There is a sense of confusion and anger across the nation as Australia’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup was snuffed by the people at FIFA.
Why Qatar? Many people are asking – their bid was technically the worst of the 2022 group and was only saved by Australia’s revenue streams from being the worst overall. Despite this, they got over the line and will now host the biggest single sporting event in the world.
Many people are starting allegations of dishonesty and bribery, which based on the facts and the outcome seem worth throwing up. However, I feel it goes beyond that and is a bit deeper.
FIFA head Sepp Blatter rightly or wrongly thinks that football will bring peace to the world. With FIFA having more members than the United Nations, they feel they have the clout to bring to end disputes.
The 2002 Korea-Japan bid was united in the aim of ending distrust between the two peoples that had been evident because of the Japanese occupation of Korea in previous times.
FIFA has also been helping get a Palestinian side together and playing. With this thinking, a Middle Eastern World Cup would help ease wounds in the area and unite divided tribes. I hope it is this feeling otherwise they make the IOC 15 years ago seem clean.
Back to Australia, we are disappointed and sad that all our hard work has come to nothing.
However, we should be proud of the football-mad Frank Lowly and his team for trying their absolute hardest.
When Jeff Kennett idiotically went to FIFA as Premier to try for the World Cup in 1998, people thought it would never happen. The NSL was stuffed, the governing body was corrupt and nothing was right.
The game has come so far that it even had the guts to put a proper bid in for the tournament and we can take solace in kicking the Qatar team out of the Asian Cup. There were problems with the bid, but overall everything possible was done to get the cup here. The team will be devastated, but as Greg Norman said after his collapse at the 1996 US Masters, “The Sun will come up.”
And finally, even though we got only one vote, we still did better than England. How that perfect bid never got the 2018 Cup is beyond me.
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