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I am writing this to stir up support from the football passionate and those who just wanted Australia to host the biggest sporting event in the world.
It would have seen huge investment into all infrastructure, including large scale AFL and NRL stadia improvements, three new host stadiums and the giant of tourism that couldn’t be obtained through any advertising campaign or a million Oprah visits.
This was our time, with the US, Japan and Korea having already hosted the event, it left only Qatar, a nation sitting 113th in the men’s national team ranking and getting up to 50 degrees in summer (but more on that later) against Australia. Our bid was the only logical bid that could have won the 2022 World Cup, but of course, this was not a logical bidding process.
It is unacceptable that for the first time the bids for two consecutive World Cups are made, the process gets turned upside down with cross-bid deals and a biased Asian Football Confederation President putting his own country ahead of Asia.
It was the AFC President’s job to ensure the best country within the AFC, with the biggest total benefit for the whole of Asia, got the World Cup. But instead we seemingly had the AFC President only representing his country of birth, not what was the best interest of Asia.
Why should we accept that this was a valid bidding process? Isn’t it reasonable that the vote specifically for 2022 should be reviewed and then re-taken after the 2014 World Cup, at the end of the year in 2014?
If it was a mistake to have two separate World Cup announcements at the same time, and what I believe was a one-off, why should we accept that it happened to be the our country that suffered from it, mostly because our bid was the front runner and the only reasonable bid to succeed?
We have invested too much into this process, it was the only chance for Australia to host the event and every single point was leading to Australia being successful. I cannot think of one reason, not one reason, why Qatar should host the event ahead of us, particularly in this time-frame.
How can a country who was rejected from hosting the one-city Olympics, being described as too small, then turn around and get the 12 city FIFA World Cup? I think the UAE or another Middle East country could have possibly hosted a World Cup in the next 20 or 30 years, but not Qatar, and not in 2022.
It is the most ridiculous announcement of FIFA’s history and if they respect the bidding process and what attention should have been given to the bids from 2022, they will review the decision and bid, and do it again in 2014.
If Qatar can win the bid with an explanation from every member who voted for them, as to why they should get the event instead of Australia or even the US, then I will accept that the process has dictated the best nation’s bid deserved to host the world’s pre-eminent sporting competition.
Until some evidence can be given, until some sort of an explanation as to why this has happened, I will not accept the result for the 2022 World Cup and neither should the rest of Australia, the US, Japan and Korea, or even England.
The most poorly rated bid by FIFA has won the 2022 World Cup. How can this be justified?
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