Impossible to give a precis. So post with TOO MANY WURDZ coming instead...

The video shows Valcke being handed one ball at a time, in which were supposed to be the pieces of paper containing the various countries' names - except that it appears to show him simply picking up pieces of paper from in front of him, out of view of the cameras and obscured by the blue FIFA panel, and pretending that these names came from the balls... when they did not. Every time he opens a ball, watch his left hand: it moves away, not into the ball in order to reveal the name, but towards the desk in front of him.

It then compares this with Fernanda Lima: who simply opens all the balls handed to her (there's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not going there), and immediately reveals the paper from these balls. But these merely contained the group numbers for the teams (eg. C4, D3, etc) - not the names of the teams. She does exactly what anyone would normally do; Valcke does not.

During the draw, I remember finding it odd just how fast things were moving once it got underway. That's not normal for a World Cup draw at all. And because it was moving so fast, the cameras didn't so much zone in on Valcke 'opening' the balls as simply on the slips he rapidly held up containing the various teams' names. But this video makes it look for all the world as though, at least in certain cases, those slips didn't come from the balls at all - but from the desk in front of him.

If this is true, what I can't get my head round is how the great players, positioned to his left, who drew the balls out and handed them to him one by one, didn't spot any of this; and also the quite astronomical levels of daring involved. Imagine if he'd been spotted! FIFA, the World Cup, the entire house of cards would have collapsed - just like that. So logic says it's just not possible - but conversely, as many conjurors have shown over the years, it's perfectly possible to make an audience, no matter how large, think they can see something happening when, in fact, something rather different is happening instead. Though that applies just as much to this video as to Valcke's actions, of course. It all depends on what the camera is showing us.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Dec 8, 01:21:05