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Pierluigi Collina's reign of terror
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💬 Quote of the day
"Kylian used to drive around the ring road in a Peugeot 206, just to see what normal life felt like.” - Fayza Lamari on her son Mbappé.
SUMO
🍜 We’re all going on a sumo holiday
The Royal Garden Hotel has ordered in 350 kilos of rice, the capital’s food wholesalers have run out of noodles, and the Royal Albert Hall has reinforced it’s toilet seats.
That’s right. The Grand Sumo Tournament has arrived in London.
It’s only the second time such an event has happened outside of Japan, and naturally the wrestlers have been keen to make the most of their visit.
Over the last few days, rikishi have been spotted visiting Buckingham Palace, admiring Big Ben and… browsing the handbags at TK Maxx:
Others have gorged at McDonalds and supped pints of Guinness in the streets of Soho.
And if you hop on a Lime bike with a buckled wheel this weekend, you know who to blame…
FOOTBALL
👀 Peer-luigi
One man who wouldn’t approve of the sumo lads slinging McNuggets down their gobs is Pierluigi Collina.
The bug-eyed official oversaw a reign of terror as UEFA’s Chief Refereeing Officer, introducing “extreme” and “humiliating” weight tests for professional referees.
That’s according to a new book from Swedish ref Jonas Eriksson, who has some pretty damning things to say about the towering Italian’s regime:
When [we] entered the large, cold conference room, the management urged us to undress to our underwear. We looked at each other, but no one reacted or dared to say anything. We slowly took off our clothes.
There we stood in a long row, in just our underwear. Collina observed us from top to bottom with an ice-cold gaze. Silent and observant.
We stepped on to the scale one by one. I sucked in my stomach, straightened my back and held my breath as if it would make any difference. One of the instructors loudly announced: “Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos.” I felt how Collina paused, looked at me and scanned my nearly naked body.
Why didn’t anyone question the degrading tests?
If I had questioned or challenged the methods that Collina had introduced then I wouldn’t have got any matches, I’m convinced of that.
FOOTBALL
🎟️ Infant terrible
All the big hitters were in Sharm el-Sheikh for this week’s peace summit: Donald Trump, Erdogan, King Abdullah II of Jordan. And, er, FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
His appearance was particularly baffling considering the busy week he’s had, milking the last ounce of joy out of the World Cup.
FIFA just unveiled an absolute shakedown of a ticket system for next year’s tournament, which includes selling nosebleed seats for the final for $2,030. And that’s just the start.
At past World Cups, resale prices were capped at face value, but not this time.
Tickets have already popped up on FIFA’s official resale platform for tens of thousands of dollars - and the federation is taking a 30% cut of each one sold there.
And those much-touted $60 “Category 4” tickets for group-stage games?
Judging by the barely perceptible green spots on this map of the Kansas City Stadium, they’ll probably be quite hard to come by…
FOOTBALL
⚰️ Don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is I never left you
When a 22-year-old fan of Argentine side Club Atlético San Martín turned up in his hometown after a five day bender, he was looking forward to a few days in bed sipping yerba maté and ordering empanadas on Uber Eats.
But as he turned onto his street, everything was eerily quiet.
Even more so in his mum’s empty house, where all he found was a framed picture of himself and an abundance of flowers, sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches.
Then he heard the church bells ringing, saw the tail-end of a funeral procession entering the chapel, and slowly realised what was happening.
He quickly ran up the road, burst into his own funeral, and shouted “I’m alive!” at the stunned congregation.
He explained he’d been on a huge bender in Alderetes, north of Cordoba, and had no idea about his reported death.
It turned out another man had been run over and killed by a sugar cane truck, and his mum had wrongly identified the body as his.
Must have been a hell of a comedown…
FOOTBALL
🤯 Qat fight
The UAE and Qatar used to enjoy a friendly rivalry, where neighbouring citizens would argue about how many spoonfuls of ghee should go in a bowl of madrouba savoury porridge.
But things have gotten a little spicier in recent years, and it all boiled over when the two nations’ football teams met in Doha this week.
After going 2-0 down, UAE fans pelted Qatar players with plastic cups, before storming the pitch to scrap with stewards and police officers.
💉 Quick hits
🗓️ The 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia will likely be held in… January 2035. Organisers want to avoid the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which falls in November and December in 2034.
🌰 The World Conker Championships returned this week. After last year’s steel conker scandal, the event introduced airport-style security checks for contestants.
🟥 Pierluigi Collina once appeared in cartoon form in a George Michael music video. Fair warning, it’s nightmarish.
🔑 Get The Upshot ad-free twice a week when you upgrade to Upshot Gold.
AND FINALLY…
🖥️ It’s all in the presentation
Taiwan played Thailand in an Asian Cup qualifier on Tuesday. They were updating the scoreboard using Microsoft Powerpoint.
That’s it for today.
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