Let me get something cleared up straight away, this is not sour grapes about England not winning the bid.  While I think it would’ve been great for the country, the downside of England hosting the 2018 World Cup would have been huge – potential hooliganism and terrorism, and inevitable jingoism of how the home side would win it again “just like in ’66”.  Good luck to Russia and their 2018 World Cup, I hope they do a fantastic job and the development of the infrastructure and stadiums helps provide jobs and an economic boom to their people.

Now, Qatar 2022, that’s a completely different story.  Remember how their national team performed in the last World Cup? What about the one before that? Oh right, they’ve never been in it before. The last hosts to have not been in the tournament before? That would be 1934 Italy, who hadn’t travelled to the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930 as it took a month to get their by boat at the time.  Unless their team has a radical turn around in the next 8 years, the first time Qatar qualify for the World Cup it will be as hosts.

Maybe it was picked for the environment it would provide.  Okay, it may only be the size of Connecticut, but at least Qatar’s average high in June is well over 100 degrees. Throw in laws against the public consumption of alcohol and this sounds like a must-go-to destination for the Budweiser sponsored FIFA World Cup.  They have promised to air-condition their stadiums, so at least for those 2  hours fans are at a game, they won’t feel quite so uncomfortable.  FIFA clearly also doing their best to help combat global warming, by sending everyone to a country that needs outdoor air conditioning.

FIFA always want to go to new frontiers and have the World Cup in new places – but they had the option of the Australia bid for them to do justthat.  The Olympics in 2000 in Sydney were an overriding success and the mild winter they would be having during the World Cup would have been perfect weather wise too.  I’m also dubious on how this fits the rotation of contintents the World Cup visits too, Russia is technically Europe but geographically (and Time-Zonally) Asia, just like Qatar.  Returning to the USA could have seen a continued growth of the sport there also, a country with many more potential fans than Qatar –  Doha, the capital of Qatar and its biggest city, has less than half the population of Brooklyn.  Even if “soccerball” has never been the biggest sport in the US, they at least still have history to it, having competed in the first one in 1930, provided one of the biggest upsets by beating England in 1950, were unlucky to be knocked out in the quarter-final stage in 2002 by Germany, and provided one of the most exciting moments in the 2010 World Cup with their last minute win over Algeria.

My biggest concern, however,  is the history of human rights abuses of migrant workers there. (www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/qatar)  This is the bed FIFA have chosen to lie in, I hope they do their part to affect social change in Qatar and protect those who will be helping prepare for the spectacle of the 2022 World Cup – somehow, I doubt it.