FIFA urged to probe claims Qatar sabotaged rival World Cup bids

He was and is a Qatari, he got Qatar the WC, that was his aim, he bought it with oil money, what does he care now. He has enough money to fight anyone about anything.

MQ, you are truly the funniest, most humourous person on the football tab, I laugh at all your wide sweeping statements out loud, my wife asks me what's so funny, I say it's MQ again, doing his best Mister Football, Pippinu impersonation.

Overturned? He was never Asian Football confederation president again, so the football community found him guilty. Don't know the Essendon case, so can't comment on him or her!!!!

There is another tenuous Aussie link, Mohammed bin Hammam President of the Asian Football Confederation (ex) was banned for life for his ethics surrounding Qatars WC bid, paper trails led to him bribing officials for Qatars bid, of course he claimed he didn't do it and took the case to CAS, which overturned the decision despite plenty of evidence to the contrary ( real evidence) , on the panel that found him not guilty was one Mr. Romano F. Subiotto. Interestingly Mr. Romano F. Subiotto was also one of the judges on the CAS panel during the Essendon supplement scandal. Despite no real evidence presented Romano with another judge managed to find the Essendon players guilty. Perhaps Essendon did not have enough oil- sorry money

Hah, no! I missed that email unfortunately.

Bonita Mersiades currently talking on SEN Radio about Qatari cloak and dagger tactics. CIA operatives were hired! Sounds like an episode of Homeland and the Blacklist. Although given in the Australian context that the very best idea they appear to have come up with was to orchestrate a protest at a rugby game in Melbourne, it might have been more a case of hiring the keystone cops.

PH But as far as I know, the two examples you mention are not assets owned by the AFL, they are owned by the respective state governments and are used as multi-sport stadiums, is that not the case? Also, in both cases, the hosting of AFL games provides the greatest return to the stadium operators, although I stand to be corrected if that is not the case. With the MCG, the last figures I saw was that it was funded some 90% by private debt, so it may not be the very best example you could have pulled up. In fact, that's a good opportunity to ask you, and others, why aren't all stadium redevelopments in Australia privately funded rather than being funded by government? I promise you, I'd be 100% behind such a radical concept.

Well it is true, and you never seemed to have complained, sorry midfielder I lasted all of 20 minutes. $1.5 Billion for Perth Stadium Adelaide Oval $500 million for Ethihad In April this year Herald Sun announced MCG would be getting a $1 billion upgrade. And that took 3 minutes on google,

$3 billion of government money handed over to the AFL? That does represent a scandal of the highest order, and I would be the first to express my utter disgust at such an eventuality (if it were actually true).

good call. What baffles me, why does this poster continue what sort of damage has this person suffered

Economic doctrine, the kind taught in Australian and American universities is generally weighted towards the free market kind, which abhors most Government involvement in the economy, in particular, Government funding of public circuses. The economic reports prepared by political parties on the other hand.... Anyway, we have plenty of case studies to show that the economic benefits of such events are ALWAYS exaggerated, without exception: the Sydney Olympics, South Africa 2010, Brazil more recently. That an economics professor would write a report arguing that Government should not fund such circuses is not out of the ordinary, and let's be honest, if the Qataris only paid him $9,000 when millions of dollars were sloshing around in every direction, well, it's hardly a key item of expenditure.

MQ It was 32 million, you know that ... and given the AFL stadiums deals are over 3 billion its about 1% of the AFL hand outs... I think you have fully exposed yourself so you need to change names again... I suggest from this point on no one read or comment no matter what is posted by MQ

ummm if it was so bleeding obvious more papers would have been written on it. The Asian Cup we hosted was an economic success, why would you assume an event 10 times larger wouldn't be a success. Economic papers assessing Germany 2006 indicate that it had a net $900 million increase due to Tourism, this does not include the asset value that the stadiums and other infrastructure added to the country no the flow on effects for tourism post event. Korea/Japan found that including value adding to both Nations the result was over $1.3 billion

Just because one is paranoid doesn't mean they don't have enemies

Were you part of the protest at a rugby union game in Melbourne? If so, you've earned yourself a pay off for sure!

Those dastardly Qataris. I knew they must have been behind that video.

Too right. I made several comments at the time saying the bid was a waste of time and money and I still haven't received my cheque from the Qataris. I demand answers!

Happens when you are massive in a 2/3 cities & tiny everywhere else.

So Waz, let me see if I have understood you. Rather than be concerned that we blew $50 mill of taxpayer money paying shysters who never had a hope in hell of delivering anything (and in fact, were probably taking payments from the eventual winners as well), you appear to be more concerned that the Qataris may have paid an economist $9,000 for publicly stating bleedingly obvious economic doctrine?

Or a whole new level of paranoia, that even I thought was not possible! Don't forget, just because we're paranoid it doesn't mean that they're not after us.