Nigel Burke

Loves rugby (Leinster, Ireland/England + playing too), keeping fit and life with my family & friends but not particularly in that order. :^)

[Iris Seraphina  @iris_seraphina]

I’m so glad the BBC sent her to be the reporter on this! She appreciated every moment of the #Artemis launch so much!! 🚀

[Paul Woodhouse @el_dentisto]

Every level of wrong in this video. America you are broken.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

If there is precisely one thing you watch today, make it this. French Senator Claude Malhuret. A microphone. And the most magnificently savage dismantling of the Trump administration ever delivered in a language they almost certainly don’t speak.

He covers Iran. He covers corruption. He covers the kind of staggering, industrial-scale incompetence that would get you fired from managing a car park. And he does it with the calm, unhurried certainty of a man who has read every page of the indictment and found it, if anything, worse than expected.

France has never pretended to like these people. But this is contempt elevated to an art form. The kind of refined, aristocratic disdain that takes centuries of civilization to produce and approximately ninety seconds to deploy.

Malhuret sounds like he is four seconds from the button. Not out of panic. Out of sheer, exhausted disgust.
Honestly? Understandable.
Watch it. Share it. The adults are speaking.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@TheWelshDragon9 Just can’t warm to the lad.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@IamAustinHealey Absolutely. What a tournament. Gutted for Ireland but hey, French were so good. However, where was this England the last four games.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@HandmaidAlberta WTAF. 😳

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@AngelinaKelly @tSHandJ @PaulHawksbee I don’t get why it’s so hard for Eni to accept. Yes, she has the experience and is likely a nice enough person. However, she’s just not a good enough commentator or pundit. She’s awful. It’s as simple as that.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@The_Forty_Four FFS it’s not about the caps, experience or anything like that. She’s just not very good at presenting on screen. That’s it. Nothing more or less than this. She was probably a good player. However, she just struggled with presenting.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@rugbyontnt Nope.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@RepJackKimble

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

Wow, it’s finally happening! Republicans are waking up to the con that Donald Trump is.

Listen to this Trump voter who called into C-SPAN to apologize to the American people for voting for Trump.

He tears Trump apart for his racist meme about the Obama’s, as well as his inhumane ICE raids and his corruption.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@EastEndJoe Surely this is satire. Surely. 😒

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@simonateba This is such a damning video. Surely, someone will be prosecuted from this.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@FMC_Rugby Perhaps. However, live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@jurgen_nauditt WTF am I watching. This guys a first class moron.

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@mrjakehumphrey this is first class, Jake. 👏🏻 #TopGear #grandtour

https://t.co/z79pxCFB9w

[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@oelma__ @TheHives

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

The Adoration of the Maga. A few thoughts. It all felt a step too far by Gianni Infantino. The award of the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize felt more to do with its president’s desire to please powerful politicians as much as Donald Trump’s love of such glitzy, expensive offerings of loyalty last seen in medieval courts.

It felt more about politics than sport, a risky game for Fifa to play whenever it wants to bring a national association into line for perceived interference by government in the future. The Trump trophy weakens Fifa statutes. It also distracted from the real trophy, the World Cup, and the group-stage draw, traditionally a celebration about bringing countries together. Infantino took his eye off the balls.

A football draw designed to work out who plays who and (eventually) where and when is not the time or place for such politics. Infantino wasn’t speaking for the world in bestowing the Peace Prize, as he claimed. So presumptuous. So out of touch. Many probably agree that Trump has been a force for good in geopolitics, some might disagree. Most would probably feel such decisions should be left to experienced experts like the Nobel Committee and, please, can we get on with a football draw.

It’s spectacularly naïve or simply arrogant for Fifa to enter such non-football areas. It feels more and more that this was as much an Infantino initiative as Fifa’s. Infantino was supposed to drain the swamp when he arrived at Fifa in 2016 in the wake of assorted corruption scandals bedevilling the governing body of world football. How fitting that the nadir of Infantino’s propensity for self-aggrandisement as leader of what’s supposed to be a team game came in Washington. It was there that Trump promised to transform politics with his “drain the swamp” rhetoric, also in 2016.

The selfie moment was particularly cringe-worthy. Infantino forgets that football is the star of the show, not a 55-year lawyer. A senior football executive, who’s been at the heart of the English and European game for more than 20 years, messaged me during the drawn-out draw with his verdict on Infantino. “I feel revulsion, anger, shame, disgust – how has our sport been taken over by a Swiss ***** and turned into a total travesty???” He also pointed out that ensuring the leaders of USA, Mexico and Canada each somehow pulled out their own country’s name was not a good look for a draw based on chance.

Great for the cameras, though. Flash, bang, wallop, what a picture of Infantino's priorities. And who gets the next FIFA Peace Prize? And wouldn't Infantino have gained more respect had he used the money for the Trump trophy to subsidise excessive ticket costs? He's lost sight of what should be the real priorities for the leader of football. The game.

It's sad, really. Many sensible people work at Fifa, passionate about the game not their own ego, but it's alarming what happens to the leadership when they take power there. Even the great football manager Arsene Wenger has changed since becoming Chief of Global Football Development at Fifa. He now campaigns for more games, backing the expanded World Cup, which he would have railed against as a widely-admired, free-thinking club manager, fiercely protective of his players' well-being. "I believe that 48 teams is the right number." Arsene, just listen to yourself.

Many fans probably won’t lose much sleep that Wenger dances to Fifa's tune or that Infantino cosies up to Trump, Aramco and co. Some probably think Fifa’s a video game. Most just can’t wait for the football. The game’s about Mbappe and Messi, Haaland and Salah, Kane and Dembele, not Infantino and Trump.

The game’s about the Tartan Army, the brilliant Mexican following, the ever-hopeful English, the mobile carnival of Brazilians and the millions of other fans flocking to venue cities next summer, only a third with tickets. The USA is prepared for the party. I covered USA 94 and you couldn’t really tell there was a tournament on, certainly where I was in Detroit, Chicago and DC. You will this time, also in Canada. Mexico's total immersion was never in doubt given their passion for the game.

Infantino should remember this. He runs a great football organisation, not a political organisation. He needs to re-focus. Fifa is undeniably a force for good in many countries. The Fifa Foundation runs a new community programme that supports 154,924 people in 54 nations. Its new Digital Education Programme works on computer literacy amongst disadvantaged groups, helping them into the workplace. It’s easy to say it’s all about Infantino (Foundation board president), soft power and ensuring he keeps countries onside, voting for him, but the Foundation undeniably changes lives.

Infantino needs to look at his Adoration of the Maga and remember what he should be doing for football: serving it, not himself. #FIFAWorldCup.

[Official @billinghamrufc]

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[Nigel Burke @nigelburke11]

@OscarPiastri everything’s crossed for you this weekend. 🤞🏻