Sammy Hagar Would Be Proud

First, this was linked to in Backpasses last night but we thought it worthy of a full post (and hat tip to Dirty Tackle). Second, pardon our ignorance if these guys are like the Regis and Teller of Italian TV and pull these kind of hijinks all the time, but we'll cop to not being as worldly as we pretend sometimes. Plus it's foreign TV. I'm Alan Partridge is about obscure as I get when it comes to the overseas boob tube.

That doesn't make this any less awesome.

Some Italian TV station hung out around the training grounds of a few soccer clubs. They waited for the players to leave the grounds, then put a radar gun on them as they drove away.

Meelan is above. To little surprise Beckham is indeed a pussy safe driver (and he appears to be behind the wheel of some sort of emasculating family station wagon).

Lazio is here, AS Roma is here, and Inter is here.

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John Mikel Obi John John Obi needs a chauffeur

Poor John Obi Obi John Mikel John Obi. Having been caught back in January for some rather nifty, though horribly illegal, driving under the influence, the Chelsea midfielder appeared in court this morning to get his punishment.


What Obi John's driving might have looked like

Let's just say he'll be spending most of his annual salary on taxis.

Hop to it, Guardian!

District Judge Jeremy Coleman banned him from driving for 15 months and ordered him to pay £1,580 at West London Magistrates' Court. Mikel looked stumped as he was ordered to stop driving.

His solicitor said he would not undertake a drink driving course to shorten the ban because he "would just like to serve it out".

Ouch. Apparently being caught at nearly twice the legal limit (to get technical: 66 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of air... crazy science) gets you a healthy ban.

So, Mikel is car-less for over a year. Thankfully he works in a city known for his mass transit system, although I'd be careful taking the District Line to work; if you miss your stop at Fulham Broadway, the next one is Parsons Green, and then you're in the heart of Cottagers Country.

They don't take kindly to Nigerian defensive midfielders from Chelsea around those parts.

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Sepp Blatter's Defensive Driving Class Has Awesome Benefits

UF loves Sepp Blatter.

Not because he's particularly good at his job of running FIFA, but because everything he says and everything he does is blog fodder. He's like Herpes: permanent, recurring, unsightly, embarassing, and, seeing how he's been in charge in Zurich since 1998, the only way to get rid of him might also be through death.

Usually there is a comedic air to his fuck-ups. Not today, kids. Not today.

Seems among other things Blatter sucks at is driving. From something called "Transparency In Reporting":

Last week Zurich journalist Jean Francois Tanda revealed in Sonntags Zeitung that multi-millionaire Sepp Blatter had persuaded a judge to impose the lightest possible fine after a car crash in which the FIFA president nearly killed another driver.

Tanda disclosed that Sepp Blatter escaped with a derisory 600 francs fine (£360, 400 Euros, US$500) after losing control of his 525 bhp Mercedes SL 63, hitting a car in front of him and then careening across a double white line into the other carriageway and striking an oncoming VW Golf so hard that it was flung in the air and landed upside down.

The driver of the flipped car had a good laugh when he was informed that the reason Blatter was driving so recklessly was because he was late for a round of golf. He quipped "I hope he drives better on the course."

Not really.

As we understand it, the fine should have reflected Blatter's total income, implying that he received special treatment, or he did not properly disclose his actual income to the court. Or both actually: special treatment for a) a lower fine and b) not having to report his actual income to the court.

The latter is kind of a deal because nobody knows what Blatter makes. It's a secret. As well as many of the other dealings of football's governing body (fun backstory: when a 2006 book was published with accounts of the corruption under Blatter, FIFA obtained an injunction to prevent the sale of the book in Switzerland).

Figure Bud Selig makes $18M for running MLB into the ground*, what's Blatter make for running the world's game?

As the article intimates, Blatter's fine reflected that of a person making around $65K or a little more than the occasional honorarium allegedly paid to executive committee members.

The rest of the gold here is in the comments and responses. As the article highlights some:

"Ronnie König asked, ‘How corrupt is our country anyway? and was answered by Veronique Duchand: ‘We now have a legal system that is comparable with those in China and some African dictatorships.’ Ludwig Baggenstos thought it was more like ‘South America.’"

Woo hoo. Our legal system escaped comparison with some of the worst countries in the world. USA! USA! USA!

Oh, Blatter did address the issue saying, "I have no comment."

Prick.

(*We're aware that attendance numbers have soared in the post-World-Series-killing strike era, but much like with Blatter at FIFA, MLB seems to thrive despite the actions of it's leadership, not because of it).

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