News, Events & Comments

As a sometime serious football aka soccer player this blogger from Toronto detects deeper messages in the language used about the world’s favourite sport (sorry Super Bowl fans - American football doesn’t cut it around the world). Soccer is still popular among real people but with online fees dwarfing in park attendance revenue football as spectacle for the majority who can’t attend games in person becomes ever more significant. If the audience has grown by online exposure their connection is changing and formerly largely excluded spectators, including women, are now fans. Whatever football will become we cannot say but the people of the people’s game will continue to transform it in ways less viscerally tribal, yes for the better perhaps but as a more distant pleasure. Online all games are “away” games. Onsite passion as gallery appreciation, anyone?

# posted by Taodhg @ 6:36 am 0 comments

 Who below, if any, represents the values of honesty and open endeavor that the game, at its best,  celebrates?

Pictured below are Gianni Infntino, president of scandal plagued FIFA, the insult prone USA President, Mexico's premier Gloria Sheinbaum and prime minister of Canada Mark Carney.           

# posted by Taodhg @ 8:16 am 0 comments

Since the 19th century when the modern co-operative movement arose in industrial Europe it has been argued by some that what people buy and how they do so doesn't matter as big economic forces determine the size and nature of modern economies. But co-operativism  spread and has had important influence around the world because it does some very important things. If some compromises with mainstream economic injustice are unavoidable democratic and egalitarian cooperatives are still a real  alternative to the destructive rivalry and inequality that are most deadly for the socially excluded.  

Co-operatives give an economic role to ordinary citizens who may otherwise have little or no buying and selling power to meet their needs. In modern economies all of us, workers and consumers, have to pay for the necessities of our lives so what we choose to buy matters and cumulatively has an enormous effect, however small our individual actions may be. Acting collectively and democratically in their economic activities cooperators change economies for the better. Do their actions create immediate radical change? Not always, Key to progressive action is knowledge, but incrementally small actions have impact by providing a principled alternative to the war of all against all that is competitive capitalism, which brought our world to bloody collapse twice in the twentieth century and already more than once in the twenty-first. Major events like the football/soccer World Cup present a unique opportunity to inform the world about the social economy thrives and breathes human solidarity despite today's huge challenges from conflict and depersonalizing digital technology.   

And for all who want to watch 2026 World Cup games live we urge you to do so here in Canada, starting in June 2026, to avoid the land of this nation/s currently hostile World Cup co-host to the south. And when you do so use the economic options that reduce environmental harm and promote sharing as offered in the TorontotheBetter online directory. There will be games in Toronto and Vancouver televised nationally. With official bilingualism, a public healthcare system, a First Nation enabled national origin, political self-exclusion from more recent imperialist projects like the 2003 US/UK led war in Iraq and a coop originated political party - the NDP, formerly the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation - there is much for World Cup viewers to learn from and about Canada, the second largest country in the world and a leader jn global peacekeeping and co-operative development, This is the tradition that co-op based ethical enterprise TorontotheBetter supports and honours. Ongoing details of Canada's 2026 World Cup will be posted on this blog, Stay funed at www,torontothebetter,net

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# posted by Taodhg @ 10:24 am 0 comments

Recently seen smiling with the president of one 2026 World Cup co-host,FIFA leader Gianni Infantino looks increasingly like a child as his stated hopes for the "best and biggest" World Cup with the "friendliness" celebrated as a FIFA value on its Website,are crushed by the actions of one co-host whose leader doesn't seem to get the point smearing other co-hosts and using soccer like everything else he touches as crude self-promotion.If you care about the world Cup and don't like what you're seeing so far tell FIFA at fifaservices@fifa.com. Identify FIFA president Infantino by name and ask him to restore the values the game, at its best, best celebrates,

# posted by Taodhg @ 9:52 am 0 comments

   ON THE 2026 "WHIRLED" CUP:   Attention 2026 World Cup watchers       

Why "whirled"? Football, the most popular game in the world, was once known as "the people's game". It is now often called "the beautiful game" but recent events put in question the beauty of the tournament, not least the un-accountability of FIFA, football's governing body, which has selected recent tournament hosts with poor human rights records and absent public representation or explicit ethical principles. At some point otherwise private events become so big they require scrutiny. With Canada as our base - a 2026 World cup co-host (with the USA and Mexico) -  TorontotheBetter, creators of the TorontotheBetter directory of local social enterprises undertakes to review tournament developments with a values eye up to and including the event itself in the summer of 2026. We here present matters we think World Cup watchers should know and may not.

* Canada has recently come under economic and verbal attack by the leader of World Cup co-host USA    

* Canada refused participation with the UK and the USA in the war on Iraq in 2003 

*indigenous leader Tecumseth of the First Nations confederacy allied with British North America (now Canada) against the USA in the War of 1812

*Canada has a national public healthcare system

*Canada is officially bilingual

P,S.TorontotheBetter's referencing of Canada's historical circumstances here does not entail endorsement of any national characteristics other than those explicitly cited.                

# posted by Taodhg @ 11:55 am 1 comments