Is it just me or were the 5+ hours build up to the announcement of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups unnecessary. After all, it was a fore-gone conclusion that FIFA would just follow the money.
In a week where Wikileaks has thrown out more scandals than soft Mick, the biggest cable of them all was Sepp Blatter. If the ‘home of football’ is Zurich as he mentioned multiple times, then I invented the Swiss army knife. Obviously I didn’t, only Switzerland is capable of producing tools of this magnitude. In the words of Ian Holloway ‘some complete person’ decided it is perfectly acceptable for 22 pensioners to decide the fate of a tournament which generates billions of pounds for the host country. In the end not even David Beckham was good-looking enough to charm the oligarchy or reverse hours of off-the-record chats and brown envelope passing.
I’m not overly patriotic and would’ve been just as happy for Holland/Belgium or Spain/Portugal to get the nod as it’s an easy trip to make with not much risk of getting our heads kicked in. The thing that riles me about the whole thing is how blatantly wrong the system and for that matter FIFA is. I can understand the Russia decision despite the months of whispers and murmurs of corruption (and the fact Roman Abramovich was sat right there), but Qatar 2022? Give me a break! I imagine Richard Chaplow is delighted he isn’t good enough to play for England as his complexion simply couldn’t handle the 40ยบ heat.
Perhaps the discovery of oil in the Falklands today might go some way in bolstering the next bid, but for now I think as a nation we just have to accept we don’t do well in voting systems. They should’ve let Wogan present.
No comments:
Post a Comment