Famous Red Cards in World Cup

These are the lists of some famous or infamous red cards which became part of world cup football history.

* Zinedine Zidane (France Vs Italy 2006)

Among the mother, father and holy ghost of all World Cup red cards. Zidane, who had given France the lead with a cheeky penalty and moments earlier nearly won the match with a brilliant header, responded to Marco Materazzi's taunting by headbutting him in the chest. This was football's JFK moment and, like the late president's murder, wild rumours have continued to spread about what exactly was said. Zidane claims Materazzi insulted his mother, which the Italian defender has consistently denied. For the record, France's former number 10 has said he 'would rather die' than apologise. This one looks set to run and run.

* David Beckham (England Vs Argentina 1998)

'Ten Brave Lions, One Stupid Boy' screamed an English tabloid newspaper the day after England's second round defeat by Argentina in 1998. English poster boy David Beckham was dismissed for a flash of petulance in flicking a leg at Diego Simeone, who collapsed as if he had been shot by a sniper's bullet. The image of Beckham gazing up at the giant referee Kim Milton Nielsen remains a defining image of France '98. Declarations for public lynchings and burning effigies swiftly followed for England's number seven.

* Pedro Monzon (Argentina Vs West Germany 1990)

La Albiceleste hold the record for the most red cards in World Cup history with 10. Three of those came in Italia '90 with Pedro Monzon earning his name in the history books for becoming the first player to be sent off in a World Cup final. Monzon hacked Jurgen Klinsmann down and 20 minutes later team-mate Gustavo Dezotti was sent packing too, with the Argentinian players barging the Mexican referee around like a pinball in disgraceful scenes.

* Frank Rijkaard & Rudi Voeller (Netherlands Vs West Germany 1990)

Sixty seconds of madness will forever define this pair's careers. When Germany play Netherlands there is always some spice, so when it's a second round World Cup match two years after the Dutch beat them on home soil in Euro '88, it was bound to get nasty. Just after the 20 minute mark Rijkaard sliced into Voller to earn a booking which didn't meet with his approval, so he lobbed a mouthful of spit in the German's direction. Voeller even pointed at his curly hair to the referee to demonstrate, but got a booking for his protests. Moments later the pair clashed again in the penalty area and were both sent off, upon which Rijkaard lobbed another one in Voeller's direction. It's alleged they had a punch up in the tunnel, although we understand they have since patched things up.

* Diego Maradona (Argentina Vs Brazil 1982)

Trailing 3-0 to the super Brazilians, Diego Maradona snapped with just five minutes remaining. Argentina's number 10 launched himself at Batista with menace, connecting with a part of the body which guarantees severe pain when studs are attached. His World Cup, along with Argentina's, was over.

* Mario David (Italy Vs Chile 1962)

A game etched in history as the 'Battle of Santiago' and memorably described by the BBC at the time as "the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possible in the history of the game." Tensions were at fever pitch before a ball was kicked as members of the Italian media had slated the hosts Chile in a series of scathing editorials. It didn't take long before the battle got underway and Giorgio Ferrini's red card for Italy in the eighth minute set the tone for things to come. Ferrini took aim with a kick but only left the field several minutes later when an army of police had to escort him off. Later in the half, Chile's Leonel Sanchez and Italy's Mario David decided to kick lumps out of each other at the corner flag. Sanchez aimed a punch in David's direction and, despite the linesman seeing it cleanly, he amazingly escaped punishment. A few minutes later David aimed a kung fu kick, which Eric Cantona would be proud of, in Sanchez's direction and he saw red too. Referee Ken Aston, who had served in the Second World War, said it was like being back in battle. He had a point.


4) Antonio Rattin (Argentina Vs England 1966)

Tensions between England and Argentina were there long before the Falklands war and the Hand of God. Skipper Rattin was given his marching orders by German referee Rudolph Kreitlein for repeated dissent but took an age to leave the pitch. He allegedly spat on the Queen's red carpet and as he eventually trudged off he wiped his hands on the corner flag which had a Union Jack on it. Rattin pleaded his defence years later: "The sending-off should never have happened and it wouldn’t have done if I could speak a word of German. I hadn’t even made a foul. All I wanted to do was talk to the referee, but the next thing I knew he was pointing me off the pitch."

* Laurent Blanc (France Vs Croatia 1998)

A disgraceful red card which should never have been issued. France's cultured defender missed out on the World Cup final for a blatant piece of gamesmanship executed by Slaven Bilic. After minor contact, Bilic launched himself to ground, clutching his face in horror. Blanc, who had been inspirational throughout the tournament, was deprived of playing in the biggest game of his career. If ever there was an argument for video evidence this was it. Calls for Blanc's ban to be over tuned fell on deaf ears. It still makes the Gallic blood boil.


* Sergio Batista (Uruguay Vs Scotland 1986)

Batista holds the dubious record of the fastest ever red card in World Cup history for seeing red less than a minute into Uruguay's game with Scotland in Mexico '86. He was given an early bath just 56 seconds into the game for slaloming into the back of Gordon Strachan. Referee Joel Quiniou took no prisoners and reached straight for his top pocket, roaring at Batista to leave and fast.

How to Create Wealth, How to Become Rich

Wealth creation Strategies:

Ever thought how your colleague at work, who earns the same salary as you, has bought a Marcediz while you are still driving your 5-year-old Hundai Accent?

Chances are your colleague has utilized his or her existing salary smartly to generate passive sources of income, on the back of which the car has been bought. By generating passive income you can achieve financial freedom and flexibility through the creation of alternative sources of income that can complement your salary income. People rarely achieve their financial goals and dreams only on the back of their salaries - one needs alternative sources of income that can increase one's wealth and consumption capabilities. Here we share with you some tips on how to generate passive income that can facilitate wealth creation.

What is passive income?

The salary you get from work is a direct result of your efforts at work, during your active working life. Passive income, on the other hand, is income that you can generate without having to directly work for it. For exampe, if you invest a part of your salary into instruments that will earn income for you without you spending any time on it, you can create passive sources of investment income for yourself. Apart from the act of investment, you are not directly doing any active work to generate investment income. In effect, your money works for you to earn more money for no incremental effort on your part. Over time, if you have invested smartly, you can have enough money through these passive sources to make a down payment on an apartment or buy that dream car. Even if you start small, the idea is that you should start creating passive income for your self. Through the sheer power of compounding of capital, small savings today can grow into a large amount within just a short period of 4-5 years.

When can one start earning passive income?

You can start as early as today! All you need is a regular source of salary income and the discipline of setting aside a part of this salary, even if it is a small amount, towards investment purposes before you start spending your money on your lifestyle or your living costs. This of course might not always be easy, and depends upon the state of your personal finances and your family situation. Also, if you are just starting out your career, you might not have the flexibility to invest immediately. To add to these is the peer pressure to spend money on items of conspicuous consumption like the latest mobile phone or a cutting edge flat screen LCD TV. The choice whether to invest or not is of course yours, but please bear in mind the tradeoff in the long term - you can either consume today, or save up to consume for later. If, however, you are in your middle age, you might not be left with much of a choice and your key goal should be to use as much of your income as possible from your remaining peak earning years to create a source of passive income, which is often the only source of funds for most people during retirement.


Last but not the least, jike your salary income, any passive income that you generate will also create a tax liability for you.

Depending upon the source of the income there might be different tax treatment applied. For instance, dividends from equity instruments such as stocks or equity mutual funds are tax free in the hands of the investor. However, dividends distributed by a debt or a liquid fund will be subject to a dividend distribution tax paid out by the fund. Further, the tax treatment also depends upon the time duration that you hold an asset or an investment. If you make a gain on a capital market investment, but hold it for less than 12 months, short-term capital gains tax rules will apply. If you hold the investment for more than 12 months then long-term capital gains tax rates will be applicable. Similarly, for property the holding period that determines a short or long-term capital gain is whether you have owned the asset for more or less than 3 years. The tax rates for capital gains vary by the type of investment in question. Sometimes you might also be able to use losses from your investments to offset your taxes from other sources of income.
Whatever be the source of your passive income, you will need to declare it in your annual tax return, and pay taxes on it according to the existing tax rates and rules.

Savings Plan For Everyone, Savings Scheme to Go For

Saving is essential for everyone!
When the interest rates are rising it is good news for some - those who look at making deposits; bad news for some - those who are looking at taking loans. Savings however have to be channeled carefully so that the maximum can be gained from the deposits. Here are the top 5 savings planning:

In today's scenario the top 5 savings instruments are:
1. Debt Mutual Funds
2. Mutual Fund Monthly Income Plan - Growth Option
3. Company Deposits
4. Post Office Recurring Deposit
5. Post Office Monthly Income Scheme

Debt Mutual Funds

These are managed funds that invest the funds from the investors predominantly in debt and debt oriented schemes. There are a number of advantages that these mutual funds give compared to a direct deposit. The most apparent is the fact that this is a managed fund and the returns can be better as the manager has access to more information and will leverage that compared to individual investors. There is no TDS or tax on the interest. The returns will be processed as capital gains. Returns from this fund are expected to be good. The top five debt mutual funds have given compounded returns in the range of 10.50-14.50% in the last 3 years. This is much better than the normal bank deposit or company deposit. The advantage is that debt mutual funds can create capital gains when the interest rates go down.

Mutual Fund Monthly Income Plan - Growth Option

For people who have a higher risk quoitent during the short term, monthly income plan (MIP) of mutual funds is good. Here a small portion (generally not more than 20%) of the funds is invested in equity. So the returns can be better than the normal debt mutual fund when the market is rising. The typical returns in the last 3 years are 12% to 14% for the top 5 funds. However caution needs to be taken when choosing the growth option. This is due to the fact that if we start to receive the monthly payouts there may be months when the principal is used for the payout. This will drain the fund particularly when the market goes down. Being largely a debt oriented mutual fund, the tax treatment is the same as the debt mutual fund.

Company Deposits

Companies that offer deposit schemes to consumers tend to offer rates that are in-between bank deposit rates and bank lending rates. This is a win-win situation for the company and the person saving. The bank has to make a profit when borrowing from the public and lending to companies. So they have an interest rate difference (spread) of about 4.5%. In effect, the deposit holders are paid less and the borrowers are charged more. When a company has direct access to the depositor, both benefit. The depositor gets a better rate than what the bank can offer and the company is able to borrow at a lesser rate when compared to a bank interest rate. However, it is in the best interest of the borrower to do his research thoroughly and double check how good the credit rating of the company is before investing. On an average estimates show that one can easily get 11% - 12% on reputed companies' deposits for a 3 year term. The returns will be taxed as interest and will have TDS.

Post Office Recurring Deposit

This is a 5 year scheme where one invests on a monthly basis. However, there does exist an option for the fund to be closed after 3 years, which comes with a penalty of 1%. The advantage with the postal recurring deposit over the bank recurring deposit is that the minimum monthly investment is only Rs.10/- with no upper limit. In case the payment is made once is 6 months or on a yearly basis, there are discounts for that too. The limitation is that the interest rate is fixed at 7.5% only and auto-debit to bank account is not available. There are no tax benefits from the scheme. However Post Offices have not been deducting TDS.

Post Office Monthly Income Scheme

For the retired people, the Post Office Monthly Income Scheme is a good savings instrument. The interest is 8% divided on a monthly payout basis. The payout if not required can be channeled to a recurring deposit. The effective returns increases by almost 10% by doing this.The interest can be credited to a savings account of any bank too. The account can be closed after 1 year with a 5% penalty and after 3 years without any penalty. The limitation however is that the maximum investment for any individual is only Rs.6 L. The ranking of the above 5 savings schemes have been done based on their returns, the convenience factor to close and change to another savings scheme (important when the interest rate is rising) and the safety for investments. Of all the options the debt mutual funds appear to score the highest due to their flexibility and returns. This is closely followed by the mutual fund MIPs.