- Mar 30, 2004
- 14,018
- 20,807
France Football is currently spamming my twitter timeline with retweets about an article they have exposing corruption in FIFA (NO!! NEVER!!) around the awarding of the WC2022 to Qatar (again, shock).
Hope that works.
Their presentation at the time was very good, in English, French and Spanish and with some very high profile royals from the Al-Thani family. I went to Qatar a few months before the decision and commented to new friends there that they would win, I was told by them (and they live there!) that there is no chance. Gambling, alcohol, weather for a summer tournament, the main reasons. I said that Qatar will want to show off the Middle East to the world in a different light to terrorism and religious extremism, and as Doha is relatively small but Qatar is immensely rich and ambitious there is essentially a blank canvas to do anything - absolutely anything.
Which, I guess, includes bribes. FIFA loves a bit of cash. It does also like expanding into new lands - one of the reasons Blatter is constantly voted in is the support from African nations for bringing the 2010 tournament to the continent. Lots of federations to vote for him there.
Qatar had Guardiola, one of the De Boers and Batistuta endorsing them as a host. All former players in the gulf state league.
The article is in French, and not up on the site in full yet. This just announces they have investigated and their findings will be in Tuesday's edition of the magazine. It talks about collusion and corruption, then asks whether the vote should be declared void and Qatar stripped of the tournament.
http://www.francefootball.fr/#!/news/2013/01/29/075154_et-si-on-reattribuait-le-mondial-2022.html
For what it's worth, Qatar would be an awesome place to hold a tournament IF the weather wasn't so fooking hot in the summer. Even the winter months are similar to European summers. They will make fanparks and have alcohol and gambling in designated areas to get around that. It's just so hot.
Hope that works.
Their presentation at the time was very good, in English, French and Spanish and with some very high profile royals from the Al-Thani family. I went to Qatar a few months before the decision and commented to new friends there that they would win, I was told by them (and they live there!) that there is no chance. Gambling, alcohol, weather for a summer tournament, the main reasons. I said that Qatar will want to show off the Middle East to the world in a different light to terrorism and religious extremism, and as Doha is relatively small but Qatar is immensely rich and ambitious there is essentially a blank canvas to do anything - absolutely anything.
Which, I guess, includes bribes. FIFA loves a bit of cash. It does also like expanding into new lands - one of the reasons Blatter is constantly voted in is the support from African nations for bringing the 2010 tournament to the continent. Lots of federations to vote for him there.
Qatar had Guardiola, one of the De Boers and Batistuta endorsing them as a host. All former players in the gulf state league.
The article is in French, and not up on the site in full yet. This just announces they have investigated and their findings will be in Tuesday's edition of the magazine. It talks about collusion and corruption, then asks whether the vote should be declared void and Qatar stripped of the tournament.
http://www.francefootball.fr/#!/news/2013/01/29/075154_et-si-on-reattribuait-le-mondial-2022.html
For what it's worth, Qatar would be an awesome place to hold a tournament IF the weather wasn't so fooking hot in the summer. Even the winter months are similar to European summers. They will make fanparks and have alcohol and gambling in designated areas to get around that. It's just so hot.