“Former German international [Franz] Beckenbauer is not a Uefa executive committee member but is a European Fifa executive member who sits in on the meetings as a non-voting observer.” With these words, BBC Sport said approximately everything there is to say about the UEFA executive committee’s decision, revealed today by football’s favorite non-voting former German international, to expand the European Championship to 24 teams starting in 2016. It’s the sort of creeping, fungal, Byzantine decision that can only be talked about obliquely, in the language of committee titles. My personal opinion is: executive chairperson, adjunct task force, pending recess, margin, liaison, dossier. That’s the best I can do. Put it in more propositionally direct language, and it looks like mrrrmf mrshk plrg grnk fllv.
Anyway, at least we have a new nickname for Franz Beckenbauer. Der Kaiser was so single-breath.
Read More: Franz Beckenbauer, UEFA
by Brian Phillips · September 25, 2008
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