Football (Soccer)       Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our guest X, chairman and coach of the football club ***.   X, lately your club has been increasingly criticised.   One cannot please everybody.   There is an internet site dealing with the current state of football in general and with your club in particular.    There are many sites in the internet.   To be specific, it is the Football-Doctor website.   Those people are crazy weirdos.   Your personal integrity and technical ability are doubted not only there.   Whoever claims such a thing, should have a look at my personal diplomas and certificates.    Which you received from an association equally questionable as yourself.   This is the worst defamation of my earnings.   Can your activities be called football at all ?   Certainly, we are an established football club, and we do have very high standards.   How does this manifest itself ?   Our scoring records speak for themselves.   Your last match ended 97:86, and final scores in the three-figure range are no exceptions.    This is due to the exactness, strength, and exceptional technical skills of my people.   The sports press attributes this to the special form of your goals. They span the entire width of the field and are as high as a two storey building. Is this still football ?   Yes, of course. The foot, the ball, and the goal, all are present, and everything keeps on developing.   Let's consider the term foot in football. It seems that you are not very particular about it. In reality the ball, or should I rather say the balls, will be played using the hands without any consequence.    Um, well, yes, this  stresses the deep spiritual component. The term foot in football originally stems from the word food and means that the important thing is to feed the ball to the goal, no matter how, and this traditional mindset has to be brought back to public awareness.   Certain ideas are associated with football, and you don't live up to them.   The regulations of the past were completely arbitrary. So, one cannot say that what was earlier is right and that I am wrong.    In the past you tried to get a foothold in real football but eventually failed miserably.   Our work with youngsters is quite elaborate, and that is also important for children.   Then you realized that your present scam goes down well with a certain audience.   Many people love to come to our events, and there are always helpers.   Let's take a look at the modified set of rules. Offside is when the distance between two players is less than two meters.   That's right. In the past, many people were deterred by the physical confrontations.   Those people could practise something different than football.   No way! They want to play football, and football will go down unless adapting to the people.   Worth mentioning are your kind of free kicks and penalty kicks. Obviously there is no defensive wall and no goalkeeper.     That became necessary in order to relieve the players' psychological tension and to prevent injuries.   I wonder what might happen if your football players encountered traditional ones.   Well, it is very important that people join the club and then stay there at all.   Obviously there are also yellow and red cards, which you call motivation tickets. They contain witty wisdom and entail no penalties.     It is unimaginable to caution or send off anybody. That will only cause stress. It is of utmost importance to integrate as many people as possible.   What you are practising might be regarded by some people as a kind of entertaining physical exercise. But why do you misleadingly call it football ? How about using a new name reflecting the true nature of the whole thing.    We are a football club, and as such we are officially recognised by the national association.    A caricature shows your people kicking at a goal with a huge funnel mounted in front of it. Does this indicate a further looming innovation ?   This is complete baloney. It would be much too expensive.   Finally we would like to hear a comment on the rumour that the balls are going to be replaced by canvasback ducks.   Anyone who doesn't like it in my club can always leave.     Many already left, and we do understand why. Let's now turn to our next topic.  .....   © 2006 GNM