Firstly, WTF has the population of Uruguay the best part of a century ago have to do with anything?
WTF does the population of the US a couple of decades have to do with anything? You brought it up, not me. And, as I said, it's an irrelevant argument - because if the population of a country has any bearing on who hosts a World Cup, that means that China and India should take turns hosting it.
So, if it's bollocks giving the WC to these insignificant populations in the hope of spreading the games's popularity, then please explain to us what the purpose of awarding it to a giant sandpit in a the middle of a summer cauldron is! I'm sure we'd be fascinated to hear the rationale for it! I'm sure you have one, FIFA certainly don't!.
Has there been a World Cup in the Middle East before?
No?
There you go, FIFA's rationale - as I explained quite clearly in post #15.
I'm sure that many if those who "came to the I depend conclusion" that Qatar was the obvious place to host a WC, either had their bank balance stuffed full of oil dollars, or were currying favour with the Swiss scumbag!
Australia get caught bribing officials, but they only got one vote and were eliminated in the first round of voting. Are we supposed to presume that Qatar officials outbid all but one FIFA delegate the Aussies bribed, as if it were some kind of eBay auction? Come on!
In conclusion, YOUR argument is total bollocks. There is clearly no, even remotely logical, reason for the award of the world's premier football tournament to Qatar, other than it was bought and paid for.
No, actually, my argument is not bollocks - nor does it insult anyone's intelligence by simplifying the argument.
Let's start with the ballot process: if it solely comes down to corruption, why did it take four rounds of voting for Qatar to obtain the twelve votes necessary to stage the World Cup? Compare this to the bidding process for the prior World Cups: Germany won on the third ballot, South Africa won on the first ballot, Brazil won unopposed, and Russia won on the second ballot. What you're saying is that the Qatari organizers forgot to bribe one more FIFA official...and that doesn't stand up, given the voting in each round went: 11, 10, 11, 14. Are we supposed to believe that one delegate forgot who he was paid to vote for in the second round?
No reason to award the tournament to Qatar? There was no reason to award the tournament to the USA or to Japan/South Korea, yet there's never been any claims of corruption in either case.
I've clearly stated the real problems at FIFA aren't corruption, but the way the place is structured: it's based on everyone owing somebody a favour, and obviously the one person they want to curry favour with the most is Blatter. For example, take the last FIFA election: to get on the ballot you needed to be nominated by one of the 208 national federations in FIFA, so which one do you think nominated Blatter? Switzerland? France? Qatar? Any other nation that apparently "hates" English football? No - Somalia. And, by complete coincidence, guess which East African nation's national stadium had a FIFA-funded renovation last year?
That's the thing about owing favours, it's a case of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" which isn't corruption, it's merely insidious.
There's numerous issues with the way FIFA are set up, be it the delusions of philanthropy that dictated that the 2010 World Cup would be held in Africa whilst never considering that maybe lowering ticket prices so the people of South Africa could afford to go to games, be it the snouts in the trough mentality that saw them request that the Holland/Belgium bid for 2018 made the money FIFA would make from the tournament tax exempt, be it dictating to organizers that only Budweiser be drunk at their stadiums (although the Germans, to their credit, challenged FIFA on this in 2006 and were allowed to serve Bittburger), and everyone queuing up to have Blatter scratch their backs.
No, ignore all of those valid concerns about how FIFA is run, and just keep yelling "corruption" so you miss the point entirely.