Worker strike is off, and other news

Here’s an update to a story I posted last week, about the workers who are building the stadiums that will hold the World Cup matches next year. From the BBC:

Workers building stadiums for next year’s World Cup in South Africa are ending a week-long strike, according to negotiators in Johannesburg.

After threatening to wreck next June’s tournament unless they received a pay increase of 13%, a union spokesman said the workers had settled for 12%.

Contractors confirmed a deal had been reached and would be signed shortly, with work to resume on Thursday.

South Africa is building five new stadiums for the World Cup.

The BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Johannesburg says construction companies will be relieved that industrial action which could have lasted months has ended so quickly.

That’s putting it mildly, Jonah.

Other football news:

• Landon Donovan and David Beckham were having a little tiff, but now they love each other and will be back to slapping each other’s asses at Home Depot Center’s locker room after using Herbalife as an aphrodisiac.
• After struggling to tie Haiti in the CONCACAF Gold Cup (and possibly opting not to wear a condom), and thereby win Group B, the United States moves on to play Panama in the quarterfinals, in Philadelphia, this Saturday. I might take the train up to see that match, as long as I don’t have to visit any racist swimming clubs.
• Meanwhile, Mexico pulled their heads out of their asses and won Group C courtesy of a 2-0 victory over make-believe country Guadeloupe, which, as the boys from “South Park” said about Canada, is “not even a real country anyway.”

Finally, am I the only one who gets the shit annoyed out of them by the automatically playing videos on ESPN’s Web site?