Nationals Arm Race

I wonder how much this Qatar-ian paid to win the 2022 world cup.

Russia to get 2018 World Cup, and Qatar to get 2022.

SI’s Grant Wahl already has a story out beating me to this rant, but i’ll say it anyway.

FIFA has to be the most corrupt, the least transparent, and the most egotistical organization out there.  I’m not necessarily saying that Russia or Qatar are necessarily bad choices.  Russia represents the first time an eastern European country hosts the WC, and the trend in both Fifa and Uefa has been to try to get more interest in European soccer out of the 3 power leagues and further east.  Qatar would be a decent choice to bring soccer to the middle east, since money leagues in Saudi Arabia and in Qatar itself are starting to be come somewhat legitimate alternatives for players as they wind down their careers.

But clearly, there were two better choices.  England is without question the epicentre of world soccer right now.  Real Madrid and Barcelona may be (arguably) the 2 biggest and best teams in the world but the payroll, the player diversity and the coverage of the EPL is without peer.  In terms of European Rotation, England clearly is the next in line.  Every major western european country has now hosted the cup and it should have gone to England.

Meanwhile, the USA bid made so much sense for Fifa that it is mind boggling that it was turned down.  The two “downsides” of the USA bid were these: 1. distance between cities and 2. heat of american summers.  Uh.  Lesse; to get from Moscow to the other side of Russia is an 10 hour flight.   And its 130 degrees in Qatar in the summer.  Yeah they can air condition the stadiums but you can’t friggin air condition an entire country.  The USA hosted cup in 1994 remains to this day the most attended and most profitable cup ever hosted, and since we’ve simply upgraded most  major hosting facilities (from RFK to fedex, from Cowboys stadium to the “new” cowboys stadium, etc) to promise even more revenue and more attendance.

The voting results show some very questionable voting patterns.   How is it possible that England received only 2 of 22 initial votes for 2018??  Is it because English politicians and reporters have spent the past 2 years showing just how corrupt FIFA officials can be (exposing voting promises and bribery attempts at the highest levels). Likewise, the USA was clearly the country that made the most sense for 2022, yet received FEWER first round votes than the Korean Republic, who JUST hosted the cup and (frankly) shouldn’t be considered for another 40 years.

The only bright side to this is that the USA is probably a mortal lock to host in 2026. Why? They seem to be in a “2 off, 1 on” pattern of moving the cup in and out of Europe.  And they want to move it around to different federations.  Russia, Qatar means 2026 goes to another non-european federation and it almost clearly will be Concacaf.  By 2026 Europe, South America Africa and Asia will have had cups since North America last hosted, and there probably won’t BE a selection process (similar to the way Brazil was basically given 2014) for 2026.

Still.  Hard to stomach such clear sleaziness in the voting.  Two votes for oil-rich countries given all the known vote buying and corruption says to me there was more chicanery than the public knows about.  The losers here are the die hard fans of the losing countries.