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Life

06th Jun 2015

JOE’s Top Stories of the Week: FIFA madness, Coppers, and a broken penis

John Delaney gives Sepp the finger

Tony Cuddihy

You’d miss the old Marriage Equality referendum – thank Sepp we’ve had FIFA’s deluge of muck to keep us entertained.

Every week, JOE takes a look back at the stories that have kept us in donuts and gym memberships that we never, ever use. Make yourself a Matcha Latté or something real people drink and come back to us.

You have two minutes.

Ready? Let’s go.

Monday, June 1st

The Bank Holiday. Sunday: The Sequel.

Those who had been to Slane finally remembered what the bad thing was, poured themselves another Lemsip, crept back into the cot for a day of Friends repeats and sweet, sweet regret.

SlaneSlip

Out in the world, not a whole lot happened until Caitlyn Jenner, who used to be a man called Bruce, and Vanity Fair combined to much fist pumping and fair playing.

Given our allergy to that whole shower of publicity sucking attention craving oxygen stealing Kardashian eejitry, it was hard to give even a single hoot but as long as people were happy let them be.

Tuesday, June 2nd

It’s seldom enough we’d come across the headline ‘Ridiculously Photogenic Pig Looked Very Pleased After Taking A Sh*t In A Cop Car‘ so we’re fairly grateful when it happens.

Moving on.

Wayne Rooney may not have been particularly good at the day job last season, but we pray to the Seven Gods that he doesn’t quit it anytime soon. Jaysus.

We had a card trick that we watched with our jaws on the floor, and we didn’t even care that we later found out how it was done.

Munster confirmed what we all knew anyway – Paul O’Connell would be leaving both the province and the Ireland set-up after the Rugby World Cup. There’s always a new sporting idol waiting to happen, but if ever a man seemed irreplaceable it was Paulie.

Paul O'Connell dirty

Finally, at around 4pm on Tuesday it was announced that FIFA would be holding an impromptu press conference from deep within the Zurich Death Star. 5pm came and went, nothing. 5.15pm. Nothing.

Eventually a stormy faced Walter De Gregorio announced that Sepp Blatter would be making a statement and taking no questions and…

Wow. He was gone. The poisoned gnome of Association Football had finally given up, the reverberations felt from Tuam to Timbuktu.

Wednesday, June 3rd

How do you follow that up?

With a preview of the next episode of Game of Thrones? Hardhome is going to be a hard act to follow.

game-of-thrones-hardhome-night-king_0

With the fallout from the start of the Leaving Cert? We had the reaction from English Paper I right here, as the rest of the country thanked the nation’s 17 and 18-year-olds for half an hour of sunshine.

With a story from Copper Face Jacks that went as viral as any story involving the words Copper, Face and Jacks.

But, really, it’s all been about FIFA for the last week and a half and there would be no let-up. Not with John Delaney off the leash…

Thursday, June 4th

There’s a line in The Sopranos in which the wise, incalculable Hesh discusses the late Livia, mother of Tony and general battleaxe.

“In between brain and mouth there was no interlocutor.”

That’s the Chief Executive of the Football Association of Ireland, that is.

FAI CEO John Delaney 26/7/2014

John Delaney spoke to Ray D’Arcy and, let’s be honest about it, nobody came out of this looking well. When asked if he had ever been offered a bribe, the response came, “not on my salary.” When discussing the FIFA movie, “that’s incredible ego.” When recounting the time Sepp looked his girlfriend up and down and gave his approval, “he stared at her and I said ‘move on’ and he did.”

Oh, and there was something about a payment made by FIFA into the FAI coffers. It was a loan that wasn’t a loan, a bribe that wasn’t a bribe, hush money that kept everyone quiet until Sepp was forced to hand in the company Subway card and free Spotify Premium membership.

Elsewhere, we had a news story to make JOE’s entire male readership go “ooof… he won’t like that at all.” Nothing like a broken penis story to put manners on a man.

Friday, June 5th

The Leaving Cert. Worse again, Leaving Cert Maths. It’s a special kind of dread known only to the innumerate and the downright lazy (me, in other words). The fear, the horror, the reaction to it all.

LeavingCert

The FIFA magazine forgot to mention some stuff that’s been going on, while the FAI issued a long statement explaining exactly why and where and when that money was resting in their account. It’s all here.

John Cleese had a go at Piers Morgan, because what’s more fun than having a go at Piers Morgan?

Finally, we may just have found the world’s soundest farmer. We’re going out on a high with our favourite good news story of the week.

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