It’s Not Like They Can’t Afford One?

I’m not sure about you, but if I am going to make the purchase of a new watch, I might look at spending possibly around $50 and that depends if it comes with any warranty, whilst others will spend hours looking at the new pages from the Jacobs The Jeweller at those expensive designer watches. Something else I always consider when choosing a new watch is how much it is going to cost me to maintain it. Luckily, you can now get solar watches that don’t require you to have to change their battery, which cuts down costs nicely. Visit Semprius.com 12v solar battery charger is available there in the case of your watch losing power, but it is very rare unless you spend an unusually large amount of time in the dark.

While looking at articles like https://www.watchshopping.com/watch-guide/watch-movement-types-and-how-they-differ/ can help you decide which watch you want, it appears that some have more than luck having things handed to them, regardless of the cost and also who made the purchase.

Being realistic, given the free space I am giving FIFA – did they even think to ask if I might need a new watch?

Not we are hearing that the FIFA ethics committee released a statement that a total of 48 Swiss watches given to soccer officials at the 2014 World Cup have been recovered and donated to a non-profit organization,

FIFA’s unethical weakness for luxury watches earned a windfall for a soccer charity working in Brazil.

The Parmigiani watches are valued at more than $26,000 (each) and were handed out in Sao Paulo to members of FIFA’s often-discredited executive committee, presidents of national federations whose teams played at the 32-team tournament and officials from South American federations.

Michel D’Hooghe, the longest-serving FIFA executive committee member, told The Associated Press on Thursday the watch he got had been a “poisonous gift.”

The gifts were from the Confederation of Brazilian Football, whose then-president Jose Maria Marin has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in a widening bribery case which has rocked FIFA and helped force President Sepp Blatter from office.

From the official FIFA site they stated the following press release.

In mid-June, the FIFA Secretary General asked the independent Chairs of the FIFA Ethics Committee’s Investigatory Chamber and the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee Michael J. Garcia and Domenico Scala, respectively whether FIFA could distribute two Hublot watches commemorating the 2014 FIFA World Cup to members of the FIFA Executive Committee as a “gift.”

The request stated that Hublot provided the watches to FIFA pursuant to a value-in-kind provision of a commercial agreement.

The watches (56 in total) were proposed to be given during the Executive Committee’s September 2014 meetings in Zurich.

The day after receiving this inquiry, Messrs. Garcia and Scala responded in a joint letter that the proposed gift would likely violate both the FIFA Code of Ethics (“FCE”) and recently established compensation policies.

FIFA has represented to Messrs. Garcia and Scala that the Hublot watches were not and will not be distributed to the Executive Committee.

In a separate incident, in mid-June, several football officials reported to the Investigatory Chamber that Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (“CBF”) had given each of them a gift bag containing what appeared to be a valuable watch.

In addition to advising those officials to turn over the watches to the FIFA Ethics Committee, the Investigatory Chamber commenced a preliminary investigation.

Beginning in June, the Investigatory Chamber issued written requests for information to CBF, which cooperated with the inquiry.

CBF stated that in connection with the 64th FIFA Congress and the beginning of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, it distributed 65 gift bags, each containing a Parmigiani watch.

These were given to a group comprising the 28 officials on the FIFA Executive Committee, a representative from each of the 32 Member Associations competing in the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, and a representative from each of the 10 Member Associations in Conmebol.

CBF produced records indicating that it obtained the watches from Parmigiani, a CBF sponsor, at a price of USD 8,750 each.

The Investigatory Chamber commissioned an independent appraisal of one of the watches CBF distributed and the appraisal had a market value of CHF 25,000.

That value was confirmed by a later appraisal done in Zurich.

Just thinking that at least with this expensive timing device, quite possibly now the FIFA officials can time the players for the length of time they spend diving and acting, when in reality they should be playing and not acting like overpaid babies!!

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