Football the winner as wankers surface.

What a fantastic game of football at AAMI Stadium last night. Brisbane Roar 2-0 up soon to be pulled back to 2-2 only for Robbie Kruse to sneak a winner. Or so we thought.

Then Michael Theoklitos grabs the ball outside his area in the last minute - or less - and the Roar go down and score with everyone from Melbourne in disarray.

Kevin Muscat lashed out and hit a Roar Official - nine weeks anyone - although in Melbourne, in AFL you get knighted for such behaviour. Muscat should walk.

The surface helps football - and most of the best games in the A-League have been played at AAMI Stadium.

Last night was no different. Great football from two great Aussie attacking football sides.

And of course while this game took some of the World Cup pain away, it showed we have an awful lot to like about football in Australia.

Even if we are still surrounded by wankers.

And they are out and about this weekend.

Wanker no 1.

Alan Kohler, ABC, and Eureka Business Report wrote this:


Qatar

"Australia Loses World Cup Bid to Qatar" blared the headlines yesterday. Actually that's not quite accurate. Australia lost to everybody; we came last. Or rather, we were the first to be eliminated, with one vote in the first round. Oh the humiliation, the burning shame of it. All of the frantic sucking up to FIFA by Frank Lowy, Mark Arbib, and the rest, all the money that was spent, the cartoon kangaroo with Julia Gillard, the arguments with the AFL over stadium usage – all came to nought.

It's easy for us AFL fans to sneer at the soccer carry-on, but it's apparently quite a popular game for some reason. Lots of people like to go and let off flares and punch each other, but more importantly a lot of people around the world like to watch it on TV. As a result, the World Cup has become a big broadcasting event like the Olympics, attracting large dollops of cash from advertisers. At a time when television is under threat from pay TV and the internet, live events – like MasterChef – have become its lifeblood.

So the hosting of the events has itself become a sport. Training, preparation, money … then the big race, and … "WE WIN! Hooray!" Or in our case the devastation of loss, lying on the track weeping and gasping for breath, followed, of course, by: "WE WUZ ROBBED". Or rather, "We was lied to". Or perhaps: "We paid off the wrong corrupt official". Maybe it was like the movie Pulp Fiction, in which Bruce Willis takes the money for throwing the fight and then wins, before later killing the bad guys.

Qatar is a nation of 1.7 million people on a peninsula in the Persian Gulf. Basically it's Perth, if you include Bunbury and Margaret River, except it's stinking hot, an absolute monarchy and rich beyond the dreams of avarice because of the accident of sitting on top of a lot of oil and gas, a legacy of the desert around there having been a jungle long ago.

And so the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa as-Thani, and his wife, were able to promise to spend $US50 billion on new airconditioned stadiums (it's 46 degrees) in which to play soccer in 2022, which would then be dismantled and shipped off to Third World countries, presumably complete with the massive airconditioners. In other words the 2022 World Cup will be played in porta-stadiums. It was a masterstroke. Why didn't we think of that? Permanent footy fields like the MCG are totally yesterday. Knock 'em up and then whack 'em on the back of a truck so they can sit empty somewhere else. Frank, you're an idiot. Sell Westfield.