It will not be hosted in Qatar, no matter how corrupt FIFA is. Make no mistake, it’s cost-prohibitive, and Blatter will have been ousted by then. Thankfully his hubris in trying to host the WC in countries that have no Earthly business doing so. The Korea/Japan WC was a massive failure and a nightmare to co-ordinate on so many levels:
Ticketing; massive problems with distribution and overall sales. I was at France-Uruguay and there were 25,000 tickets sold out of 55,000. This was a must-win game for France and they ended up giving away free tickets… they still couldnt fill up many games. The front 10 tiers would oftenbe covered up with tarps because they overestimated the interest from the locals, who only cared about Korea’s games. The tickets were too expensive for the locals, anyway.
The players had to play in near 100% humidity–basically the same as a sauna. The quality of the matches suffered as a result.
Corruption of the officials–unproven but pretty apparent–to where they had an Equadorean referee officiate the Italy (who had just knocked Ecuador out)-Korea match, and who proved to be as corrupt as hell. Never mind the invisible penalties and disallowed goals. The Egyptian ref in the following game was even more brutal.
FIFA is corrupt, Blatter is corrupt. They exist as an organisation only to line their pockets and subsidise their quasi-statesmen-like lifestyles.
Russia and Qatar most likely bought their way to the world cup and, OK, if that’s the way it is then fine. Let’s have a process of tendering for the contract and best offer wins. All open and above board.
And if a winter finals is part of said plan then again, fine. I’m not totally opposed to it but FFS lets put it in the bid to start with and have that debate well ahead of time (rather than inserting it afterwards as a cynical fait accomplis considering that you stood up like a flabby tit when everyone had been telling you that a summer world cup in Qatar was a non-starter but yet you stated…clearly…that a summer games was no problem and that formed an integral part of the bid.)
I can imagine Blatter now, lounging on a cushion, sharing hookers and blow with the Qatari FA and saying “don’t worry, I know we can’t play in the summer but just say you will anyway and that gives us a decade to weasel our way out of it…by the way my bank account number is…”
But it is the naked hypocrisy that stinks the most. Let’s give the finals to a country awash with bribery, corruption and mafia influence. Lets give it to one country that is trying to implement anti-homosexual laws and one that already has them. (way to strike a blow for equality there FIFA). Read this, if you can stomach it. It is FIFA’s mission statement and if anyone can square the Russian and Qatari world cup finals with the values espoused in this doggerel then good for you (and I suspect the FIFA public relations HR person will be knocking on your door with spin-doctor job for you)
Why no, I’m not a fan of FIFA, how perceptive of you.
Don’t forget that Mohammed bin Hammam, a Qatari who was head of the AFC and on the executive committee was ousted for corruption, along with Jack Warner and some others, during one of Blatter’s corruptions sweeps. This was almost certainly orchestrated by Blatter after bin Hammam had the audacity to challenge Blatter for the presidency.
Quite, and just remember the BBC investigation into FIFA corruption during the run-up to the 2018/2022 decisions. FIFA denied the accusations of course and were damming of the UK for raising such issues (leaving aside the fact that the BBC has full editorial freedom and is under no control of the government or the English FA).
And yet…look at the names, look at the accusations, look at what has happened within FIFA since then.
^^ I don’t know what the official reason is but I thought everyone just assumed that it’s so Blatter and co. can have one more big payday before they retire :mad:
The Sunday Times (of London, if you must) has come into possession of a very large volume of documents concerning the Qatar 2022 bid. Here’s a brief, and rather heavily legalled, BBC link, as the ST is paywalled:
Look, I know it’s the World Cup. I know about the history, the tradition and all that, and I’d be resistant to the idea of killing the Super Bowl or the World Series, but for real, we need to either kill the World Cup and start over or start something else in lieu of it. FIFA needs to die before the corrupt, diseased organization wrecks everything. Same goes for the IOC, but one thing at a time. On this we have FIFA dead to rights.
None of this is surprising. It is pretty much assumed that Russia and Qatar both fixed their applications and greased the relevant palms whilst maintaining plausible deniability.
I do hope that this is a smoking gun that brings down FIFA and Blatter. That would be wonderful.
This is getting pretty ugly, all of the English newspapers are publishing different corruption stories, and public sentiment – which apparently accounts for little in influencing FIFA – is calling for the WC to be moved to Australia or (you guessed it!) England.
Blatter and the bhoys might want to give this some thought as it would give them an excuse to suborn a second round of bribes for the same event. Awesomeness!
Sadly, I fully expect Blatter will remain president after the voting next May. I know soccer has grown a ton internationally during his time as president, but I’m sure that’s due almost exclusively to tv and internet coverage. I can’t imagine what he’s done that would be any better than the next best candidate. What’s FIFA done in this time?
Of course, one of the upsides of a tournament in such conditions is that those trying to blow their vuvuzelas will expire before halftime of the first fixture.
Collective action is the only way to go I think - if Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, England and the Netherlands all said, we’re pulling out of Fifa and setting up our own international football body, complete with international competition, then every other country is likely to fall in line, as you can’t really have a WC, Copa America or European Championships without these nations (well, maybe not England). The only problem is that the guys in charge of the national football associations in these countries are already on the Fifa gravy train - so it’s unlikely to change any time soon.
America might come to our aid - one of the things mentioned on the TV in the UK over the weekend, by some legal mind, was that as a lot of these bribes were paid in dollars, there is some notional legal avenue that the FBI could investigate, which could blow the whole thing up using the law. This seems more likely than the top countries going their own way - but I am no lawyer and don’t know how likely it actually is in any case.
Careful with your choice of words there though, this isn’t sour grapes from an England perspective. There was never a chance that England could have won over the Qatari bid as it wasn’t due to go to a UEFA country.
The English papers and media in general have been all over FIFA corruption for years and it has harmed our bids in the past (which in itself is evidence of FIFA’s unsuitability to be in charge…a free press Sepp, imagine that?) Sure enough, the original claims have proved to be true and more and more evidence has emerged and so we find ourselves here. The English press are continuing the story in exactly the same way (I confess I haven’t seen where anyone has suggested giving the tournament to England)
Australia would have been an excellent choice and, should the bidding be re-run (actually you just need to vote again minus the Qataris) then I’d expect (and hope) that Oz would win.
Russia is a different matter. One could make a decent case for it to host. Still, I fully expect that they too bribed their way to victory but in their case they get further with a wad of cash and gun than with just a wad of cash (to paraphrase “The Untouchables” ). Corrupt, and just as ugly as the Qatari bid but as yet no smoking gun (or decaying polonium) and their claim on the tournament passes the sniff-test so I don’t expect too much change to that.
