We only threw our toys out of the pram when we found out our "gentlemanly bribes", like seats at the royal wedding, weren't enough. Aslong as it's not as blatant as cold hard cash in an envelope we feel like we can talk our way out of it. That's not me agreeing with you saying Russia put together a better bid or ignoring Qatar being wholly unsuitable for a World Cup, by the way. Edit: sorry, just re-read and realised you mentioned our "gifts".
With the Copa America about to begin Brazil and Argentina will have lots of competitive matches in the next issue (weighted higher than England's qualifliers as it is a 'finals') so will no doubt roar back up the table. I don't find it at all hard to believe that England are about the sixth or seventh best European team on average so I can't see why anyone thinks these ratings are odd
Yeah, giving the WC to Qatar proved that FIFA care about money and not the quality of the bids England may have tried to bribe delegates and not had the best bid but in the end FIFAs hatred of England would have stopped us regardless
South Africa demonstrated they're more interested in expanding the FIFA Family by holding the WC in new places, rather than considering the myriad of infastructure problems (or the bloody vuvuzela problem...), so from that standpoint it isn't surprising they thought "I know, how about a World Cup in the Arab world?", without thinking that players would be putting the ball out for throw-ins every ten minutes so they can have a water break. Similar things happened in 1994 when they decided that, to maximise audiences, they'd have to play games at midday on the west coast, without pausing to consider LA is a bloody hot place to be at midday in late June/early July. Again, the presumption FIFA hates England is absurd - for a start, three fromer FIFA Presidents have been English and, most importantly, how can FIFA hate England when board of the International Football Association Board always contains one English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish member who are put forward by their own FA (so aren't elected to their positions, nor have to justify them) so half of the board aren't FIFA members?
Not only is Spain the best team by a long shot, I'd say the Netherlands are comfortably second. Then it's a question of whether you prefer a young, well-organized team that's fairly consistent (Germany), or an inconsistent and disorganized team that on its best day is nearly a match for Spain (Brazil). I think Uruguay's comfortably in fifth. Of the rest, Portugal are negative but hard to beat, France looks like it's back in the mix, Argentina always has the talent, and Chile was the one team that was able to fight Spain for the ball in the world cup. Everybody else I can think of, certainly including England, aren't that impressive.
Can we stop pretending that the Russian bid was anywhere near acceptable, please? Massive corruption, ridiculous safety issues, insane amounts of racism, an obvious problem with hooliganism and the systematic oppression of free speech and murder of journalists. Say what you like about England's bid, but the winning one shouldn't have even been considered. Wasn't it the only one that failed to pass in one of the categories, too? Safety and security, possibly?
Why isn't FIFA accountable to, oh I don't know, the ****ing law, maybe? Too much money involved, I guess.
Can we stop pretending that FIFA is anything other than rotten to the core. FIFA investigating themselves is about as valid as the Old Bill investigating themselves. Giving Qatar the WC is nothing more than a money induced bad joke. To pretend otherwise as Croydon does is either raising self delusion to new heights, or just incredibly naive. The pretense of expanding the game by awarding WC's to different parts of the globe is, in this case, nothing more than that - a pretense. A cover up for massive corruption.
I'm sure there are people within FIFA that legitimately believe that they're expanding the game by giving big competitions like the World Cup to areas of the globe that can benefit from it, but Qatar was an awful choice. It's pretty much indefensible. I'm sure that they could've picked a better country in the Middle East, but even then you'd have some reservations about any of them, in my opinion, especially in the current political climate.
It's a bit difficult to say England isn't corrupt, given their fraudulent bid for the Olympics, dodgy allocation of the Olympic Stadium after the games, and the aforementioned police raids on the FA HQ because of ticketing scams before Euro '96 - and, most importantly, one of the quangos that Cameron has axed is the Football Licensing Authority, i.e. the authority in charge of safety at football grounds. There's one thing that's rotten to the core here, and that's sour grapes.
Are you honestly trying to compare the corruption in Russia with the corruption in the UK? Don't be ridiculous. No attempt to address the other points, like massive amounts of racism and hooliganism in Russian football, then? Roberto Carlos has already had a couple of banana throwing incidents there and he's only been there since February.
None so blind as those who will not see.....Russia may or may not be a valid venue for the WC - Depending on your point of view. What IS for certain, and you can try and explain your way around it all you want, is that the awarding of the 2022 WC to a giant sandpit in the middle of one of the most barren, unhospitable, places on earth - particularly in high summer - is nothing less than ludicrous. Are you seriously trying to tell us that the fact that this tiny little country, which just HAPPENS to be fabulously wealthy, and their award of the WC, are totally unconnected? That really would be raising naivety to new levels. Are FIFA philanthropic, or corrupt??? Work it out for yourself!
I think that they won it fairly, through the pure magnificence of their bid. This message is brought to you by our sponsors, Qatar International and may or may not reflect the views of this profile user.
How is it ridiculous to say this country is corrupt when several MPs have recently been jailed for fraud, and many more have been fiddling expenses from mundane things like light bulbs to less mundane things like second homes they don't even live in? Hooliganism or racist fans aren't problems in this country? Funny, I recall seeing plenty of hooliganism after Birmingham/Villa match last season - or indeed any time those two clubs play - just as I recall Demba Ba reporting that he was being racially abused. So if a rich country is granted a World Cup, that means corruption takes place? So, by that logic, both of Germany's World Cups (in 1974 and 2006) are because of corruption in the bidding process, just like Japan's joint-holding of the 2002 tournament? And you want to call other people naieve? One very important question that needs to be asked: Why is does to this question have one answer only? Are they philanthropic? Yes, because the money earned by World Cup merchandising is shared between all FIFA member states so that even the smallest of minnows can field a team against the big guns - rather than the FA's method of funnelling the vast majority of the Sky money to a small number of clubs within the English league pyramid for the last twenty years.
Fiddling expenses and taxes or stealing all of the natural resources of the country and making billions out of it, while killing journalists that try to report it? Erm, I'm going to go with the first one. Honestly Croydon, if you think that the racism and hooliganism in this country is on anything like the scale that it is in Russia, then I don't know what to say. They really don't compare. NSS is suggesting that there's no outward benefit to having the World Cup in Qatar. With Japan, South Africa and the US, you could see that they were trying to expand the sport, into countries with large populations that haven't fully embraced football or didn't have a great infrastructure for it. How does that work with the Qatar bid? Surely there were better Middle Eastern countries to host it?
I can't work out if you are incredibly naive, incredibly stupid, or a WUM in disguise. It is pointless arguing any further with your twisted logic, and refusal to acknowledge what 99% of the rest of us can see very plainly. i.e. FIFA is as bent as a £9 note!
"One very important question that needs to be asked: Why is does to this question have one answer only?" ?
