This really is game on now, there is a huge groundswell building up against Qatar - for both football and non-footballing reasons - and the pressure is mounting on FIFA.
I would assume that - if they have not already - that the Qataris are shelling out millions on corporate PRs like Burston Marsteller and Hill and Knowlton to try and slow down the tide against them.
Expect to see interviews planted with some ghastly Qatari dignitaries where they promise to make everything all right.
It's their world cup so what can we do? We're just fans so best to just sit back and see what happens
Blatter etc are successful businessmen who have increased income from TV and sponsorship greatly so they know what they are doing.
Too many bitter people with agendas keep attacking Blatter and FIFA. I'm 100% behind Sepp.
Oh, and Sepp asked if the fans wouldn't mind going and tarting up the stadiums before it starts. It's on a volunteer basis but fans will be rewarded on a 'time vs reward' basis. Similar to a salary only much less expensive. He mumbled something about valuing the World Cup.
It's their world cup so what can we do? We're just fans so best to just sit back and see what happens
Blatter etc are successful businessmen who have increased income from TV and sponsorship greatly so they know what they are doing.
Too many bitter people with agendas keep attacking Blatter and FIFA. I'm 100% behind Sepp.
Although an ironic post, there is truth in what you are saying HI. They have lined their pockets so that does make them highly successful businessmen. They care nothing for the Fan that goes to all the games at a Rochdale/Osasuna/Kaiserslautern. They care about the millions of people that dont watch football normally save for the WC. It is this demographic that the Coca Cola and McDonalds get excited about, far more likely to buy products that are partners with Fifa.
But, it doesnt make it right or even fruitful in the long term. If you continue to alienate the real football fans then you lose everthing. Will anything force.a change to the status quo? As it stands, I say the period 2018-2022 might just do that. Russia will be a shock and Qatar is just a disaster - no alcohol at football tournament. ...since the game started with fans following teams in the 19th Century, a couple of beers pre and post-match are popular with many.
so unless Qatar turns into a secular society for 4 weeks, its going to be a crap WC before heat is factored in. I dont think sport should mix with Religion and no orthodox country should be allowed to host - ever.
Qatararis bought that WC with their petrodollars to increase their Popularity and acceptance in the secular Western World..IMO this has already backfired and will get worse.
The federations are killing international football with their collective and individual greed. The next European Championship is a shambles. The qualifying competition has been diluted so much, that it isn't worth watching. Before long we will have more teams qualifying for the finals than those eliminated.
The information supplied to the Sunday Times from official FIFA sources, could start the collapse of FIFA. I very much doubt the yanks letting this go.
Local protests or riots during the Brazil world cup will increase the pressure. Apparently, the venue for the first match is still unfinished, has temporary seating and has yet to acquire a safety certificate, let alone hold a test event. The roof at one end will be incomplete, but never mind, they have the plastic ponchos ready if it rains.
If we did get to Qatar in 2022, I very much doubt that the clubs would allow their valuable assets to be exposed to such harsh conditions. It would quickly become a meaningless competition with none of the top players taking part.
You are right re the construction. Lead company is a mob called Odebrecht, terrible safety record and proper construction mafia IMO.
They should be uninsurable in international markets but London reinsurance hub will do anything to keep a client that might make them money in ten years time.
Greg Dyke will experience his first Fifa congress in Sao Paulo on 10 June, choreographed by president Sepp Blatter in the Pyongyang style.
When not picking up their hefty per diems in cash, delegates from 209 national associations will be urged to rubberstamp Blatter’s claim that his corruption-soaked organisation “is now setting the highest standards for governance in world sport”. The corruption disclosures that wrecked Fifa’s credibility exploded in 2010 when Sunday Times Insight and BBC Panorama revealed that the 23-man Fifa executive was home to a bunch of venal bribe-seekers, seemingly confirmed when they awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Blatter hurriedly hired former New York US attorney Michael Garcia to investigate. Garcia will perhaps, some time, deliver a report into whether the crooks at Fifa trousered massive bribes to award the tournament to the Gulf billionaires. But why did Blatter choose Garcia as his well-rewarded “independent” investigator?
Asked about Garcia’s record as a Wall Street crime-buster and his closeness to the Bush White House, Columbia University law professor Scott Horton commented: “The one thing that could be predicted with utter confidence on the basis of Garcia’s professional career is that he would zealously protect whoever appointed him and paid his bills. He might actually go after corrupt figures, but only to the extent it served the agenda of the person who appointed him.”
And so it has turned out. One of Garcia’s tasks has been to investigate allegations that Blatter handled a CHF1m bribe (£400,000 at the time) from a marketing company intended for the dodgy former Fifa president Joao Havelange. Blatter had to admit handling the money but said he had no idea it was a bribe. That’s what we are told Blatter said, because neither transcript nor electronic recording of Garcia’s no doubt rigorous interrogation of his paymaster will be made available.
Before hiring Garcia the serpentine Blatter rewrote Fifa’s laughable “ethics code” to ensure that evidence collected in Fifa investigations cannot be revealed. Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un. Even the date and place of this performance are suppressed.
These are all questions that Greg Dyke could ask in Sao Paulo. Nobody in world football wants to go to sweltering, booze-free Qatar, stepping over the corpses of Nepalese slave labourers. It’s a tough one for slippery Sepp, because if Qatar is cancelled attention will turn to how the oligarchs acquired the 2018 World Cup for Russia. The Fifa lowlifes who “looked after” Qatar likely did the same for Russia. Post-Crimea, an open revote could give it to England, a strong contender in the 2010 vote.
Great post. Love if!! Septic bladder is the polite version I'm sure!! I've got "Foul" on my bookshelves. Seem to remember it wasn't an easy read, but I'll take another look.
PS Good piece by Patrick Barclay in tonight's Standard. Unfortunately, I think he's expecting the despicable Splatter to survive.
Journalists then rely on the rest of us to kick up a fuss about what has been revealed.
I know what you mean, but following a bid process with a limited number of voters, one of the biggest sporting events in the world has been awarded to a tiny, super-rich state with dubious morality in international politics, zero history in the sport and where the climate is completely unsuitable for sport at the time of the event. Hardly a surprise that it might not have been above board.
Journalists then rely on the rest of us to kick up a fuss about what has been revealed.
I know what you mean, but following a bid process with a limited number of voters, one of the biggest sporting events in the world has been awarded to a tiny, super-rich state with dubious morality in international politics, zero history in the sport and where the climate is completely unsuitable for sport at the time of the event. Hardly a surprise that it might not have been above board.
Perhaps I didn't express myself well. I really do mean that the ST, and indeed Panorama, did a great job. But I fear football fans are generally too apathetic to take up the cudgels and kick on from here.
Just a bit of fun from tonight's Evening Standard.
Revealed: The magnificent seven waiting for Sepp Blatter's nod to host the 2022 World Cup
The football world has been shocked this week by a leak of millions of documents purporting to show corruption in the bidding process that led to Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup.
Now, Standard Sport has seen* an even more astonishing document: Fifa’s dossier on potential replacement host countries should Qatar's bid be cancelled. Read on, for all the shocking details…
*okay, okay: imagined.
ANTARCTICA
Currently lacking a footballing federation, a national stadium, a fixed population, a government, roads, airports and reliable wireless broadband. But why fixate on details? In a sense, Antarctica is where the Fifa Footballing Family converges, with territorial claims to the arid, freezing, windswept ice-desert made by the UK, Argentina, Chile, Australia, France and thousands of Adelie penguins who could presumably be employed on the cheap and worked to death throwing up stadia, hotels, etc. Also, unlike Qatar, Antarctica is not cripplingly hot during June and July: indeed, a mean daily temperature of about –25°C, with tearing winds of about 50 knots suggests a fitting climate for what is, after all, a winter game.
SUDAN
Murder, beatings, human trafficking, ethnic cleansing, intolerance for gay and transgender folks, religious intolerance, torture, abuse of prisoners… wait, sorry, our secret dossiers must have got muddled up. We’re reading this one from the Russia 2018 bid.
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, SINGAPORE AND BERMUDA
A joint bid between three of the world’s most favourable tax destinations has obvious appeal for football’s Zurich-based governing body, who insist on exemptions from such dull things as paying local tax on the gigantic boxes of cash they hoover up from holding World Cups across the globe. The logistical problems of organising a single tournament across three tiny island territories separated by 12 time zones will be amply rewarded by the pleasing environment of secrecy and silence that pervades all three, and the excellent provision for landing private jets from which Fifa VIPs and their fat-fingered guests can roll out, directly into their blacked-out BMWs.
SAUDI ARABIA
Hot… illiberal… Middle-Eastern… vastly wealthy… socially conservative… somewhat secretive… in need of an image overhaul… could do with spreading some of those petrodollars about the world… Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, chaps.
AZERBAIJAN
Rapidly establishing itself as the Dubai of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is making much like every other newly mega-rich dictatorial Islamic oil state, by building gigantic artificial island cities, buying up vastly expensive real estate in London and sponsoring Spanish football teams. While Qatar have bought Barcelona, Azerbaijan sponsor La Liga champions and Champions League runners-up Atletico Madrid. And what’s the next step after you do that? Fairly and squarely winning the vote to host a World Cup, according to our notes here. Baku or bust, then.
BRAZIL
Because those guys really love holding global sporting events, right? A Confederations Cup, World Cup and Olympic Games within the space of four years has been exactly what the doctor — Dr Sepp Blatter, mainly — ordered for the ordinary Brazilian, whose need for basic medical care and housing, a functioning infrastructure and an uncorrupted political system is easily outweighed by his need for four weeks of wealthy foreigners hitting Ipanema Beach and taking selfies while blowing vuvuzelae and drinking Coca Cola. Let’s give ’em another World Cup, lads, maybe they’ll have finished a few of the stadia by then.
ENGLAND
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Thought that unfunny article was a waste of print space! Wanted my money back but realised the paper was free!
I think FIFA realise that this World Cup is going to be nothing but problems so will jettison it and throw a couple of officials to the lions. Blatter is Teflon coated so he knows he can survive this.
Interesting article below giving a westerners (Scots) view from within the construction industry in Qatar amidst the ongoing allegations. 90minutecynic.com/qatar-2022-view-qatar/
Just a bit of fun from tonight's Evening Standard.
Revealed: The magnificent seven waiting for Sepp Blatter's nod to host the 2022 World Cup
The football world has been shocked this week by a leak of millions of documents purporting to show corruption in the bidding process that led to Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup.
Now, Standard Sport has seen* an even more astonishing document: Fifa’s dossier on potential replacement host countries should Qatar's bid be cancelled. Read on, for all the shocking details…
*okay, okay: imagined.
ANTARCTICA
Currently lacking a footballing federation, a national stadium, a fixed population, a government, roads, airports and reliable wireless broadband. But why fixate on details? In a sense, Antarctica is where the Fifa Footballing Family converges, with territorial claims to the arid, freezing, windswept ice-desert made by the UK, Argentina, Chile, Australia, France and thousands of Adelie penguins who could presumably be employed on the cheap and worked to death throwing up stadia, hotels, etc. Also, unlike Qatar, Antarctica is not cripplingly hot during June and July: indeed, a mean daily temperature of about –25°C, with tearing winds of about 50 knots suggests a fitting climate for what is, after all, a winter game.
SUDAN
Murder, beatings, human trafficking, ethnic cleansing, intolerance for gay and transgender folks, religious intolerance, torture, abuse of prisoners… wait, sorry, our secret dossiers must have got muddled up. We’re reading this one from the Russia 2018 bid.
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, SINGAPORE AND BERMUDA
A joint bid between three of the world’s most favourable tax destinations has obvious appeal for football’s Zurich-based governing body, who insist on exemptions from such dull things as paying local tax on the gigantic boxes of cash they hoover up from holding World Cups across the globe. The logistical problems of organising a single tournament across three tiny island territories separated by 12 time zones will be amply rewarded by the pleasing environment of secrecy and silence that pervades all three, and the excellent provision for landing private jets from which Fifa VIPs and their fat-fingered guests can roll out, directly into their blacked-out BMWs.
SAUDI ARABIA
Hot… illiberal… Middle-Eastern… vastly wealthy… socially conservative… somewhat secretive… in need of an image overhaul… could do with spreading some of those petrodollars about the world… Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, chaps.
AZERBAIJAN
Rapidly establishing itself as the Dubai of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is making much like every other newly mega-rich dictatorial Islamic oil state, by building gigantic artificial island cities, buying up vastly expensive real estate in London and sponsoring Spanish football teams. While Qatar have bought Barcelona, Azerbaijan sponsor La Liga champions and Champions League runners-up Atletico Madrid. And what’s the next step after you do that? Fairly and squarely winning the vote to host a World Cup, according to our notes here. Baku or bust, then.
BRAZIL
Because those guys really love holding global sporting events, right? A Confederations Cup, World Cup and Olympic Games within the space of four years has been exactly what the doctor — Dr Sepp Blatter, mainly — ordered for the ordinary Brazilian, whose need for basic medical care and housing, a functioning infrastructure and an uncorrupted political system is easily outweighed by his need for four weeks of wealthy foreigners hitting Ipanema Beach and taking selfies while blowing vuvuzelae and drinking Coca Cola. Let’s give ’em another World Cup, lads, maybe they’ll have finished a few of the stadia by then.
ENGLAND
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Interesting article below giving a westerners (Scots) view from within the construction industry in Qatar amidst the ongoing allegations. 90minutecynic.com/qatar-2022-view-qatar/
Gave up reading at the Jock's first mention of England. Shame because his points about people dying (if true) were food for thought. Shame some of them cannot let anything pass by without using it as an excuse to bleat on about England.
Comments
I would assume that - if they have not already - that the Qataris are shelling out millions on corporate PRs like Burston Marsteller and Hill and Knowlton to try and slow down the tide against them.
Expect to see interviews planted with some ghastly Qatari dignitaries where they promise to make everything all right.
FIFA have fucked this up big time.
Blatter etc are successful businessmen who have increased income from TV and sponsorship greatly so they know what they are doing.
Too many bitter people with agendas keep attacking Blatter and FIFA. I'm 100% behind Sepp.
Cheeky chappy
Russia?
Oh crap!
But, it doesnt make it right or even fruitful in the long term. If you continue to alienate the real football fans then you lose everthing. Will anything force.a change to the status quo? As it stands, I say the period 2018-2022 might just do that. Russia will be a shock and Qatar is just a disaster - no alcohol at football tournament. ...since the game started with fans following teams in the 19th Century, a couple of beers pre and post-match are popular with many.
so unless Qatar turns into a secular society for 4 weeks, its going to be a crap WC before heat is factored in. I dont think sport should mix with Religion and no orthodox country should be allowed to host - ever.
Qatararis bought that WC with their petrodollars to increase their Popularity and acceptance in the secular Western World..IMO this has already backfired and will get worse.
They should be uninsurable in international markets but London reinsurance hub will do anything to keep a client that might make them money in ten years time.
When not picking up their hefty per diems in cash, delegates from 209 national associations will be urged to rubberstamp Blatter’s claim that his corruption-soaked organisation “is now setting the highest standards for governance in world sport”. The corruption disclosures that wrecked Fifa’s credibility exploded in 2010 when Sunday Times Insight and BBC Panorama revealed that the 23-man Fifa executive was home to a bunch of venal bribe-seekers, seemingly confirmed when they awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Blatter hurriedly hired former New York US attorney Michael Garcia to investigate. Garcia will perhaps, some time, deliver a report into whether the crooks at Fifa trousered massive bribes to award the tournament to the Gulf billionaires. But why did Blatter choose Garcia as his well-rewarded “independent” investigator?
Asked about Garcia’s record as a Wall Street crime-buster and his closeness to the Bush White House, Columbia University law professor Scott Horton commented: “The one thing that could be predicted with utter confidence on the basis of Garcia’s professional career is that he would zealously protect whoever appointed him and paid his bills. He might actually go after corrupt figures, but only to the extent it served the agenda of the person who appointed him.”
And so it has turned out. One of Garcia’s tasks has been to investigate allegations that Blatter handled a CHF1m bribe (£400,000 at the time) from a marketing company intended for the dodgy former Fifa president Joao Havelange. Blatter had to admit handling the money but said he had no idea it was a bribe. That’s what we are told Blatter said, because neither transcript nor electronic recording of Garcia’s no doubt rigorous interrogation of his paymaster will be made available.
Before hiring Garcia the serpentine Blatter rewrote Fifa’s laughable “ethics code” to ensure that evidence collected in Fifa investigations cannot be revealed. Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un. Even the date and place of this performance are suppressed.
These are all questions that Greg Dyke could ask in Sao Paulo. Nobody in world football wants to go to sweltering, booze-free Qatar, stepping over the corpses of Nepalese slave labourers. It’s a tough one for slippery Sepp, because if Qatar is cancelled attention will turn to how the oligarchs acquired the 2018 World Cup for Russia. The Fifa lowlifes who “looked after” Qatar likely did the same for Russia. Post-Crimea, an open revote could give it to England, a strong contender in the 2010 vote.
Go Greg, go!
He does have tje perfect CV for a Fifa delegate and sure Sepp will spot his vanity
Great post. Love if!! Septic bladder is the polite version I'm sure!! I've got "Foul" on my bookshelves. Seem to remember it wasn't an easy read, but I'll take another look.
PS Good piece by Patrick Barclay in tonight's Standard. Unfortunately, I think he's expecting the despicable Splatter to survive.
Revealed: The magnificent seven waiting for Sepp Blatter's nod to host the 2022 World Cup
The football world has been shocked this week by a leak of millions of documents purporting to show corruption in the bidding process that led to Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup.
Now, Standard Sport has seen* an even more astonishing document: Fifa’s dossier on potential replacement host countries should Qatar's bid be cancelled. Read on, for all the shocking details…
*okay, okay: imagined.
ANTARCTICA
Currently lacking a footballing federation, a national stadium, a fixed population, a government, roads, airports and reliable wireless broadband. But why fixate on details? In a sense, Antarctica is where the Fifa Footballing Family converges, with territorial claims to the arid, freezing, windswept ice-desert made by the UK, Argentina, Chile, Australia, France and thousands of Adelie penguins who could presumably be employed on the cheap and worked to death throwing up stadia, hotels, etc. Also, unlike Qatar, Antarctica is not cripplingly hot during June and July: indeed, a mean daily temperature of about –25°C, with tearing winds of about 50 knots suggests a fitting climate for what is, after all, a winter game.
SUDAN
Murder, beatings, human trafficking, ethnic cleansing, intolerance for gay and transgender folks, religious intolerance, torture, abuse of prisoners… wait, sorry, our secret dossiers must have got muddled up. We’re reading this one from the Russia 2018 bid.
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, SINGAPORE AND BERMUDA
A joint bid between three of the world’s most favourable tax destinations has obvious appeal for football’s Zurich-based governing body, who insist on exemptions from such dull things as paying local tax on the gigantic boxes of cash they hoover up from holding World Cups across the globe. The logistical problems of organising a single tournament across three tiny island territories separated by 12 time zones will be amply rewarded by the pleasing environment of secrecy and silence that pervades all three, and the excellent provision for landing private jets from which Fifa VIPs and their fat-fingered guests can roll out, directly into their blacked-out BMWs.
SAUDI ARABIA
Hot… illiberal… Middle-Eastern… vastly wealthy… socially conservative… somewhat secretive… in need of an image overhaul… could do with spreading some of those petrodollars about the world… Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, chaps.
AZERBAIJAN
Rapidly establishing itself as the Dubai of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is making much like every other newly mega-rich dictatorial Islamic oil state, by building gigantic artificial island cities, buying up vastly expensive real estate in London and sponsoring Spanish football teams. While Qatar have bought Barcelona, Azerbaijan sponsor La Liga champions and Champions League runners-up Atletico Madrid. And what’s the next step after you do that? Fairly and squarely winning the vote to host a World Cup, according to our notes here. Baku or bust, then.
BRAZIL
Because those guys really love holding global sporting events, right? A Confederations Cup, World Cup and Olympic Games within the space of four years has been exactly what the doctor — Dr Sepp Blatter, mainly — ordered for the ordinary Brazilian, whose need for basic medical care and housing, a functioning infrastructure and an uncorrupted political system is easily outweighed by his need for four weeks of wealthy foreigners hitting Ipanema Beach and taking selfies while blowing vuvuzelae and drinking Coca Cola. Let’s give ’em another World Cup, lads, maybe they’ll have finished a few of the stadia by then.
ENGLAND
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
No.
I think FIFA realise that this World Cup is going to be nothing but problems so will jettison it and throw a couple of officials to the lions. Blatter is Teflon coated so he knows he can survive this.
90minutecynic.com/qatar-2022-view-qatar/
You do make me chuckle - have a LOL on me.