Sepp Blatter’s recent assertion during the recent AFC that Australia would one day host a good World Cup was at best a back handed compliment. One that fired up more than a handful of Australian football fans still wondering what happened in December 2010.
You could argue that the $45 million last seen funnelling down a tunnel could have been better used had we known the extent of the murky deadlines afoot. A degree of naivety was at play, sure, but the brazen manner in which FIFA conducted the bidding process makes the rugby league scrum look almost transparent.
That’s past. Is it? The decision, seemingly a unilateral one, to host the 2022 World Cup in November/December only intensifies the ire football fans feel world wide about the initial decision to award the World Cup to Qatar in the first place.
If countries were bidding to host the tournament at the traditional mid season period of June/July, why is the host nation permitted to stage it just before the halfway mark of the European season?
Qatar promised never seen before technology, mass comfort air conditioning, fake clouds and other measures to ensure player, official and fan comfort during the summer tournament, brushing aside concerns of playing in 40-45 degree temperatures.
Who can forget the matt silver models of first class comfort stadia during the bidding process?
All now a sham, and the fears that it would be awarded to the gulf nation only to be moved to winter now realised. FIFA, Sepp Blatter and Jerome Valcke will care little as they are already sufficiently coated in the spittle of derision and scorn from a long list of illogical and embarrassing decisions. What’s one more act of deceit?
The logistical fixture nightmares alone will cause the European league officials to tear their hair out. The UEFA Champions League will be shoehorned into a shorter space of time and chaos will generally ensue.
Significant consideration will also need to be given to player welfare. Players selected in national squads won’t have the traditional 25-day training period before the tournament and players not selected will be twiddling their thumbs and generally losing match fitness.
It has become clear that a Venn diagram of the union between the IOC and FIFA executive reveals a few members with interest in both camps, including Sepp Blatter himself.
So why not a 2023 World Cup? FIFA claims this raises legal issues without explaining what these might be while we simultaneously snigger and eye roll at the thought of FIFA feeling encumbered by any law other than its own.
In response to the suggestion that FIFA may be forced to pay compensation too clubs and leagues for the decision, Valcke replied:
“It’s not perfect, we know that — but why are we talking about compensation? It’s happening once, we’re not destroying football.”
Not perfect. You don’t say.
Football is beautiful game run by an ugly governing body.
I would rather FIFA not stage the 2022 World Cup than have it run by the marriage of the Qatar Organising Committee and FIFA.
For a football tragic such as myself, that takes some saying.
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