@Tayo_555 You were,to her,what Brighton is to the prem - a selling club 😩🤣 scour the most obscure corners of the Earth for gems and bring them to the big boys
🚨🗣️New: Thierry Henry reacts to the USA vs Paraguay stoppage for TV commercials:
“I’ve spent my entire life in this beautiful game — as a player at the highest level, as a fan, and now as someone who analyses it every week — and what unfolded during that USA versus Paraguay match left me deeply frustrated. The fourth official standing there on the touchline, arm raised high, instructing the referee to hold the restart… not for any injury, not for tactical reasons, and not even primarily for player hydration in that scorching heat. No. It was because the broadcast team hadn’t finished airing all their commercials. That’s not football. That’s a television show pretending to be a World Cup match.
The beautiful game is being strangled by greed. Players are out there in the heat, ready to restart, momentum building like a storm about to break — and we pause everything so the sponsors can cash in. It’s like stopping a symphony mid-crescendo because the advertisers want their jingle heard. Football didn’t conquer the world by turning into American sports with endless timeouts and ad breaks. We had rhythm, flow, emotion that flowed like a river. Now? It’s dammed up for dollars.
This isn’t about hydration or player welfare anymore — it’s a slippery slope where the soul of the game is sold piece by piece. Fans deserve better. Players deserve better. The referee on that pitch looked like a puppet on strings controlled from some broadcast truck. Enough is enough. We need to protect what made this sport the greatest on Earth before it disappears completely.”
The World Cup should be football’s cathedral. Instead, we’re turning it into a shopping mall with a pitch in the middle.
And here’s the question nobody wants to answer: if the fourth official is waiting for commercials, then who is really running the game? FIFA? The referee? Or the broadcasters?
Because the moment football starts asking advertisers for permission before asking the players, you’ve crossed a line.
The World Cup is supposed to be the showcase of football. Not the showcase of who paid the most for airtime.”
• Jurgen, what’s your take on that Mexico vs South Africa game where the referee had to hold the players during the cooling break because FOX was still airing commercials?
🚨🗣️ 𝗡𝗘𝗪: Jurgen Klopp: “This is football being held hostage by suits in air-conditioned offices. These so-called ‘cooling breaks’ were sold to us as a shield for player welfare, a noble sword against the heat. But in reality? It’s nothing but a golden cage built for the advertisers.
When I saw players standing around during a cooling break while television schedules dictated the rhythm of the match, I couldn’t help but wonder: who is the World Cup really serving? The fans? The players? Or the advertisers?
A World Cup match should flow like a river. Instead, we’re building dams in the middle of it so commercials can pass through. That’s dangerous for the spirit of the game. Football was once the main event; now it risks becoming the background music to an advertising show.
We’re told these breaks are about player welfare, and of course player health matters. But when the game starts bending its knee to television timing, people are going to ask questions. The ball is supposed to be the star. Not a commercial break.
The World Cup is football’s cathedral. Yet sometimes it feels like we’ve turned it into a shopping mall where the cash register gets more respect than the match itself.
If this is the future, then football isn’t being interrupted by advertisements anymore. Football is becoming the interruption between advertisements.”
—🎙️ ZDF
Gertrude Shope (📸: Trial Collections, SAIRR) holding a sign that reads: "You will not serve these years as long as we live" during the Rivonia Trial which ended in the handing down of life sentences to Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Denis Goldberg, on this day in 1964.