* Professional soccer players earn good money during their playing careers. The average weekly wage of a Premier League player in 2012-13 was in the region of £31,0009 (in the region of R500,000), according to Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance.
* US fans were left downcast by a last-minute Portugal equaliser, but the 2-2 draw was probably the most viewed football match in US history. An average of 24.7 million watched the World Cup thriller on ESPN and Univision, said data firm Neilsen.
* Football fans have been saying that this World Cup is the most exciting they have seen – and stats from the group stage suggest they are correct. The brilliance of Messi, that diving header from Van Persie and Tim Cahill’s left foot screamer – they all sent a shiver down the spine. But let’s look at the numbers. We want goals. And we’re getting them. In the group stage of this World Cup, the average goals per game is 2.83. That’s huge. You have to go back to 1958 to find more goals per game in the group stage. In the group stage in Brazil, seven matches have been decided in the last five minutes – more than in most other World Cups. So far in 2014, a record 83% of games have ended in a result. While this World Cup is equal to others in some aspects, what makes it unusual is that it ranks highly across a broad range of parameters. So, statistically, this really is the best World Cup ever. Well, so far anyway.
* FIFA is reportedly investigating Neymar for displaying prohibited underpants at the World Cup. The governing body protects its high-paying sponsors’ exclusivity. They ensure that players don’t have underpants made by non-FIFA sponsors peeking out of their shorts. Ambush marketing?
* German Franz Beckenbauer and Brazil’s Mario Zagallo are the only two men to win the World Cup as both a player and a coach.
* I have received many calls to highlight the poor service at the Dispensary of the Provincial Hospital. It appears that patients wait for l-o-n-g hours in the queue before their medication is dispensed. Apparently, this delay is the norm and the situation has been ongoing for many months. This is a sad indictment on a state institution that is obliged to render a service ring-fenced by Batho Pele principles. For patients to derive decent service at the hospital is not a privilege but a right! To deliver decent service by the hospital and its staff is not a favour but a duty. For elderly and or sick patients waiting in never-ending queues, especially at the Dispensary, is a disgrace and it’s about time the relevant authorities resolved this as a matter of urgency.
* The following are the number of hours Muslims fast globally: Argentina – nine hours; Brazil, New Zealand and Australia – 9.5 hours; South Africa – 10 hours; Indonesia, Malaysia and India – 12 hours; West Africa – 13.5 hours; United Arab Emirates – 14 hours; Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Palestine and Saudi Arabia – 15 hours; Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, Libya and Egypt – 16 hours; Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, Caucasus, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and France – 17 hours; Luxembourg, Switzerland and Austria – 17.5 hours; Canada – 19 hours; USA, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Finland, Norway, Poland, Germany and Britain – 20 hours; Iceland – 21 hours. The Islamic calendar is about 10 days shorter than the Gregorian one and therefore the aforementioned daylight hours will change gradually until countries in the southern hemisphere experience longer daylight, thus longer hours of fasting.
* The Tarawie Circuit will appear in the Ladysmith Gazette on Thursday.
* There has been interesting filling of temporary posts at uThukela Municipality. If you are a sister of a senior official, you get a leg in before anyone else, and not only that, your temp contact gets extended way beyond the three-month one. Connection supersedes merit.
