We all knew it was fishy now more details on how the 2022 World cup was bought

By GRAHAM DUNBAR
AP Sports Writer










GENEVA (AP) -- Organizers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have denied fresh allegations of wrongdoing after a British newspaper report questioned the integrity of choosing the emirate as tournament host.

The Sunday Times said a "senior FIFA insider" had provided "hundreds of millions of emails, accounts and other documents" detailing payments totaling $5 million that Qatari official Mohamed bin Hammam allegedly gave football officials to build support for the bid.

Bin Hammam was a member of FIFA's executive committee for 16 years and key power broker until being expelled in 2012 for financial corruption during his time as Asian Football Confederation president.

The Qatar 2022 organizing committee's statement on Sunday stressed that Bin Hammam, a Qatari, "played no official or unofficial role in the bid committee."

However, most FIFA executive committee voters in December 2010 were bin Hammam's longtime colleagues. Among them, Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, Nicolas Leoz of Paraguay and FIFA vice president Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago have since resigned while under investigation for corruption.

"The Qatar 2022 Bid Committee always upheld the highest standard of ethics and integrity in its successful bid," the Qatari statement said, adding "we vehemently deny all allegations of wrongdoing. We will take whatever steps are necessary to defend the integrity of Qatar's bid and our lawyers are looking into this matter."

The Sunday Times alleged that bin Hammam paid for cash gifts, hospitality and legal fees for some FIFA colleagues, including Warner, and dozens of African football leaders.

FIFA ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia has received the new evidence to help his investigation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests, the newspaper reported.

Garcia was scheduled to meet with Qatari bid officials on Monday in Oman.

"We are cooperating fully with Mr. Garcia's on-going investigation and remain totally confident that any objective enquiry will conclude we won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup fairly," the Qatari statement said.

FIFA declined comment on Sunday about the reports, which revived calls for the 2022 World Cup vote to be re-run. Qatar defeated the United States in a final round after Australia, Japan and South Korea were eliminated.

Instead, football's governing body suggested in a statement to "please kindly contact the office" of Garcia's law firm in New York City.

The law firm, Kirkland and Ellis, did not respond immediately to requests for comment, or to confirm Garcia's meetings with Qatar officials.

Garcia and his investigating team have been traveling across the world meeting officials who worked for the nine candidates ahead of the December 2010 votes. Russia won the 2018 hosting poll.

FIFA board member Jim Boyce, who joined in 2011 after Bin Hammam was initially suspended, said Sunday that he could support a re-vote if bribery could be proved.

"If Garcia's report comes up and his recommendations are that wrongdoing happened for that vote for the 2022 World Cup, I certainly as a member of the executive committee would have absolutely no problem whatsoever if the recommendation was for a re-vote," Boyce told the BBC's Sportsweek radio program.

Garcia is scheduled to submit his report to FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert of Germany, who can recommend sanctions.

Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop told domestic media Monday that his federation was in a "watch-this-space" situation.

"We need to get more information about what's been revealed in the last 48 hours," Gallop told SEN radio. "But don't be under any illusion that we haven't been heavily involved in all of this for some time now.

"We've been involved in interviews, production of documents and also following carefully what's been happening away from Australia - so we've got people that have been involved for some time now."

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The second that Qatar a country that is a barely a country really with no history, a crappy national team, and a population less than the population of Los Angeles metro was awarded the world cup I knew it had been bought. Qatar like most of the gulf states aren't even really countries more like feudal fiefs that were handed out by the British. But that being left aside it was laughable that football fans would be expected to go out to 50 degree heat in the middle of summer and watch football matches and stroll around the grounds. Even the Qataris flee their own country in the summer and go to London or Paris. No infrastructure, no football history, hellish weather, no tourist sites of any note, I know lets give them the world cup. Sepp Blatter needs to be prosecuted by interpol as does every board member who received money and Qatar should be stripped of the world cup in 2022. If it is held in Qatar it will be an epic disaster as most football fans will simply not go. Already slave labor from south asia is building the stadiums and hundreds of guest workers have died in inhuman conditions. Qatar should not be rewarded with a world cup when they gained it through corruption and are using inhuman work conditions to build said stadiums. Not to mention that the site is completely untenable for a summer world cup. Why not decide to hold the world cup in winter in Anartica?

I do feel for Qatar a bit tbh. They played a game, which pretty much everybody does (Russia to far bigger extent) and are now being hung out to dry for it.

Don't blame people for playing by bad rules, blame the people that make the rules (FIFA).

The second that Qatar a country that is a barely a country really with no history, a crappy national team, and a population less than the population of Los Angeles metro was awarded the world cup I knew it had been bought.

Grow up a little bit I'd suggest

GSC wrote:I do feel for Qatar a bit tbh. They played a game, which pretty much everybody does (Russia to far bigger extent) and are now being hung out to dry for it.

Don't blame people for playing by bad rules, blame the people that make the rules (FIFA).

The second that Qatar a country that is a barely a country really with no history, a crappy national team, and a population less than the population of Los Angeles metro was awarded the world cup I knew it had been bought.

Grow up a little bit I'd suggest

I don't feel for Qatar at all. They played a dirty game and got their hand caught in the cookie jar. I feel sorry for the slave labor that all these fake oil dictatorships use to clean their homes and build their buildings while they are sucking up their ill gotten oil gains. And with the extra money they get from oil they fund madrassas in Pakistan. Don't feel sorry for them a lick. I feel more sorry for the poor workers that have died in this lame miscarriage of a world cup project. Why exactly would I feel sorry for oil dictators who oppress their own people, sit on tens of trillions in fossil fuels, and use slave armies to construct their grandiose projects? The oil sheiks of the gulf states are pretty much the last
people on the planet I feel sorry for.

I suggest you wake up a bit and not be blinded by these people's royal titles and their wealth. They are regressive dictators who have done little to deserve anyone's sympathy.

FIFA are the villains. Qatar are dirtied by it, but they are merely a player of a dirty game initiated by a filthy corporation.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:FIFA are the villains. Qatar are dirtied by it, but they are merely a player of a dirty game initiated by a filthy corporation.

DOHA, Qatar

LAST year, Theresa M. Dantes signed a contract with an employment agency in the Philippines to come here to work as a housemaid for $400 a month, plus room and board. But when she arrived, her employer said he would pay her only $250. She acquiesced; her family back in Quezon City depended on her earnings.

Other surprises quickly followed. Ms. Dantes, 29, said she was fed one meal a day, leftovers from the family’s lunch: “If no leftovers, I didn’t eat.” She worked seven days a week. When she finished work in her employer’s house, she was forced to clean his mother-in-law’s house, and then his sister’s.

After eight months, Ms. Dantes tried to leave. Her boss laughed. “You can’t quit,” he told her.

Under kafala, the system that governs the working lives of every foreigner employed in Qatar, Ms. Dantes could not resign without her employer’s permission. She fled and joined 56 other women who had sought shelter at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office.

Some 1.2 million foreign workers — mostly poor Asians from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines — make up 94 percent of the labor force in Qatar, an absolute monarchy roughly the size of Connecticut.

Developed in the late 1950s in sparsely populated Persian Gulf states that needed workers for their oil and gas industries, the system has expanded to the point where there are nearly five foreign workers for each Qatari citizen. Perhaps a million foreign workers are expected to arrive in the next few years to help build nine new stadiums and $20 billion in roads needed by 2022, when Qatar will host the World Cup.

Many of these workers will labor under near-feudal conditions that Human Rights Watch has likened to “forced labor.” Qatari employers assume legal responsibility for their employees in addition to providing them with a paid job, a work visa, housing and often food. In exchange, an employee agrees to work for an employer for a fixed length of time.

But a worker cannot change jobs, leave the country, get a driver’s license, rent a home or open a checking account without the permission of his or her employer-sponsor, or kafeel. And a kafeel also can withdraw sponsorship at almost any time and send the employee home.

It’s not just housemaids and other low-skilled workers who are the victims. An Arab-American businessman, Nasser Beydoun, said he spent 685 days as an “economic hostage” in Doha before he was released in October 2011. After he quit as chief executive of a local restaurant chain, his former employer denied him a permit to leave Qatar.

“Foreign workers in Qatar are modern-day slaves to their local employers,” Mr. Beydoun, who now lives in Detroit, told me. “The local Qatari owns you.”

Only about half of foreign blue-collar workers sign formal work contracts before coming to Qatar, according to a poll by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute at Qatar University. The rest come with nothing more than a verbal agreement.

Even a formal contract offers inadequate protection. A quarter of the blue-collar workers who signed contracts said employers failed to fully honor the agreements, the poll found. That proportion increased to 42 percent among the third who made less than $275 a month.

Under pressure from human rights and labor advocates, the government has promised new protections. “Seven, eight years ago we didn’t have labor laws,” said Hussein al-Mulla, under secretary of the Labor Ministry. “It is better now than before. It will be better in the future.”

The ministry has created a phone line for workers to anonymously report abuses, and a system of arbitrating labor disputes. Employers now must report paycheck details to the Labor Ministry. The country is finalizing a law setting occupational health and safety standards and a charter of workers’ rights.

But new laws are not enough. “The challenge is enforcement of these laws and establishing a new work culture,” Andrew Gardner, an anthropologist at the University of Puget Sound who studies gulf laborers, told me. “The scope of the problem is so large and the number of foreigners is growing so quickly.”

Most construction workers, security guards, household staffers and service workers come to Qatar through personnel agencies, which are hired by prospective employers and draw up the contracts. Officials in some sending countries are supposed to review the contract before they issue exit visas.

The average recruiting fee for a blue-collar worker, according to the poll, is almost $1,000 for a job that typically pays about $470 a month. Most workers have to borrow to pay the fee. Among workers earning $275 or less, 80 percent take at least three months just to earn back their recruiting fee; nearly a third take six months or longer.

Foreign workers in Qatar, which has no minimum-wage law, have little recourse if they are offered wages lower than they expected, and the high fees the personnel agencies charge give employers no incentive to free their employees from their obligations.

Remarkably, some migrant workers help circumvent the very laws intended to protect them. Francisco Moceros, 50, a driver-for-hire here, said he signed a work contract for $340 a month — the Philippine government’s minimum — at an employment agency in Manila, but is paid $220. The recruiter said the listed salary was a sham, Mr. Moceros said, but he signed anyway.

Qatar’s 250,000 citizens are among the world’s richest, with a gross national income (adjusted for relative purchasing power) of $87,478 last year — about double the figure in the United States.

The typical household is served by a staff of three. Some 95 percent of Qatari families employ a housemaid; more than half have two or more. A recent survey by the research institute found that nearly 9 in 10 Qataris did not want to see the kafala system weakened; if anything, 30 percent said they wanted to see employers’ prerogatives strengthened.

This means that reform efforts “must go slowly,” Mr. Mulla, of the Labor Ministry, told me. In 2009, neighboring Bahrain allowed foreign workers to freely change jobs. Mr. Mulla agrees that the Qatari system must change: “It will be better — or it will be history.”

Until it does get better, indentured servitude on the Persian Gulf will live on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/sunday-review/indentured-servitude-in-the-persian-gulf.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I agree the conditions for the laborers are disgusting but it has little to do with the awarding of the World Cup, as Dolph and I said, Qatar and Russia played the sordid game best, blame FIFA for the game being sordid rather than Qatar for playing it.

When I say Qatar isn't a country 250,000 people being granted a world cup, are you freaking serious.

Poor qatar and their gas trillions and their serf army. How my heartaches for them. Yes Fifa is dirty but Qatar is hardly innocent in any respects. Giving and taking bribes is guilt worthy. Not to mention working people to death in unsafe work conditions and virtually holding them hostage without basic human rights.

So putting yourself in their shoes, if you had to bribe a few people to get the World Cup, you wouldn't?

Such is the way the game is played. Refusing to play the game this way ensures a significant waste of time and money. Is it fair? No. Neither is life unfortunately. The fault lies with FIFA for creating a bidding process which lines their own pockets. Because of this, they have no great appetite to change it.

I've already condemned the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar and the like (though this isn't exclusive to the 2022 stadia. But its not really relevant to this issue.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:FIFA are the villains. Qatar are dirtied by it, but they are merely a player of a dirty game initiated by a filthy corporation.

This.

The switching to winter is "the real abstract in failure"

What is most irritating is that all this focus on Qatar means that Russia in 2018 is sneaking under the radar.

Both were bought, in my opinion, and both are as bad as each other. Qatar simply isn't fit to hold a World Cup, due to infrastructure and climate problems, while Russia is an incredibly dangerous place for non-white and gay players/fans to go, and there is little progress being made on countering that.

I hope that a re-bid for 2022 is done (and that it goes to Australia), but it's probably too late for 2018; a tournament that I will have no interest in.

one might not like Russia for many good reasons but comparing this country to Quatar is laughable...
 
Russia is a real football country with proper infrastructure and normal weather. Not to mention that they weight a lot politically speaking... World Cup in Russia is the same as the olympics in China : you might not like that but those countries are important enough to be granted such events if they wish so.
Quatar aint none of that.

Russia may have "proper infrastructure and normal weather", but they have in no way a decent human rights record due to a high prevalence of racism and homophobia at football games.

A country that has such a record is in no way fit to hold the FIFA World Cup, and should not, legally, be chosen over bids from the Netherlands/Belgium or England, who both have better records in that department.

well China human right record aint very bright as well and yet they got the Olympics .... in the grand scheme of things Russia and China matter more than say Netherland or England and people (including the FIFA) listen to them. Ethics always come second to power.

whocares wrote:well China human right record aint very bright as well and yet they got the Olympics .... in the grand scheme of things Russia and China matter more than say Netherland or England and people (including the FIFA) listen to them. Ethics always come second to power.

Brussels, Fifa, USA. Must agree.

Russia is at least a country, sorry 250,00 qataris and a 1.3 million slave laborers do not count as a country that should or could pull off a world cup. Nothing would please me more than to see Oil Sheiks spend a couple of billion of the gas money they never earned only to see those stadiums unused. Blatter is a crime boss a racketeer of a corrupt organization and should be in a prison cell. The idea that they would torture and punish football fans by sending them to Hades in July shows what utter scorn and disregard they hold the people who pay their salaries.

As for Russia, I would be more than happy for them to be stripped of the world cup but they at least conceivably could pull off a decent world cup and they have real geopolitical pull. Harder to mess with them, if you urine them off Europe could be having a cold gasless winter. Or Ivan could book an unscheduled vacation in Eastern Europe. But Qatar can be punished more easily and should be. They were never a feasible site to begin with that is the big issue for me. The fact that they are slave driving, misogynistic, homophobic, regressive, medieval thinking dictators basically seals the deal.

Does it get lonely atop your perch?

socal1976 wrote: The fact that they are slave driving, misogynistic, homophobic, regressive, medieval thinking dictators basically seals the deal.

Well done, you've described Russia perfectly.

Duty281 wrote:

socal1976 wrote: The fact that they are slave driving, misogynistic, homophobic, regressive, medieval thinking dictators basically seals the deal.

Well done, you've described Russia perfectly.

I was going to say exactly that, can't say Russia could hold a good world cup when there is massive concern for players and fans safety due to their ignorant beliefs.

Sepp?  You laughing now?  Are you sneering now?

FIFA  or AIFAM?  Which is it, Sepp?  We know which, don't bother telling us.  They even have the cinematic James Bond villain with the perfect suit and the crooked smile: http://ciyaaro.com/portal/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Hammam.jpg

So FIFA will hold an inquiry on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and will make their final judgement in September or October.

Interesting to note that both bids will have to be redone if just one is found guilty of corruption (which I highly doubt), and our dear leader Mr. Cameron has already stated an interest in England/Britain making a fresh bid for the World Cup.

And Sepp Blatter has pulled the race card; didn't know he was a lefty pillock on top of everything else.

Sepp Blatter's habit of behaving in an unscrupulous, conspicuously corrupt manner, then retreating to his Zurich bunker, FIFA Haus, which resembles the sort of building that Dr Evil would build as his secret lair, is well known.

It doesn't matter how many enquiries, investigations, consultations or whatever you like to call them happen, the end result will be like all previous investigations:  Nobody did anything wrong.

FIFA Haus is a closed shop where wheeling and dealing, back stairs bartering and shady dealing is the norm.  It was no surprise to me at all that Qatar would win the bid for the world cup.  Given the amounts of money they Qataris can throw around, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Not being inclined to travel around the world, paying eye watering amounts of money to watch the latest one-legged England team get dumped out of the competition by opponents who practise such despicable tactics as kicking a football straight, passing to their own players and being able to hit a target with an area of 192 square feet from 12 yards with an unopposed shot and a stationary goalkeeper, I don't really care where the world cup is held.  The telly in my lounge looks pretty much the same.

So, yes.... the whole thing is bent.  Yes, Blatter is a crook.  

What does anybody think will be done about it...?   Answers on the back of a postage stamp to FIFA Haus, Zurich.  Don't expect a reply.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter claims allegations surrounding the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid are motivated by racism.
Qatar was chosen as host in December 2010 but corruption claims have prompted Fifa to begin an inquiry.
"There is a sort of storm against Fifa relating to the Qatar World Cup," Blatter said. "Sadly there's a great deal of discrimination and racism."
Fifa will rule on the validity of the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in September or October.
At that point, the president of football's world governing body said, the "matter will be closed".
Speaking to African football officials in Sao Paulo, Blatter confirmed that the latest allegations would be discussed at the Fifa Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He said Fifa needed to combat "anything that smacks of discrimination and racism".
"It really makes me sad," he added.
At its general assembly in Sao Paulo, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) condemned what it termed "the repeated, deliberately hateful, defamatory and degrading attacks by some media, notably British, on the image and the integrity of the Confederation of African Football, its president, its members, its member associations and the entire African continent."
Caf added that it would urge the executive committee "to file a law suit, if necessary, so that the authors of this smearing and defamatory campaign against African football leaders are brought to book".
Qatar overcame competition from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States to be named as 2022 hosts.
But the bidding process has been hit by a series of corruption claims.
American lawyer Michael Garcia is currently involved in an independent investigation into the bidding process and is due to deliver his report to Fifa in mid-July.
Blatter, 78, told delegates from the Asian Football Conference that Garcia would also speak at Fifa's congress to update delegates on his inquiry.
Garcia is investigating everyone connected with the bidding process for both the 2018 World Cup, to be staged in Russia, and the 2022 event.
Qatar's World Cup organising committee continues to reject claims of wrongdoing and says it is confident the vote was won fa

Fernando wrote:Fifa president Sepp Blatter claims allegations surrounding the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid are motivated by racism.

Herr Blatter should know!

Great news that the sponsors are getting jittery about their association with Fifa over these allergations (FACTS, truth)

Duty281 wrote:So FIFA will hold an inquiry on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and will make their final judgement in September or October.

Interesting to note that both bids will have to be redone if just one is found guilty of corruption (which I highly doubt), and our dear leader Mr. Cameron has already stated an interest in England/Britain making a fresh bid for the World Cup.

And Sepp Blatter has pulled the race card; didn't know he was a lefty pillock on top of everything else.

No politics my internet friend    

There was an old man named Blatter
Who couldn't see what was the matter
The claims are all racist
They've really no basis
The ethics of footie he did splatter.

Cracking criticism

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:

Cracking criticism

Funny critique.

FIFA Hooters, cracked me up.

Hate how Americans call it soccer. The rest of the World don't call baseball - rounders. Or American football - American soccer.

Blatter really is like Formula 1's Ecclestone.

Those inside do not want to upset the gravy train.

Scandalous.

I saw a point about how the bribing was done in American dollars and thus the US could go nuts on em and take it to the supreme court. Thats what it needs but it wont happen

If renamed, American football wouldn't be American soccer though... it would be American rugby.

SecretFly wrote:If renamed, American football wouldn't be American soccer though... it would be American rugby.

I've been calling it "armoured rugby" for years.  It annoys the hell out of Americans who cannot understand why so many Britons bridle at the word "Soccer".   They suspect that I'm making a sly insinuation that, because their "athletes" wear more kevlar than the cast of Alien 2 for their brief three or four minute sojourns onto the pitch before handing over to a completely different team who will take their turn on the "gridiron" (where the heck did THAT word come from..??), their sport is effete, the participants are lesser men than rugby players who don't need all that wussie stuff and actually it isn't really a sport at all, not like real football.

Aaaahhhh, football..... The Association kind, that is.   A game played by propelling the ball primarily with the foot.  The name makes sense when applied in that way, doesn't it..?  No, our football isn't a game that is shaped and packaged almost exclusively as a commercial vehicle for advertising to television audiences.  Our game is a noble sport founded by Victorian gentlemen who had genuinely Corinthian values when they organised it as a winter recreational pastime for gentlemen amateurs to play and for the unwashed masses to watch.

Or at least, it used to be.

Football has long since sold out to mammon.  Money is what it is all about now, and we all know it.  When Sky bought the living soul of football in the 1990's and made it a game for the wealthy, everything changed.  When the European Champions Cup became the Champions League and the moguls of the major clubs made it their property, all that changed.  We knew it was happening and might have had some moral high ground if we'd tried to prevent it, but we didn't.  We went along with it because it was new, glamorous, sexy and because at last, the game was no longer ruled over by a load of old fuddy-duddies who treated players as slaves.   This was the brave new world.

Twenty or so years on, we now have a game that is shaped and packaged almost exclusively as a commercial vehicle for advertising to television audiences.  

The money men call the shots.  The game is corrupt from top to bottom, only the amounts of money vary.  Those old fuddy-duddies who were ousted in the sky coup of the 90's.... the guys who may have been a pain in the butt, but funnily enough, actually cared about the game enough to keep commercialism in reasonable check..... are long gone and what have we got..?  Greg Dyke.   Sepp Blatter....   I could name others but I think you get my drift.

We can't say we didn't see it coming.

The fans complain that the World Cup has been bought by a country that is completely unsuitable for such a tournament, by arabs who just want it as a vanity project because they have so much money they don't know what to do with it all.  But really, the fans are as guilty of collusion as anybody.

Money talks in football now.  It's the only thing that does.  Nothing else matters.  "Nothing is bigger than the game".....?  Don't make me laugh.  "The Game" is the last thing in anybody's set of priorities, including the fans.  All the fans want is to win.  They don't care how.  Just give us trophies so we can call ourselves the best..... so we can have bragging rights.... so we can associate ourselves with the success of "our club" and bask in the reflected glory of the sparkling, dazzling imagery of it all.   The fans don't give a damn if the players cheat, connive, dive, get opponents sent off, gain unfair advantages or penalty kicks.  Just goddam WIN at all costs.  That's what the fans want.

Fans are just another commodity in the game.  They are necessary in order to provide atmosphere and generate interest.  They are a part of the package.  They are also the target customers of the sponsors and so they are carefully nurtured.  Made to feel a part of it all.  When I first saw the TV commercial.... you know the one... the one that features the doddery old boy who's been following his club all his life tottering off to watch Spurs and enduring the same old disappointments, but still going back week after week as the voiceover says  "To all the fans who make the Premiership what it is..... thank you."   Wow, what a piece of commercial  manipulation that is.

Fans are important in the game, but not in the way they would like to think they are.   They are the customers.  The buyers.  The holders of cash and credit cards.  They have the pockets that are there to be emptied on the products, goods and services that the advertisers and sponsors offer.  The commercial might just as well end:   ....... thankyou.  Suckers".

Of course, there is one way in which commercialism in football could be combatted.  It's quite simple really, and if there was a concerted global campaign by fans, all acting in unison for the good of "The Game", then they could frighten the hell out of the money men with a weapon they couldn't combat.   Boycott.

Boycott any company, corporation or product that is used to sponsor football.  Hit the money men where it hurts them most.  In their sales figures.

Could it be done..?  Difficult, but theoretically feasible.  But of course, it won't happen.   Very soon, fans would realise that, actually, if they hurt the money men enough, the money men would take their sponsorship deals to rugby or cricket or some other sport and football would lose its gravy train.   How will their club finance their £600 million summer transfer window spree..?    How will our club be able to compete for trophies..?   Oh my god...... Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

And so nobody will do anything.  Oh, we'll come onto websites like this and complain about the terrible corruption in the game, but as long as "our team" is in with the chance of buying a trophy winning team for next season, we'll carry on turning a blind eye.  At the end of the day, it's about glory, eh..?   Danny Blanchflower's quote from the 1960's still resonates, but not in the way he intended it to back then.

The men who bought the 2022 World Cup did, I'm quite sure, use foul means.   They're corrupt and so is FIFA.  But at least they put their money where their mouths are.  They stumped up and as a result, the sponsors and the advertisers will just keep on coming and the gravy train will roll on.  It's cost the Qataris possibly billions to buy their vanity project but they don't mind.
Fans are a commodity that is much easier to buy.  

Make them feel they belong.... give them something glamorous to associate themselves with in their otherwise drab and boring lives....  massage their egos..... let them think they will be a part of that fabulous trophy winning team.   Let them buy the shirt.  Let them buy the season ticket.  let them buy the burger or the car or the brand of beer.  Just make sure they buy.  For business, that's the payoff.

Football is corrupt from top to bottom, but the fans shouldn't complain because they are as much a part of the problem as Blatter and his cronies.  Worse still, the fans are the easiest and cheapest thing to buy.

They can be bought for three points.

In after wall of text

In b4 snarky reply to afore mentioned wall

kingraf wrote:In b4 snarky reply to afore mentioned wall

Awaited, nay expected, snarky reply(s) .   Have not been disappointed.

Oh well it looks like Sepptic Blatter is going to stand again.

I really think the Euro nations need to threaten to withdraw from the 2022 WC and for sponsors to do the same to sort this corrupt FIFA mess out.

Blatter has no interest in dragging FIFAs name through the mud
The corrupt members have no interest in not being corrupt.

FIFA has no appetite for change.

Blatter is a dictator.  He speaks with the knowing contempt for the ungrateful subjects who continually try to knock him off his perch.  He can be as rude, as deceitful, as two faced, as smarmy as he likes, and he knows it doesn't matter because he's done more than enough Personality Cult with enough nations on the globe to ensure he stays Leader for as long as he wants.  

All he has to do is accuse the Larger Football Nations of being the kind of ex-Empire builders that the other smaller world football nations should always be suspicious of.  "Vote for me, and I'll get back at these pompous European Nations that try to undermine you and enslave you"

Blatter will rule the United States of FIFA well into his one hundreth and sixtieth year.  All Hail the King.

Uefa president Michel Platini says of Fifa counterpart Sepp Blatter: "I am supporting him no longer, it's finished."

Fourth got it right, until the countries say NO more. It will carry on in it's sad current form.

Money, money, money.

Scrumpy wrote:Uefa president Michel Platini says of Fifa counterpart Sepp Blatter: "I am supporting him no longer, it's finished."

Platini nodded and winked in secret deals to keep supporting Blatter long enough too. There are few in the world of current football administration that could be deemed clean fingered enough to carry out the systematic clean up that is demanded.
There is lots of money, lots of power available, lots of people shifting themselves into positions of power and lots of affected tut tutting from people that would be as ruthless as Blatter if in the position to be.
These massive sporting organisations are too personality driven - single denoted leaders calling the shots like Mr Ecclestone over at F1.
The cult of personality of the leaders must go.

Funny, gulf arab rulers are the biggest racists there are. They were the last group of nations to outlaw slavery and still have a slave labor system by another name that dominates their countries. Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in the 1970s. And the gulf arabs call us persians ajam the equivalent of unclean or like the nword. Qatar a country with 90 percent workforce as oppressed foreign indentured servants really takes some balls crying racism.

GSC wrote:Does it get lonely atop your perch?

So let me get this straight because no one is perfect we should tolerate modern slavery, racism, and bribery. I am far from a moralistic person but I do draw the line somewhere and basically the last people I feel sorry for are the rich oil sheik dictators.

socal1976 wrote:Funny, gulf arab rulers are the biggest racists there are. They were the last group of nations to outlaw slavery and still have a slave labor system by another name that dominates their countries. Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in the 1970s. And the gulf arabs call us persians ajam the equivalent of unclean or like the nword. Qatar a country with 90 percent workforce as oppressed foreign indentured servants really takes some balls crying racism.

Sorry Socal, I just had to respond to this. Ajam most definitely does not equate to unclean or the N word. It simply means one who's mother tongue is not Arabic. It does not carry any negative connotations whatsoever. I speak Arabic by the way.

  

emancipator

As for the issue of immigrant workers, then I agree that the Kifalah system is not a good or fair one. However, is it really more morally objectionable than the use of sweatshops by multinational companies (western or otherwise)? The working conditions in the sweatshops of say Bangladesh are considerably worse than those of workers in say Qatar, and they get paid significantly less. And whilst the media likes to focus on the human rights abuses of foreign workers in Qatar (rightly so) it neglects to mention that there are far more employers who treat their employees well within the norms of human compassion and equity. Of course a progression towards further legislated immigrant workers rights is still required and it appears that Qatar is trying to address this. It should be kept in mind that Qatar was pretty much a desert only 50 years ago.

I think Qatar played the system but they only played the game that everyone else was also playing. It is FIFA who is primarily responsible for an inherently corrupt system.

emancipator wrote:

socal1976 wrote:Funny, gulf arab rulers are the biggest racists there are. They were the last group of nations to outlaw slavery and still have a slave labor system by another name that dominates their countries. Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in the 1970s. And the gulf arabs call us persians ajam the equivalent of unclean or like the nword. Qatar a country with 90 percent workforce as oppressed foreign indentured servants really takes some balls crying racism.

Sorry Socal, I just had to respond to this. Ajam most definitely does not equate to unclean or the N word. It simply means one who's mother tongue is not Arabic. It does not carry any negative connotations whatsoever. I speak Arabic by the way.

  

emancipator

That is not the literal meaning but it has been used as a slur for so long that it has taken on its own common usage. The N word also has a dicitonary type meaning and it also has a common usage.

Yes the system is worse than foreign multinationals setting up sweatshops. Don't get me wrong that is bad enough. But foreign laborers can't open bank accounts, can't change their address, can't rent, can't quit without consent of the employer. Sorry this isn't work its slavery. Does a Nike employee have his id taken from him and held against his will? Don't get me wrong sweatshops scuk, but this scuks way more.

Let's just say that if you can't march into an office with a frown on your face and say to the person seated "I quit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" ......................... then, you're a slave.

Being in the army is slavery.  Being a pilot 30,000 feet up with no parachute is slavery.
Being a husband who doesn't like microwaved meals but keeps getting them anyway...is slavery

We can't just blame the wretched furriners when it comes to dodgy dealings and back stairs bartering in international football. Even some of our home grown icons might be "persuaded" to support.... or at the very least, not criticise...... if the price is right.

Back in 2011 when rumours began to circulate that dodgy deals were involved in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 world cups, one David Beckham went on record saying that something was wrong.....that when people said you had their vote, you felt you could believe them and that when they then voted against you, it left an unpleasant taste in your mouth.

Becks was critical of those that might be involved in such things at a high level, but if his more recent utterings are anything to go by, it seems it doesn't bother him so much now.

When questioned a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Times, about the compelling evidence of corruption in Qatar's successful bid for 2022, Beckham said "I'm not into politics. I was disappointed that we didn't get the world cup but it's history now."

Call me a cynical old fool if you like (or just an old fool. Either will do), but perhaps we can link his recently found reticence to the fact that in 2013, Beckham was awarded a contract by Paris St Germain, who just happen to be owned by none other than Qatar Sports Investment, an enterprise set up by football authorities in the Gulf state. Nor might we be surprised with the recent confirmation from the Qataris that they have held talks with Beckham about financially backing the football franchise he hopes to set up in Miami.

As the old saying goes...... Everybody has their price.

The Fourth Lion wrote:We can't just blame the wretched furriners when it comes to dodgy dealings and back stairs bartering in international football.  Even some of our home grown icons might  be "persuaded" to support.... or at the very least, not criticise...... if the price is right.

Back in 2011 when rumours began to circulate that dodgy deals were involved in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 world cups, one David Beckham went on record saying that something was wrong.....that when people said you had their vote, you felt you could believe them and that when they then voted against you, it left an unpleasant taste in your mouth.

Becks was critical of those that might be involved in such things at a high level, but if his more recent utterings are anything to go by, it seems it doesn't bother him so much now.

When questioned a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Times, about the compelling evidence of corruption in Qatar's successful bid for 2022, Beckham said "I'm not into politics.  I was disappointed that we didn't get the world cup but it's history now."

Call me a cynical old fool if you like (or just an old fool. Either will do), but perhaps we can link his recently found reticence to the fact that in 2013, Beckham was awarded a contract by Paris St Germain, who just happen to be owned by none other than Qatar Sports Investment, an enterprise set up by football authorities in the Gulf state.  Nor might we be surprised with the recent confirmation from the Qataris that they have held talks with Beckham about financially backing the football franchise he hopes to set up in Miami.

As the old saying goes...... Everybody has their price.

So...in brief.... ol' Becks very much IS into politics.

............it also makes you think that when people keep coming up with this statement about "people saying YES to someone and then going behind their back to say Yes to someone else instead" - it makes me question is that story absolutely true or also a ruse.  

Perhaps the people who claim other people said YES to them, perhaps they had longer conversations with those people about longer termed projects than any WC in the near or far future?
Perhaps some of these people who were looking for a YES were actually told NO to their faces but continued on with Private Negotiations about Private Future Plans that might soften the NO for both Parties???

Or am I being too cynical about the Politics of corruption?