Qatar.....smaller and with a third the population of.....CONNECTICUT. At least it's in a region of the world where homosexuality is a punishable crime and has the climate of Mars. Good call Fifa.
Sterling Archer: [Hungover] Forget the glass, Woodhouse. Just give me the pitcher! For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death... which I hope is soon. Amen.
Russia makes sense - it's sort of like FIFA giving the 1994 World Cup to the US. It's a chance to grow the game in a huge but relatively untapped market. I would have preferred England, but Russia will do a good job with this.
Qatar on the other hand is mind boggling. It seemed like all along their bid team was saying anything people wanted to hear, regardless of whether it was actually feasible. I could see a joint Gulf States team hosting a good World Cup, but Qatar alone, a country that basically only has 1 city? This is going to be like a ski hill in Dubai - an interesting technical achievement, but totally artificial and lacking in character.
I would have loved for the US to host it, and we would have done a good job with it, but the real crime is that Australia didn't get it. Soccer's on a huge upswing in Australia, and the Aussies are probably the most sports-crazy population on earth. Getting the World Cup would have really pushed it over the top and made soccer a top-line sport there. The Aussies also do an absolutely awesome job at hosting sporting events - remember the 2000 Olympics?
There have been a lot of suggestions lately of shady dealings at FIFA, with rumors of bribes, collusion, and other stuff. This result won't do anything to quiet those rumors. Of all the countries that were bidding for 2018 and 2022 (US, UK, Australia, Russia, Spain/Portugal, Holland/Belgium, South Korea, Japan, Qatar) which would you have pegged as the 2 most willing/able to pull off a shady deal to get the World Cup?
"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high." -Ayrton Senna
Qatar.....smaller and with a third the population of.....CONNECTICUT. At least it's in a region of the world where homosexuality is a punishable crime and has the climate of Mars. Good call Fifa.
And where alcohol is basically illegal and Americans (the 2nd largest delegation at the last few World Cups) are huge targets.
"You're not a Hoya because you win. You're a Hoya because when times are bad, you're still a Hoya. We are Georgetown." - John Thompson II
On the plus side, maybe we will see a graduate of SFS-Q playing for the Qatari national team by then - they are the number 113 squad in the world, there can't be much competition for caps.
I have somehow contrived to only now remember that this means FIFA just handed the Qatari national team, who is about at same level as a Barbados or a Faroe Islands....an automatic bid to the World Cup Finals. They will score none and let in 15 to 20. How did Fifa years ago not at least insist on a full blown UAE/Persian Gulf bid rather than one from a "country" the size of Boston?
Sterling Archer: [Hungover] Forget the glass, Woodhouse. Just give me the pitcher! For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death... which I hope is soon. Amen.
I thought Australia's biggest weakness is it's a fairly small country population-wise given that soccer isn't top dog over there either. At least Qatar is a tiny fraction the size of Australia and has even less soccer culture. I wanted the US to get it, and more to the point, it seemed like the no-brainer pick all things considered...but I could have dealt with losing it to Australia. Not Japan or Korea who hosted 8 years ago...and no way I can accept losing it to a glorified oil cartel the size of Rhode Island.
Sterling Archer: [Hungover] Forget the glass, Woodhouse. Just give me the pitcher! For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death... which I hope is soon. Amen.
For what its worth...Australia was the first country elminated with only a single vote, then Japan was eliminated, then S Korea...and the USA came in second overall with 8 votes to Qatar's 14 in the 4th round.
Sterling Archer: [Hungover] Forget the glass, Woodhouse. Just give me the pitcher! For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death... which I hope is soon. Amen.
I thought Australia's biggest weakness is it's a fairly small country population-wise given that soccer isn't top dog over there either. At least Qatar is a tiny fraction the size of Australia and has even less soccer culture. I wanted the US to get it, and more to the point, it seemed like the no-brainer pick all things considered...but I could have dealt with losing it to Australia. Not Japan or Korea who hosted 8 years ago...and no way I can accept losing it to a glorified oil cartel the size of Rhode Island.
Australia would have been AWESOME - the Sydney Olympics were great. Its biggest weakness is that it's far away from European time zones, so matches would be held at odd hours.
FIFA's giving the World Cup to a place where homosexuality is banned, where converting from Islam gets the death penalty, and where alcohol is severely restricted, and not to Australia, where every stereotype you have about them is true, is a travesty.
If any future Phd's want to do the definitive dissertation on how kickbacks work, these two games should be plenty enough data sources.
But don't worry, the Russian and Qatari governments have impeccable records when it comes to protecting journalists and investigators so research away!
"You are a disgrace to this school" - Alumn to me after airballing a free throw
"Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is . . . God is clearly a Georgetown fan. "
Sterling Archer: [Hungover] Forget the glass, Woodhouse. Just give me the pitcher! For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death... which I hope is soon. Amen.