"Follow the money."---Deep Throat in All the President's Men
Once again the organization controlling footy has put its foot in its mouth.
I waited to weigh in on this subject to let the dust settle a bit. So much information was blasted on the day of the WC 2018 and 2022 announcements that it was hard to get a handle on what really went down...
What really went down?
Two fantastic bids were denied a fair chance to host the Cup.
I watched the England 30-minute bid proposal and was blown away by it. Tying in the fantastic venues (already built), and the efficient infrastructure, the passion of footy's Motherland, and the impact it's had on youth who would otherwise be errant....was brilliant.
So why didn't England get the bid for 2018?
Many will blame the program Panorama for its ill-timed investigation into FIFA corruption, and as much as I feel it was aired at an inconvenient time, it was bang on!
But I feel the BBC (who aired the program) are being made out as scapegoats by the ones who are really responsible for the transgression.
The mugs at FIFA, led by an incompetent blowhard named Septic Bladder, have long been held in the public scorn for their ridiculous notions and inability to really govern the sport.
Backroom dealings, suspicious agendas, and outright pandering have all been discussed ad nauseam in fora around the world.
So if you are involved in trying to thwart England's bid attempt, then it would make sense to say publically (through "source" links) that the program made the voters angry. It would deflect the real goings-on at FIFA headquarters.
England had the most technically-sound bid, yet it wound up with only two votes in the first round and was eliminated from the process.
FA chiefs and bid committee members have now said that promises were made to them by certain voters; that their votes would be there for England...and they weren't.
The only votes England received were from Geoff Thompson (former FA chief) and a member of the Asian block.
TWO VOTES. Unbelievable.
It has been suggested by many that the vote had already taken place months or weeks before and that England's bid push in Zurich, which involved Prince William (honorary head of the FA), Prime Minister David Cameron, and LA Galaxy star David Beckham, was useless because England had already in effect been voted out.
Vladimir Putin's public admonishment of the British press just days before, and his decision NOT to attend the bid announcement left many suspect about the nature of the vote. Why would Putin not want to be there to help...unless the vote really had taken place and he wasn't needed.
Sitting in the audience for Russia were several oligarchs in the former Soviet state, among them Roman Abramovich (the owner of Chelsea FC). Chelski has been under a black cloud lately in what most see as a from-the-top illness permeating the club. Has Roman lost interest in his club and put his sights into a more lucrative venue? It would seem so.
The fact that Russia is a "mafia state" should have put the bid at the bottom of the pile to begin with. Manchester United and Chelsea fans remember all to well the bloated hotel prices (more than a 1,000 US dollars each) that they encountered during the Champions League final in Moscow. So how much are tickets and hotel rooms going to run for the World Cup?
Wigan boss, Dave Whelan, suggested that it's high time the FA did something about FIFA's greed. The organization made a profit of 3 billion GBP on the South Africa WC (quite honestly, one of the worst Cups ever), yet the clubs receive nothing for the "loan" of their players. Many of the players return injured and the clubs receive a pittance from their national associations to cover the losses, but you can't cover the loss of a player from the lineup. He suggested that the clubs charge FIFA for the use of their players (whom the clubs own the rights to).
I agree with him. I am on record here many times for the disdain shown clubs during international breaks. The clubs are the ones who pay the players their high wages, and expect them to live up to that wage by playing. But when they go away for useless friendlies and then return injured, it can mean the season for a club.
QATAR
If the denial of the England bid was suspect, then the awarding of the 2022 to Qatar is the most suspect thing in the history of FIFA.
How a tiny nation, with horrible weather (130 in the summer), with no stadia, no fans, and no players, could be given the world's biggest sporting event is just a sham.
Qatari bid officials promised to air-condition the stadia for the matches. Really? Using what technology? The technology hasn't been invented yet, and if they are talking about misters, I would say that is the worst idea. I used to attend baseball matches in the heat of the Arizona sun, and they would use the misters to keep everyone cool...but it made everything you had wet.
How are they going to keep the rest of the country cool? Are they going to follow people around on the street with personal AC?
I read a comment from a person in Dubai, and he said he won't walk 100 yards to the grocery store during the heat of the summer, so these organizers think that people will traipse around the country during the WC in similar conditions?
And the stadia...none have been built. The organizers promised FIFA that they would tear down the stadia afer the WC and donate them to poor countries. How are they going to do that? That would take 10 years to do. How is that helping anyone?
And the stadia will be so close together in Qatar that logistics for travel will be pathetic.
Hotels? Where are they going to house 32 teams, officials (and if they're like the FIFA hooligans it can't be anything less than a five-star plus resort with a penthouse view), FAs, fans, media....Qatar is a country with less population than Houston...and then they're going to add 3 million people to the mix?
And what about the religious ramifications. No alcohol, scantily-clad women (Samba girls!), or touching of the opposite sex. And if you're homosexual...then you'd better stay away as well, because it's illegal.
I can think of nobody who would even entertain the thought of going to a country that has such poor human-rights standards, unfair treatment of women, and has turned a blind-eye to terrorism in the neighboring states.
Until companies like Nike, Adidas, Budweiser, etc. stop supporting FIFA, nothing will be done.
The United States boasted the highest ticket sales (by a large margin) for South Africa. This from a country that supposedly doesn't care about footy.
Sir Alex Ferguson had it right when he said, "the Champions League is a far better competition than the World Cup." It's far better for several reasons, the least of which is that it's fair.
Follow the money.
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