World Cup conspiracy theories

I'm American so I'm not as hooked into World Cup news as some other people. Imagine my surprise with the pediatrician's secretary started spouting out conspiracy theories. A little research later and I found this page. It was written the last WC but gives some food for thought:

Full post goes like this (verbatim):

Well, I think I told you before this is another very doubtful WC and unfortunately I was right
Before you start blaming Pareira, Ronaldinho and everyone else, just consider a few facts:

1986 was arguably the last real WC we saw; by “real” I mean not orchestrated by any means
then came 1990 and it was in Italy and of course, Italy should have won, they were hosts, etc, etc,, but there came the bad Argentines and stole the show; after that they got tough time – Maradona’s suspension, tough draw in last World Cups and so on

1994 the WC was in USA, far away from Europe and while almost everybody in Europe was sleeping and not watching, Brazil won

also in 1994 the big money came; just a reminder that after that the champions have been alternating between Nike and Adidas (this year it’s going to be Adidas)

1998 it was in France, the French build new nice stadiums and they won; what a surprise!?

2002 it was again far away from Europe, again few watched and quietly and peacefully Brazil won

now it’s 2006 and the French scenario is back – again we see a lot of new stadiums, a lot of money invested, even the ball is called “Teamspirit” (which is the only thing the current German squad can offer)…

what if Brazil had won – you know what happened in Formula 1 when Schumacher was winning a title after title; total lost of interest in the races followed; same would happen with the WC; it is often misthought that Brazil has the most supporters and FIFA is interested in them winning; it’s quite the opposite – no more than 10% of the fans worldwide support Brazil while the rest (and especially in Europe where most of FIFA’s revenues come from) hate them. Conclusion: the Hexa is bad for the WC and FIFA

There’s been a lot of talk that Nike dictates the starting 11 and this is the reason we see the veterans there; totally wrong – with all the Joga Bonito hype, Nike has no interest in Brazil playing ugly as they did in this WC. Nike is not stupid and I’m sure they know Robinho and Cicinho playing will result in Joga Bonito on the field. Moreover, most of the Joga Bonito ads had Robinho on them, not Ronaldo.

Pareira is also not stupid at all, he won in ‘94 and he benched Rai then so don’t thin he doesn’t know a squad with the younger players that played on Confederations Cup is better. The problem is that such a squad will just be uncontrollable and would thrash any opponent and the real goal was to keep the team on a leash and not allow it to play.

Which was confirmed by tommorow’s match. Did you see what Brazil did after France scored?? Any team would start to attack and hurry up. They were simply not really attacking. Cafu was substituted and he walked out of the field as it was 3:0 for Brazil…
They never sped it up.

It was the 89th minute and Roberto Carlos was walking with the ball in his own half instead of running in the French half and attacking.

After a match they lost players usually cry, I didn’t see that, some were even smiling (!!!)
I don’t believe all this was real.

Brazil has been eliminated before but it always happened after a hard fought match and a spectacular performance from Brazil (82, 86, 90…) Now they didn't want to play; the whole tournament

Some more food for thought:
William Hill announced that 70% of the betting were for a Brazil title…
Bekenabuer announced yesterday he doesn’t want to become FIFA president. So the title goes to Europe, Blatter gets all the European votes, Brazil gets the 2014 WC and everybody is happy…
and no, I am not crazy at all, this is a multi-billion dollar business so don’t expect it to be decided by 22 men and a ball.

Here's the link to the blog World Cup blog

I also found this interesting article on the NY times website

What do you guys think? Think it's a legit or fixed?