Huge Marinaro meltdown this morning, as he predictably wallowed in the news about FIFA awarding the 2026 WC to Canada as co-host.
As he was waxing poetic about what the decision meant for the future of soccer in Canada, he receives a text and reads it on air, as he usually does. The text wasn't kind at all to his loyalties for the game, nor for him spending so much time on soccer with the NHL draft coming up.
That's when he totally lost it. Snapped back by calling the texter out and asking that his number be blocked so that he would never be able to contact him or the station again and screamed out "If you don't like soccer, go suck an egg!". And then Marinaro reprised an expression I used about him here a few days ago -- he said "and yes, I'll continue to shove soccer than your throats."
I listen online and whenever I hear him venturing into soccer talk I shut down the feed for a half an hour. The best way to get him to lay off the soccer talk is to turn the channel whenever he brings it up.
He continued in his fury by adding how he had planned for two thirds of the show to be about soccer and was going to spend the remaining one third on hockey, but now because of that text he found to be objectionable, he would dedicate the whole show to soccer. Of course, it was a bluff, since at 11 AM, he delved into the Senators's ****fest.
So he predictably continued merrily along trying to sell the WC, how it's going to make money for Montreal.
It won't make a dime for Montreal or any other host city. All it's going to be is what the Olympics are: a taxpayer-funded festival for the rich and well-connected. All you and I will ever get out of it is the bill and I'm only talking about the money we know about, not the bribes that had to be paid to FIFA in order to buy the winning bid. I'm glad that the BC government pulled out of Canada's bid so I at least will be spared from having to pay for this non-event.
After this, we were graced with a longish speech featuring Marinaro talking to himself and pontificating about the state of soccer in Canada and in Montreal in particular. He rattled on about how the game is not well structured and organized, dissed parent coaches, put down the methods of all the amateurs and basically made the whole system look like it's crap due to all these volunteers who aren't qualified to dispense soccer knowledge.
And concludes this huge elitist posturing by saying the opposite:
"We need to make soccer, fun. As long as it's fun, that's what it's all about."
No, Tony. We need to make soccer go away. If I'm a taxpayer in Montreal I'd much rather have my tax dollars spent on helping to bring 81 baseball games per year to a downtown venue in my city than waste a couple hundred million more dollars on the Big O for a one time tournament featuring 3 lousy soccer games.