night.

Does anyone else get the feeling that this article is a waste of time ? If any news site needs a page filler, then here it is. How can a tournament for a sport famous for it's greed and lopsided riches, make Russia and Qatar better places to live ? Explain to me Mr. Leicester, exactly how the World Cup tournament will stop mafia activity in Russia and improve womens rights in Qatar ? Don't you think that FIFA should instead be sending a message to Russia and Qatar that they will not award them with a World Cup until get their houses in order ? And that FIFA should be awarding the World Cup to countries who do have democracy and human rights as a message to the others ?

Oh, and hold on a minute. Yes, there it is. The anti-muslim/ anti-Islam rhetoric rears it's ugly head yet again. Just when you think this journalist is writing a serious piece about the smaller footballing nations being awarded the World Cup, he breaks into a religious rant.

for a l**on**g time media give more about EPL or BPL and its become 1st league in the world but England not yet to show what their ability in World Cup. so they just good at the news rather than in the field

The fact that England have a poor record in the World Cup has no connection whatsoever with their World Cup bid. Do Russia or Qatar have better World Cup records than England ? And, as you have already stated, if the English Premier League is such a success then the English should have decent credentials to organise a World Cup tournament.

don't make politics inside soccer because soccer is fun and interesting already, no need more provocation.

So maybe you can ask Mr.Ogura from Japan why he arranged with all the other Asian delegates to block-vote for Qatar against the USA ? Isn't that politics inside football ?

The BBC programme is not politics inside football by the way. It is journalism reporting on politics inside football.

Each national soccer federation throughout the world (there are approximately 200) should be represented by an accountable professional (e.g a lawyer, a police officer) who will be the voting delegate for that country. Each delegate must receive and read every technical bid. All the delegates should be available on the day of the vote, but only 40 of them will actually be permitted to vote, randomly selected by a computer. The votes can be made securely online. This would eradicate the possibility of bribes because you would only have a 20% chance of getting to vote and someone would have to bribe at least 100 delegates to have any chance of your bribe affecting the vote.

The current system is ridiculous and corrupt, with idiots like Ogura from Japan making a deal amongst all the 'Asian' delegates to vote against the USA, regardless of how good the USA's bid was. All of the current FIFA delegates are puppets of Blatter, which makes it all the more ridiculous.

he said last week’s vote for the World Cup hosts was “perfectly organized, perfectly transparent and perfectly under control.”

How can the man have the gall to say that ? How can this organisation be allowed to continue with it's lies and it's riches from the sport ?

Chuck Blazer, a FIFA executive committee member from the United States, insisted “the process had not failed at all,”

Here is a typical example of an idiot FIFA executive. Only the other day Blazer was saying that the process had to change. And now he is saying the opposite !

Akina Minami deserves the award 1 billion percent. She is Beautiful, cute and one of the best of the best in Japan when it comes to entertainers.

Ah,ha,ha,ha ! I love that ironic black humour.

Minami replied, “I’d like to get married at around 24 or 25, but I don’t have a boyfriend right now and my friends tell me it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Yeah right. Why else would a plain skinny unattractive girl with no personality get all the TV, CM and silly award coverage that she gets at the moment ?

“I personally watched the BBC Panorama program and so I missed the Real-Barcelona game, which I had to watch a recording of afterward. I would have been better off watching Real-Barca.”

And without realising it, Jerome Valcke shoots himself and FIFA right in the foot. Instead of being concerned with allegations of corruption within his own organisation, and instead of going out and watching a local game or supporting a lower division match, he is only concerned about watching two super-rich giants of football who snap up all the best players and pay ridiculous salaries.

C-listers.

Japanese 'star' Jun Natsukawa ?!

Putin did the right thing as usual.

What ? Bribe the FIFA delegates who get to vote ?

It's a treason to the millions of young people and kids even in Japan that enjoy the game in it's LIVE variant.

Bur unfortunately most of the millions of football fans around the world cannot a) play in a World Cup, or b) afford to travel and buy tickets to watch a World Cup. Therefore the Japanese are offering a better alternative for fans than any of the other countries.

Logic and common-sense would point to Australia

whose bid’s presentation was highlighted with a cameo by supermodel Elle Macpherson

Not quite sure where logic (or common sense) came into play when Australia's bid was presented by an ex-supermodel ?

Still think Australia's the best bet as a growing economy and a rapidly improving football nation with quality investment in sport.

whose bid’s presentation was highlighted with a cameo by supermodel Elle Macpherson......

I personally vote for Australia. In fact as long as it is not held in any Islamic state (too much risk and the security costs will be staggering) I don't really mind.

As long as it is not held in any Islamic state ?? Goodness me, I hope you have some sound reasoning to back that one up. Do you seriously believe that the security costs in Qatar will be anymore than in England or the US ? Or are you just biased against anything 'Islamic' ?

Sour grapes from the Brits (as usual) just cos they won't be getting the soccer world championship. Anyway it's soccer, big deal!

This BBC programme is about corruption in the host bidding for the World Cup, which is owned and run by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). It is not run by FISA (Fédération Internationale de SOCCER Association) now is it ?

You just have to laugh at anyone who thinks a gov't corporation with a budget as huge as the BBC's is capable of or even interested in "objective" news reporting.

Your total lack of TV journalism knowledge is obvious. Try researching the programme Panorama (instead of just the BBC) to learn about the history of their programme and the news stories they have unravelled over the years. Then try to write that nonsense post again.

BS. You wanted that vote as much as any other Brit., if not moreso. Calling other countries corrupt simply because you lost any chance is so old.

I'd rather have news journalism in my country that shows some backbone and insight, rather than host a corrupt tournament in a sport that I used to love as a kid but have grown to hate and despise over the years.

You just have to laugh at anyone who thinks a gov't corporation with a budget as huge as the BBC's is capable of or even interested in "objective" news reporting.

As opposed to what exactly ? CNN George Bush Family News ? Fox Republican TV ? Fuji TV ?! The BBC have set the standard for television around the world. Your post has more than a hint of jealousy about it.

Well that is the final nail in the coffin for England's 2018 bid. Russia will probably get it now.

Although at least we can still rely on British journalists credibility in disclosing the truth about bribery and corruption which is far more important than hosting the Corrupt World Cup once every 50 years. Freedom of speech and democracy do still exist in some countries.

Although most of the 'graduates' failed to remember where Kiddyland actually is. Judging by the tour guide with the Santa Claus hat and 'follow me this way' flag.

Banning smoking in public might cause more harm than good -- my wife is a smoker, and because of the lack of places to smoke in public, she always wants to smoke in our home. And if I think I can't stop her, imagine how much harder it would be for a child to stop his mother or father from smoking in the house!

Thon, my missus is a smoker too (being Japanese it's almost compulsory) but she ain't allowed to smoke anywhere inside. And with two kids, I make her smoke outside even when it's zero degrees outside in the winter. I've caught her smoking in the kitchen before and the cigarettes went straight in the bin.

“Escalated confrontation would lead to a war, and he who is fond of playing with fire is bound to perish.”

I think he means, playing with a 100,000 ton nuclear-powered Supercarrier aircraft carrier carrying 80 aircraft and with a Sea Sparrow SAM missile defence system.

And I'll estimate that Japan has the highest percentage of those deaths resulting from passive smoking. There is still no ban in Japan on smoking in restaurants all over other peoples food and even when the Japanese do make some pathetic token effort like the ban on smoking in public places in Minato-ku, they never enforce the law so people continue to smoke all over non-smokers. If this were the U.S or the U.K the lawyers would be making millions from lawsuits against local councils.

Not the first 'ornamental arrow' that Kanda has held.

Why doesn't someone advise foreign actors to dress stylishly when they appear in public in Japan? Their Japanese counterparts put them to shame.

smart, Bonnie Wright is wearing a cardigan by Comme Des Garcons. Comme Des Garcons is a very expensive Japanese designer brand based in Aoyama.

The Hilton is also selling a range of takeaway items. The Takeaway Christmas dinner includes traditional roast turkey with stuffing, 4 kinds of hors d’oeuvre, bûche de Noël and a variety of ginger breads, priced at 20,000 yen for 2 or 38,000 yen for 4 people.

And for that price, delivery by helicopter to your front door..

brotokyo, I'm an ex-British serviceman, and I'm not happy with Japan Today's reasoning behind this photo. Picture of the day is usually aimed to be controversial amongst the English-speaking community who follow this site, to gather lots of comments and good reading stats for JT's advertising targets. I feel it was Japan Today's intention to be controversial here, otherwise if they really wanted a Remembrance Sunday memorial photo they could easily have shown more of the graves showing the names from the front. Focusing on a modern-day Japanese couple and only showing the backs of a few graves was intended to garner the usual dogfight amongst the posters here.

Unfortunately the focus of the photo is on the, supposedly, Japanese couple. Only the backs of four graves show due to the focus on the Japanese couple. If we truly wanted to show a picture in remembrance of Remembrance Sunday, then why isn't there a nice photo of the graves themselves and the front of the graves, recognising those who fell, as opposed to recognising the Japanese couple ?

Where are the othe tourists? Did they close especially for him?

No. Why would it be required to close access to a public place just because the President of The United states is visiting. The other tourists are probably all inside the Daibutsu.

Yeah right. You'd just let any old Tom, Dick and Harry wander around in the same building as the President of the USA and slap him a low-five and say 'aaaight'. Are you people serious ?