Qatar Emir, Sheikh Hamid bin Khalifa
al-Thani and his wife fake the reaction they
actually had an hour earlier.
It is not the job of the sports reporter to be an angry ranting ideologue. Therefore it is with great joy that I parade my current unemployed status. FIFA is an organisation which has rewritten the book on bad jokes. This includes the addition of chapters dedicated to "The Aristocrats" (those aware of the reference and of FIFA practices will agree, the absurdity and sordidness is comparable) and "The Seven Dirty Delegates."
However this week's events have taken the cake, most likely a giant expensive beautiful looking cake which happens to be made of foam.
And is boiling hot in the middle.
I should however stop these elaborately obscure analogies. That cake is nothing like Qatar anyway. The cake is giant, not exceedingly small and insubstantial.
Australia's bid, which as a set of insincere hypocritical former-bid supporters who now outrage about the exorbitant taxpayer expense keep reminding us, cost $45 million dollars. Such a mediocre blip of a financial offering could not be expected to sway FIFA from its pre-ordained Qatari path, strength of bid for such frivolous factors as tournament strength and fan support notwithstanding.
Our final push in Zurich on Wednesday would have made every other cliche in the world cry in shame at their sheer individualistic creative nuance. That supermodel everyone has heard of but forgets is Australian because she's never here anymore, our most annoying celebrity ambassador Hugh Jackman, the stereotyped-bogan-accent- reinforcing Julia Gillard and the once career-possessing force of Paul Hogan were the centrepieces. The final video presentation involved an animated kangaroo, (just like the ones that roam our streets right?) stealing the World Cup trophy.
By virtue of FIFA's inexplicably small executive committee being made up primarily of conservative middle-aged Europeans, naturally such a cliche, (not to mention the eyelid-batting presence of Miss MacPherson) was absolutely perfect. Whoever came up with the stroke of genius to remind everyone of the shallow stereotypes that make them presume Australia is an amazing tropical dreamland should be congratulated. I would like to think it was bid chairman and all-round very very rich man Frank Lowy. The work Lowy has done in somehow making Football such a force in this country, against the will of the majority of its citizens ostensibly, is heroic. Mr Lowy deserves all the applause he gets and thoroughly did not deserve the treatment dealt our way by the voting committee.
To summarise, the oil, money and little else-rich nation of Qatar, (perhaps more accurately to be referred to as a nation-state around one single city) was awarded the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in a move so absurd and mystifying as to be completely predictable on the part of FIFA. Australia, contrary to supposed assurances from at least 5 or 6 committee members that we would have their support, in fact received just a single vote and went out in the first round. Rumours abound that deals made between the bid teams of Qatar and those of Japan and South Korea to get rid of Australia early prevented the threat we may have caused in the later rounds.
The former kings of ill-begotten money grub, The United States, came in a disappointed and confused 2nd, with 8 votes to Qatar's 14 in the final round. One wonders how many people are aware of the irony of America losing this tournament to a nation which would barely register in the grand scheme of things were it not for the oil-backed riches the region now has largely thanks to American dirty work. Probably very few considering nobody cares about Football in the US.
Get away from politics you may exclaim, this is a sports blog and such matters are unimportant. Unfortunately that is not the case in this instance. Politics, particularly the politics of the pocket, are everything. Slightly earlier in the night (according to the FIFA pretense of a secret ballot at any rate), Russia were revealed as the winners of the 2018 tournament. Although unlike Qatar this is rooted in basic human logic, it is nevertheless also a case of the deepest pockets triumphing. The fact that England, the home of Football, can also go out in the first round with only 2 votes in their bid to host a World Cup for the first time in 52 years is also telling.
The crux of the issue which created the truly fishy smell was that the Arab television network Al-Jazeera had received word of Qatar being awarded the cup well more than an hour before the event. FIFA officials and Qatari bid members were seen embracing in hotel lobbies around this point. Furthermore, elite and generally accurate international bookmaking agency William Hill, showed a sudden spike in betting for both Russia and Qatar at precisely the same time.
This post is nearing its end and granted it may be completely without substance or a point but that is because ultimately it is difficult to make head or tail of anything and we will have to watch this space, probably for 12 years, to get the full story. Far be it for me to be a sore loser, I congratulate both the Russian and Qatari teams on their strong bids, political cleverness and deep pockets. Qatar is an exciting and vibrant place in the world right now. But it is not inappropriate to ask questions because something is definitely dodgy. You know political correctness and diplomacy has gone out the window when the (nation-ruining) king of pointless diplomacy, inoffensiveness and compromise, Barack Obama, was quoted as calling FIFA's decision plain 'wrong'. This marks the first time Obama has not minced his words since about October 2008. In the spirit of general outrage I am obliged to throw my hat into the ring. A nation of 1.6 million people, ranked 113 in the world, with a questionable security status and inhumanely sweltering summer heat does not seem a rational choice to host the Football World Cup. We cannot forget the sheer scope of the World Cup. It is by a country mile the world's biggest single-sport event. How can that billing be lived up to when teams and fans, rather than traveling and experiencing a vast country, can find all the stadiums (usually around 12 for a World Cup) squashed together within an hour of each other in the one and only Qatari city, Doha.
The big selling point in Qatar's bid, outside the inescapable factors of money and the Arab frontier they provide to pioneering obsessed FIFA, was a supposed set of revolutionary technologically advanced stadiums. These stadiums, none of which have been build, tested or proven to work at all yet, are air-conditioned demountables. The benefit of demountable stadiums apparently is a cheapness and ability to 'recycle' past and future stadium usage. Whether such a novelty is fitting of the grand stage of a World Cup remains to be seen. The reason for these stadiums is to appease the biggest glaring problem with the bid, the oppressive heat. In the summer months which the World Cup must take place over, Qatar can regularly reach well into the 40s in temperature. The state of the art stadiums and training facilities will provide a safe haven for players, confined inevitably to pitch, training or Five-star hotel. But what about the fan. Granted he/she can spend his/her two hours watching Football in comfort but what is he/she to do with every other hour of a potential four week stay. The World Cup is supposed to be a cultural extravaganza beyond just the Football. But how this will go for fans in ridiculous heat and operating within a culture which is vibrant and worthy of great respect, but particularly difficult to adjust to for Western visitors. How female Football fans will go comes to mind in particular.
Final Bid Results
Procedure: A majority of 12 votes must be obtained from the FIFA executive committee to win. If this is not achieved the bid with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and another vote takes place. This process continues until a majority is reached.
2018
Round 1: Russia 9, Spain/Portugal 7, Netherlands/Belgium 4, England 2
Round 2: Russia 13, Spain/Portugal 7, Netherlands/Belgium 2
2022
Round 1: Qatar 11, Korea 4, USA 3, Japan 3, Australia 1
Round 2: Qatar 10, Korea 5, USA 5, Japan 2
Round 3: Qatar 11, USA 6, Korea 5
Round 4: Qatar 14, USA 8
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