Eureka, I think we've found it...

That is, the reason the rest of the world is crazy and thinks that soccer (excuse me football) is the best sport in the world.
After watching a week of the World Cup, soccer must be the worst managed sport I have ever seen. You have referees kicking players out of the game without a clear reason. And then you have players ineligible for future games based on relatively minor infraction.
Imagine this. What is Shaquille O'Neal was ineligible to play in Game 5 tomorrow because he fouled out of the game. (Don't even get me going on Jerry Stackhouse.)
The organizers on any sport should work to ensure that the best players, the stars of its sport, are eligible to play on the world's greatst stage. I'm not sure if this is true, but someone told me that in the last world cup, Germany's best player wasn't eligible to play in the world cup final.
Beyond the nature of the game which puts a huge amount of the result under the capricious whimsy of the referee, what really irks me is that not even the announcers understand what is going on. For me, this is just a recipe for collusion and match fixture.
At this point I think the WWE has more credibility as a legitimate sporting even than the FIFA world cup.