The 2022 World Cup Farce - Qatar

[Mohammad]

Qatar, for those of you who may not know, is planning to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup (soccer).

The fact FIFA handed the bidding right over to Qatar speaks of their corruption, or perhaps idiocy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was idiocy, seeing as sports jocks may not really have the intellectual capacity to do something illegal and hide it under the carpet without it getting discovered. But in the words of some people, even if Qatar didn't bribe any of the voters who chose the 2022 world cup hosts, there's nothing to say the Qataris didn't pay them back in some other form. E.g. personal gifts, business contracts/ventures, real estate investments, etc. There's always a method to make the bribery appear almost as though it was legitimate. But I'll give FIFA and sports jocks the benefit of the doubt and say that their idiocy most likely made them vote for Qatar to host the 2022 world cup.

Now, I must admit, before I was enlightened and liberated from this bizarre mind-construct of sportsmania, I was ecstatic about the world cup finally coming to our region (Kuwait is only an hour away from Qatar by plane, so you could imagine how delighted/over-the-moon I was). But even I had the dignity to admit, a few days down the road, that FIFA's decision was completely rubbish.

How on Earth does a tiny Middle-Eastern state (the size of Rhode Island) get its own world cup, while countries like America and Australia were beaten out of contention? Even for the best gift in the world, surely the decision-makers would've thought: "wait a sec, the world cup should take place in the northern hemisphere summer season, right? And isn't Qatar's climate a burden on athletes' health during the summer? It could reach 50 degrees Celsius over there. No, scratch that, there's no way they're getting a world cup in the middle of a baked oven, not for all the money in the world."

Instead, the decision-makers showed us their true sense of how sports jocks usually think: "Qatar... wow, that name sounds exotic. And look at their maroon/white flag, very classical. Hey Susan [generic secretary name, my bad], google Doha for me. What do you see? It has skyscrapers, really? They're rich in natural gas and oil? Hmm... Arabian summer nights, in a rich country, with lots of bellydancers. I'm in! Vote for Qatar!"

Here's the biggest shame behind this bid. Qatar is planning to spend 40 BILLION US Dollars on building infrastructure for the world cup games, i.e. stadiums and all that useless junk. Question, what will they do with all these DOZEN 60,000-80,000 seater stadiums after the world cup is over, in a country with a population that doesn't exceed 1 million and a soccer league that hardly attracts 2000 supporters? What will all these hotels and apartments be doing? Think about it, we might end up with a ghost country post-2022. But it doesn't matter because, at the end of the day, Qataris are simply trying to fulfill the dream of the Emir's son/prince, who simply wanted to see his country host a global sporting event. 40 billion! Think of all the money that could go on other things.

I calculated this at the top of my head.
40 billion =
1. State of the art solar powered technology that would make Qatar a self sustainable / self sufficient economy by 2022. Then even when oil/gas runs out, they can have unlimited access to energy to maintain their country and cities.
2. Hi-tech / service / IT industry opened in Qatar.
3. Buy a pharmaceutical company, open a middle-eastern branch in Qatar, train locals to work in that industry, eventually establish your own pharmaceutical industry in your very own country.
4. Research cities. Research institutions, etc.
5. State of the art hospitals, schools, universities, etc.
6. Art centers, museums (although Qatar does have these things but still)...

^^^All of that adds up to 40 billion, if not less. I'm sure some of that so-called 'pledged 40 billion to build the world cup stadiums' will go to the Sheiks' pockets anyway.

[i_like_1981]

Yes, I can remember this being in the news. As a UK citizen, I can remember the trouble that was caused in my country as England used two bids to try and get either the 2018 or 2022 World Cups and ended up getting neither! As a sports hater, I was pretty glad to know that my country wouldn't end up as a mere sports society for a whole year in which I'd feel utterly useless and isolated, but I can't honestly say that the people in the FIFA board were rolling straight dice when they made this decision. Did they not realise the strain this would put on a rather small country such as Qatar? Not to mention how unbearably hot it gets in Summer? I can only ask myself how many stories we'll be hearing about problems like dehydration and heat exhaustion when this event gets underway. I agree, the people at FIFA probably just wanted to create hype in the news and bring attention to a lesser-known country when they picked Qatar to host the World Cup. Of course, if the people of the country are happy for it, they shouldn't be stopped from hosting it, but this is going to put a serious economic strain on Qatar and one can only wonder where that will lead to when it's all over. But us British don't have too much reason to be gutted about failing the World Cup bid - after all, next year is the Olympics that the people of this country have been so desperately waiting for! (I'd say "we", but there's always myself to take into account here...)

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Solaris]

Maybe they're trying to get Qatar to waste half of their GDP ( Yes, half of it ).

[Ex fan]

Because FIFA is as corrupt as a third world dictatorship, which a large part of its members are anyway. You offer to wine and dine Sepp Blatter in a five star hotel in Qatar and offer him a Mercedes S Class for winning a bid, then he'll take it. It's the same as most of English football is the same, it's the money that matters.

[StivenT1986]

Good question, Grunts. I like the sound of the latter two suggestions myself, with the shorter season having a good feel to it. Its a oncer assuming that we get it, so the other codes have just got to help out.

Id hope that if we got the World Cup that it would be on fta tellie. Doesnt the anti-syphoning law cover World Cup Finals?