Cite?
The US has capped players that have never lived in the US.
What does a new identity mean? If a player was born in Brazil, but was never capped by Brazil would it be choosing a new national identity if Qatar pays him $1m to take Qatari citizenship to play for them?
Qatar has already naturalized several citizens or other countries just to improve their soccer team. They have also publicly announced their bribery in at least one case.
Sure.
Articles 15 to 18 of the FIFA Regulations as amended by the 58th Congress. (Warning : PDF.)
Please note specifically Article 17 (d); the time limit was raised from 2 to 5 years.
There are other ways, as any UK resident who follows football can tell you.
Specifically, if either parent or any grandparent were born in the territory of the relevant Association, the player is eligible to play for that Association in international football; this is provided for in Article 16.
I used it to mean “Choosing to become eligible to play in internationals as a representative of a new Association.” Sorry.
Yes.
If the naturalised players were descended from people born in Qatar, or have naturalised themselves and resided in the territory of the Qatar Football Association for the requisite period (whether the current 5 years or the 2-year qualification period it replaced) then they are eligible.
My contention in such cases is that the players are not good enough to represent their native country, or have any reasonable hope that they might some day do so. In which case, I can’t blame them for grabbing the money.
Right. Qatar’s not going to get a Messi or anything. However, they are going to get players that are a hell of a lot better than what they have.
I do think Qatar will buy their team in exactly the same way as they buy their athletes (and the way they bought the world cup).
It isn’t pretty and it isn’t the way most countries do it but if the rules allow it they will do it.
Look at the middle east at the moment, Dubai in particular. It is a dick swinging contest of monumental vulgarity and excess.
No coincidence then that the next two world cups have been given to Russia and Qatar. Speak to anyone who interacts with these people in the higher echelons of society. They will regale you with tales of what that vulgarity and excess really means. What they want, they get.
What is a few billion here or there to these people? The money and prestige is all and the actual benefit to game we love is neither here nor there.
This is just the sporting equivalent of Abramovich’s yacht.
I would also not be surprised if the rules regarding player eligibility are relaxed to benefit of Qatar during the coming decade.
Perhaps. I would still be confident in wagering that those players, although better, will still not be nearly good enough to compete at the required level. Journeymen footballers wont cut it, this is the best in world football remember.
Oh, how very clever of you.
That some epic bribery occurred.
One problem with World Cup soccer that I’ve seen mentioned is that national teams don’t have as much cohesion and rhythm as a club team that often has player stability and the advantage of playing and practicing together day in and day out for a long time.
So for example, Messi is completely awesome on Barca, but on the Argentinian National Team, the playing style was not as well suited to him and he was having to play with people he had less experience with, so he did not perform as well in the qualifying matches (though the World Cup went better). Lots of countries also have sport politics and player issues influence the teams to their detriment (eg Mexico, France).
If Qatar assembles a team with a bunch of second-string Brazilians and Europeans, training them as a cohesive unit for a year or two before the tournament may give them a stronger team then it would be suggested on paper.
Of course, that was what some people said would happen with the isolated North Korean team this year, and we all know what happened to those poor guys. I don’t think this philosophy helped the old USSR teams very much either.
I know little about Qatar, but I’m curious to see how it works out. I second the request for Paul in Qatar’s opinion.
Not completely ridiculous, as technically, England does not meet the current FIFA hosting requirements.
From this site:
According to this list on Wikipedia, England currently has only 10 stadiums with a capacity of 40,000 or more. (The list incorrectly states that Elland Road has a capacity of 40,000, but in reality it is 39,460.)
True, England can probably get a full complement of approved stadiums pretty quickly, but they’d still need to build something to do that, so TheBoltEater’s point stands.
</end nitpick>
And, for the record, my only issue with FIFA’s choice of Qatar is that it’s a very risky choice, as recognized by FIFA’s own inspection team. Now that the decision has been made, I wish Qatar all the best, but it will not be easy to build the required stadiums from scratch in the next 11.5 years.
Are you sure about that? I give you the 2010 world cup.
Look at Group A - The hosts ranked 83 with a bunch of hometown journeyman only missed out on progessing on goal difference.
Look then at Group F - New Zealand ranked 78 and with one player in a top flight league went unbeaten in three matches (including one against the defending champions) and were only denied going through to the next round because of the “three points for a win” system.
I agree with nani, Qatar could concievably build a team of journeymen, acclimate them to the brutal conditions and progress past the group stage.
Some annonymous person is making vague accusations of bribery. Big deal. That is hardly evidence that Qatar won the bid because of corruption and zero evidence to that effect has been provided on this thread or elsewhere.
Are there problems with Qatar’s bid? Sure and I am sure their government will work hard to overcome many of them in the next 12 years. However there are big advantages too: a new region exposed to the World Cup for the first time, small travelling distances which will make it easier to move from game to game.
And for that matter there were big problems with the US bid too, visa problems, heat problems, large travelling distances. And I am much less confident that the US government would have lifted a finger, for example to reduce visa hassles for fans around the world.
Are you sure? A quick glance at the 2010 qualifying seems to show all the AFC countries being from Africa, the closest to a “Middle East” country being Egypt.
Australia swictched from Oceania to AFC circa 2005.
Or we could look at more recent tournaments, like 2010 where Australia did go out in the first round, but only on goal difference in what was considered a “group of death” (one in which there is more than two teams that are considered good, meaning one will “underperform”). Then there was 2006, where they reached the knockout stages but lost 1-0 to Italy after a disgusting dive by Grosso to win a penalty five minutes into injury time:
In short, Australia have improved massively over the past decade. It is entirely possible that Qatar could do the same thing, but as has already been said, Qatar doesn’t have a particularly large population or tradition of playing football to fall back on and the rules regarding who can play for what country are very strict.
If you want to be strict about comparisons, lets look at Australia’s results against Middle Eastern teams of late:
2010: Played 1, Drew 1
2009: Played 5: Won 3 Drew 1 Lost 1
2008: Played 7: Won 5 Drew 0 Lost 2
2007: Played 2: Won 0 Drew 1 Lost 1
2006: Played 4: Won 3 Drew 0 Lost 1
2005: Played 1: Won 1 Drew 0 Lost 0
And Wikipedia doesn’t have easy to deal with results since then.
So in the past six years, Australia’s results against Middle Eastern teams stands as:
P 20 W 12 D 3 L 5
I’d say that is pretty good and I stand by my view of “running rings around them”. Winning 60% of the games and losing only 25%.
Interesting Australia World Cup fact: they hold the record for win margin in an international football match: 31-0 against American Samoa. In the same qualification group (For the 2002 World Cup) they won another game 22-0 and ended up with a +66 goal difference, which was scored in just four games.
just a quick question for those much more informed than i.
suppose i am jewish and want to attend do you suppose qatar will be building a couple of temples throughout the country so that i can attend sabbath celebrations?
Not sure about that, but according to the head of FIFA if you are gay you should just stop being for the duration of the tournament:
Oh Sepp, you fucking tool. Be a good boy and fuck off now.
Bumpdate: rumblings that the 2022 vote could be overturned.
More here.
The US looks to be the frontrunner if there’s a new vote.
That looks more like Blatter trying to poison Mohammed bin Hammam’s run for FIFA president (MbH is from Qatar and played a big role in them getting the tournament). I betcha this noise goes away after the election on 1 June.
Agreed, it is a nest of vipers and this seems like Blatter doing just enough to pull people away from Bin Hamman’s candidacy whilst not committing at all to review his corrupt shit-hole of an organisation.
Quick update on this…it rumbles on and on doesn’t it?
How handy for Blatter that the ethics committee can squeeze this in just before the presidential vote. Not to mention that his opponent in that ballot will be one of those under investigation.
What a shower of shits.
I’d like Blatter to go away. But if that can’t happen, I’d be even happier if Jack Warner went away. The only way that the 2022 Cup gets re-bid is if they figure that’s a way to squeeze more money out of the Qataris.
This is developing into quite a story now… in case you hadn’t heard, Blatter is now also going to be investigated by the ethics committee, at the request of his challenger Bin Hammam. Much talk of how they can’t possibly conduct the election on schedule now. Murmurings that, in that case, Platini (currently UEFA president) may throw his hat into the ring four years ahead of schedule. While it would be amusing to see both of the two current contenders fall, I kind of hope not - Platini seems like just another wannabe sports despot to me.
Other people, including some insiders, are saying that this really is a major crisis for FIFA, and it must reform itself or die. I hope those people are right.