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There is no doubt that the World Cup is the biggest event in the world. There is no doubt that soccer in the Olympic Games is a big draw everywhere. Miami natives can remember the buzz that there was back in 1996 when Brazil as well as other national teams played their matches in the Magic City when stars like Ronaldo, Kanu, Jay Jay Okocha, FIFA knows this and wants to guard their biggest money maker. The Olympic Games last year brought out the zealous manner in which FIFA wants to protect their brand- thus began the chatter in very low tones.

Now FIFA is mentioning that their view of the game differs from that the IOC due to issues on two fronts: the release of players for this tournament, and the interference that this tournament creates on FIFA's scheduling.

What this means is that FIFA do not want a rival competition at their expense.

The sport's top authority plans to meet at the end of the month in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the possibility of soccer being withdrawn from the upcoming Olympic Games that will be held in London in 2012.

There are three camps currently in fighting each other. UEFA wants the sport to be competely withdrawn from the Olympic Games siting that it would delay the start of European domestic leagues as well as the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League. The European entity is also being pressured by the big European clubs to lobby this stance after seeing players like Lionel Messi, Diego, and Rafinha (among others) participate in the tournament against their clubs' wishes.

IOC president Jacques Rogge would like to see the tournament remain but at the same time, he would like for FIFA to decide on what should be done. He would like to know as soon as possible whether he should count on soccer to be a sport in 2012, and he might get an answer in the coming weeks. Rogge's counterpart, Sepp Blatter in the meantime has come up with an intermediate solution-essentially make the Olympic soccer tournament become what it was prior to 1992 when the IOC set up the soccer tournament to be a pseudo U-23 event where delegations could register three players older than that.

If this all were to happen, men's soccer would be the third sport to be removed from the Olympic Games along with baseball and softball.

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