FirstTouch World Cup 2018 Trailer

Opening Day is finally here! If you can’t tell by now, we are REALLY excited for this year’s World Cup 🏆 and are hype to be following each of the 5 African nations as they compete in Russia.

The World Cup is one of the few events across the globe that unifies each and every single one of us. As the tournament starts tomorrow, good luck to all of the teams competing. I hope all of you have been saving up your vacation days 😎.  

Check out our new World Cup 2018 Trailer on our homepage and let us know what you think!

🎥: @casperjnr

🎶: nostra 🇨🇮- ela não me quer mais

No going back as the VAR will be showing replays at the World Cup in 2018

Former President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter recently shared his thoughts on the introduction of the VAR at this year’s World Cup. He was not in favor of the implementation of VAR and feels that it came too soon especially considering the results of how it has worked so far in domestic competitions in Italy, England, and Germany. “Comical” and “embarrassing” are some of the words used to describe it after some controversial decisions were made in the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Rochdale. VAR disallowed a goal and also overturned a converted penalty. On Monday, Mainz were facing Freiburg in the German Bundesliga before VAR awarded a penalty after the players had already left the field for half-time. The decisions seem to be taking too long which slows the tempo and atmosphere in the stadium. FIFA have now come out with a proposed solution to all these problems and be a little bit transparent on how the decisions are made. They announced that replays will be shown on the screen for everyone to see incidents which keeps everyone engaged while the analyses of the incident and the decision is eventually made.

FIFA’s referee chief, Pierluigi Collina said, “the system is about avoiding clear and obvious major errors.”

This means that every decision will not be heavily reliant on the technology because the referees will continue to check over the minor errors. The former World Cup final referee assures us that it would not be a problem if VAR were to be implemented in this year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia. Do you think this system has been tested enough and is ready to be tried out at the biggest individual sporting event in the world?

World Cup Rush: Lauren believes history will repeat itself for African teams

Former Arsenal and Cameroonian international, Lauren has assessed Africa’s world cup chances and came to a conclusion that there can be no light at the end of the tunnel. Lauren believes that amongst Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, and Tunisia - none of them will get past the last eight. The former defender believes that the management of African teams and the football culture as a whole needs some “structural” changes if performance on the global stage is to improve. He is also convinced his experiences have positioned him to add value to the footballing world.

“To be honest with you I can’t see any of them go further than the quarter-finals. This is my honest opinion because we are still one step behind the top teams. I don’t like to lie to people. I am very honest, I speak my mind because we don’t do things the right way.It happens in football, it happens in so many other African societies. But maybe I will try to help African football with the knowledge I have got about business and how to do things in a structural way”

— Laureano Bisan Etamé-Mayer, Retired Cameroonian Footballer

Lauren represented Cameroon at the world cup finals in France 1998 and Japan/South Korea 2002. To date, the best performers from Africa have only managed to go as far as the quarter-finals. Cameroon first achieved the feat in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and most recently, Ghana in 2010.

Russia 2018: 80 year World Cup streak comes to an end

FIFA has chosen 36 officials for the World Cup tournament in Russia and none of them are from Great Britain. This is the first time that no referee is chosen from either England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland in 80 years. The most obvious omission is Mark Clattenburg who was part of the list last summer. He, however, left his job with the Premier League and forfeited his place. The Football Association did ask to replace Clattenburg with another official but this request has been rejected. It is also worth mentioning that there also no British officials among the 63 assistant referees selected. What a shame it is for a country that boast about having talent and skills in all aspects of their game. This comes as no surprise to a few with managers like Arsene Wenger criticizing the referees who seem not to be working enough. Some have been culpable of committing fundamental errors and these have resulted in their omission from the final list. On the other hand, six African referees have been chosen instead and they represent Algeria, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt, Zambia and Ethiopia. Be careful England, Africa is on the rise.