Not worthy of a thread - 2018 FIFA World Cup edition

[Ketsbaia]

'the stench of these putrid Fifa politics will remain with me for a long, long time' - Jonathan Pearce on Football Focus.

 

that's a good quote. i feel exactly the same.

[Conjo]

Do you just disagree, or have I written it wrong?

 

Maybe you should do some research on human rights before posting stuff like that.

 

Do you care to elaborate?

 

Say ex. a middle eastern country that won't allow women to attend football matches, or dress the way they want etc, then clearly they aren't capable of hosting a WC as many women would want to go to the WC and dress the way they want. My point stands for now.

[Thespence]

To me it looks like all of them are highly fixable.

 

No surprise really, I could see by your earlier comments something such as FIFA own technical report would not change your view point.

 

Well, yeah. Shouldn't be as black and white as that.

 

A report by FIFA who rate things high & low risk should not have any impact? Give over man, anything classed as high risk should get the elbow at the point. Of course the areas with most risk mean there are is lot more money to be made in getting a place ready....KICKBACKS ALL ROUND!!!!

[Mick]

Do you care to elaborate?

 

Say ex. a middle eastern country that won't allow women to attend football matches, or dress the way they want etc, then clearly they aren't capable of hosting a WC as many women would want to go to the WC and dress the way they want. My point stands for now.

 

I will elaborate, trafficking of slave labour is rife, they remove passports of people so that they can control them.

[Spider Jerusalem]

Can't you just admit that the toys are well out of your pram, and get over it? Footballs "coming home" eventually, chin up! 

 

It won't be in my lifetime.  Cheers FIFA.  You corrupt fuckers.

[Conjo]

http://qatarvisitor.blogspot.com/2009/06/qatar-sponsorship-law-new-criticism.html

 

While I agree that it's not a good practice, I can't say that alone is reason for not allowing them to host the WC....Who knows, by the time they host the WC, sponsorship laws may have been abandoned there. Maybe even because of the WC?

[Thespence]

Will lasses like these be made welcome @ Doha 2022

 

http://www.footballfancast.com/wiki/images/8/8e/4a.jpg

[Conjo]

Can't say for sure, but yes, I think so.

[Thespence]

Can't say for sure, but yes, I think so.

 

Good, as Latino women are part of the World Cup.

 

Would hate to see women forced to cover up in there nations Burka

http://sarahndipity.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/burka_street.jpg?w=495

[Conjo]

 

Great post to end my day. Good night 

[Spider Jerusalem]

Good, as Latino women are part of the World Cup.

 

Would hate to see women forced to cover up in there nations Burka

http://sarahndipity.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/burka_street.jpg?w=495

 

I could see those being very popular with male football fans as well to be honest (the burkas, not the women).  I now have a dream of stadiums filled with what look like nationalist ghosts.  If the stadiums get built that is  .

[Mick]

http://qatarvisitor.blogspot.com/2009/06/qatar-sponsorship-law-new-criticism.html

 

While I agree that it's not a good practice, I can't say that alone is reason for not allowing them to host the WC....Who knows, by the time they host the WC, sponsorship laws may have been abandoned there. Maybe even because of the WC?

 

If we're swapping links, here's one from the UN.

 

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,,QAT,4562d8cf2,484f9a3732,0.html

[Thespence]

 

Great post to end my day. Good night 

 

Laters bud

[S.S.R.]

If they relax their laws for the sake of a month-long football tournament, it shows up their beliefs as a joke.

 

Would we relax our age of consent laws because the South Americans were coming over?

 

Sorry everyone, no free speech in June; the Chinese are visiting.

[Mick]

It's interesting that Mohammed Bin Hammam who comes from Qatar and was going for the presidency of FIFA next year is now rumoured to have dropped his challange to Blatter's position.  In the past Bin Hammam has arranged a plane free of charge for Blatter's personal use, it's a good thing that FIFA isn't corrupt.

 

 

[OzzieMandias]

Much as I share the jaundiced view of FIFA, we shouldn't let the fact they're a bunch of corrupt, sleazy, power-hungry shitbags detract from the incompetence, naivety and lack of principles (the BBC and Panorama an "embarrassment"? Fuck right off!) of our own FA and government.

[OzzieMandias]

In this World Cup sewer, we reptiles of British journalism hold our heads high

 

Let Fifa's murk be cleared. As WikiLeaks has shown, disclosure is all we have when audit is polluted and politicians are cowed

 

 

The grovelling of the prime minister and the second in line to the throne before Fifa's Zurich racket has been a national humiliation. Had they no intelligence of what was going on? Had this exposure to ridicule not been risk-assessed? Even a cursory glance at the allegations from the Sunday Times and the BBC's Panorama would have warned Downing Street and the Palace that these were not fit people for Britain's leaders to be seen glad-handing. The business recalls the obeisance to certain Italian gentlemen once required of American presidential candidates.

 

The one leader to emerge from the World Cup farrago with credit is, of all people, Russia's Vladimir Putin, who wisely decided that the Zurich shenanigans were beneath his dignity. Depths to which the Russian prime minister is not prepared to stoop are deep indeed. But then he probably already knew he had won. Why did Britain not know? Why does David Cameron now react with a solemnity more appropriate for a terrorist outrage or a natural disaster?

 

The abasement of Cameron and Prince William is equalled only by the shocking behaviour of England's World Cup team, in rubbishing journalists investigating Fifa corruption as "unpatriotic" and "embarrassing". Who are these people, and what values do they represent? With six Fifa officials already sacked and clouds hovering over at least three of those voting in the bid race, Britain should have had no dealings with Fifa over the World Cup until it cleansed its stables. If that "damaged" a bid, more credit to Britain. Surely honesty comes before sport.

 

The problem, of course, is that sport turns the heads of grown men and warps their moral compass. Tony Blair, Lord Coe and Tessa Jowell behaved like besotted groupies before the self-serving tycoons of the 2005 International Olympic Committee, who proceeded to dun the British taxpayer of £9bn to stage their two-week festival of self-glorification. Football's World Cup at least makes money for its host nation. But what other British industry (besides weapons) can demand the time and humiliation of politicians and royalty to this degree, and in so obviously contaminated a process?

 

These international bodies know no accountability. Their sole enemy is disclosure. Governments, diplomats, officials, contractors – all have a vested interest in secrecy, as millions of pounds passes from national taxpayers in opaque "payments to international organisations", and then out to the NGOs and consultants who form an outer ring of cheerleaders. Their staffs owe loyalty only to their bank balances and jobs for life. Their income, as we saw in the secret settlement of Switzerland's Fifa-linked ISL fraud trial, receives little scrutiny. These are not servants of sport, just very rich men cleverly playing on national pride.

 

I have no illusions about the press. I have watched enough dirt swilling down the journalistic sewer to abandon any quest therein for responsibility, accuracy, sensitivity or humility. The great American editor Oz Elliott once lectured graduates at the Columbia School of Journalism on their sacred duty to democracy as the unofficial legislators of mankind. He asked me what I thought of it. I said it was no good to me: I was trained as a reptile lurking in the gutter whose sole job was to "get the bloody story".

 

Yet journalism's stock-in-trade is disclosure. As we have seen this week with WikiLeaks, power loathes truth revealed. Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure. As Jefferson remarked, the press is the last best hope when democratic oversight fails, as it does in the case of most international bodies.

 

I found myself chastised this week for my defence of WikiLeaks, on the ground that thieves should not revel in their crime by demanding that victims be more careful with their property. But in matters of public policy who is thieving what from whom? The WikiLeaks material was left by a public body, the US state department, like a wallet open on a park bench, except that in this case the wallet was full of home truths about the mendacity of public policy.

 

Of course diplomacy between nations – over sport or whatever – cannot be conducted entirely in the open. Some secrets must be protected. But American secrets shared with 2 million people authorised to see them are hardly secrets. The content of the WikiLeaks cables cannot have surprised anyone in the know, least of all the foreign intelligence agencies that must long have been reading them.

 

What is intriguing is the hysteria of power at seeing its inner beliefs and processes revealed. The denunciation of WikiLeaks as an "attack on America" from the political right is similar to the attitude of England's football authorities towards the Sunday Times and the BBC. Someone had broken wind in church. Truth briefly swept aside the deceptions of public form and left reality exposed. The players in a once subtle game that had fallen to lying and cat-calling were suddenly told to stop, pull themselves together and look each other in the eye. As the great Donald Rumsfeld said, stuff happens. The air is cleared.

 

The same goes for Fifa, whose processes cannot even plead national security. Its murk may now be investigated as disappointed nations seek redress. England's sports administrators will doubtless accuse the Sunday Times and the BBC of wrecking their bid – though its goose was clearly cooked long ago. These are officials who tried to sweep under the carpet the bungs and kick-backs by which their sport was fuelled, and who turn a blind eye to the sources of football's Russian and Arab wealth.

 

They may now take consolation in finding out how they were beaten. That will come only from a free and active journalism. In the case of WikiLeaks it was journalism that censored vulnerable names and sources from what the state department was widely disseminating. It was journalism that mediated and interpreted the raw data. It was journalism, and journalism alone, that investigated alleged corruption at Fifa.

 

Journalism has revealed the antics of drugs companies, the mistakes of climate change scientists, the depths of police misbehaviour, the tax-dodging and theft by British MPs and the City's bonus culture. Nobody else did. When the public interest is undermined by the lies and paranoia of power, it is disclosure that takes sanity by the scruff of its neck and sets it back on its feet.

 

So thank goodness for disclosure. Thank goodness for journalism. I am sorry we did not get the World Cup but, had we done so, it would have been mired in claims of dishonesty. In losing, we had the honour of seeing British journalism doing something to clean up a disreputable sport. That is the cup I would prefer to win.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/02/world-cup-british-journalism-wikileaks

[Dave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11908445

England 2018 World Cup bid cost councils £2.1m

By Chris Kelly BBC News

 

Councils spent about £2.1m bidding for matches in England's failed attempt to host the World Cup in 2018.

 

Fifa members voted for Russia to host the tournament on Thursday with England gaining just two votes.

 

The national bid cost the Football Association £15m but councils had to help fund bids to the FA if they wanted to host matches in their area.

 

The two highest spending authorities were Sunderland and Bristol at £421,584 and £363,000 respectively.

 

The figures were obtained by the BBC using the Freedom of Information Act and reflect spending by each council to compile their bids up until October.

 

The 12 towns and cities hoping to host matches were Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield and Sunderland.

 

The councils in all of those places provided figures for the amount spent, except Nottingham and Sheffield.

 

Some of the spending for each area included either part or all of a £250,000 contribution to the England 2018 marketing budget.

 

Cost of bid to councils

 

    * Sunderland: £421,584.80

    * Bristol: £363,000

    * Birmingham: £353,048

    * Leeds: £272,829.92

    * Newcastle: £208,990.90

    * Manchester: £144,750

    * Plymouth: £136,000

    * Milton Keynes: £130,000

    * Liverpool: £94,662

    * London: £60,000

    * Sheffield/Nottingham: no reply

    * Total spend: £2,184,865.62

 

Source: Freedom of Information requests

 

In many areas the council paid part of that cost and the rest was paid by others, such as tourism organisations and local businesses.

 

The figures show the councils' total spending including their contribution to this fund.

 

Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West, Stephen Williams, said the city could not afford to spend the £363,000 it did on the bid "especially at this time".

 

He added he thought it would have been worth the cost of the bid if the Fifa vote had been a "proper, level playing field".

 

A spokeswoman for the Taxpayers' Alliance, a lobby group which believes Britons pay too much tax, said the spending by the local authorities was a "waste".

 

"It's a shame that these councils have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on the World Cup.

 

"It doesn't seem to make sense that they were spending before England had even won the bid to host the World Cup, it's such a waste."

 

But Chris Alexander, the bid director for Sunderland City Council, said it spent the money as it was "very keen" to bring the World Cup to the city.

 

"With football such a passionate part of city life, being part of the FA Bid has been a great opportunity to showcase Sunderland's many attractions," he added.

 

And Bristol City Council's deputy leader, Simon Cook, said he believed the legacy of raising the profile of sport in the city made it worth spending the money.

 

"Of course we had to bid, how ludicrous would it have been if every major city apart from Bristol had bid and we'd just turned our backs on it?"

[JH]

That's £208,000 we're not getting back.

 

Oh well, we'll just not grit the roads next year...

[Mick]

That's £208,000 we're not getting back.

 

Oh well, we'll just not grit the roads next year...

 

It could have been worse, we could have done the same as Sunderland and promoted our neighbours and rivals. 

[Pandamninator]

Do you just disagree, or have I written it wrong?

 

Maybe you should do some research on human rights before posting stuff like that.

 

Do you care to elaborate?

 

Say ex. a middle eastern country that won't allow women to attend football matches, or dress the way they want etc, then clearly they aren't capable of hosting a WC as many women would want to go to the WC and dress the way they want. My point stands for now.

 

Your point is mildly retarded.

 

Compare the bids of Australia, USA and Qatar side by side.  You know it, I know it, there is no way you can justify Qatars bid over those two.  They both had Qatar beat for the economic side of things, the football side of things, the infrastructure and stadium side of things and proven experience in hosting successfully major events.

[Guest thenorthumbrian]

I am getting slightly embarrassed by the amount of whining going on since england lost the bid, I do wonder if anyone is aware of the quality of the Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium bids and if they are moaning as much as we are.

Does this sense of entitlement come from a touch of arrogance in out attitude ?

And if so this attitude isn't likely to make us very popular.

 

[madras]

I am getting slightly embarrassed by the amount of whining going on since england lost the bid, I do wonder if anyone is aware of the quality of the Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium bids and if they are moaning as much as we are.

Does this sense of entitlement come from a touch of arrogance in out attitude ?

And if so this attitude isn't likely to make us very popular.

 

i think it comes from our bid was (by fifas own admission) the best one and they don't really want it being split between counties anymore. it would have been as bad in aus and US if football had been as major a sport in those weird places.

[Ketsbaia]

to be honest, if England had came second in the race I don't think there'd be much of a problem. but the way thursday happened showed clear corruption and how rotten to the core FIFA is. for the record, USA and australia have every right to feel aggrieved too.

[Mick]

I am getting slightly embarrassed by the amount of whining going on since england lost the bid, I do wonder if anyone is aware of the quality of the Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium bids and if they are moaning as much as we are.

Does this sense of entitlement come from a touch of arrogance in out attitude ?

And if so this attitude isn't likely to make us very popular.

 

 

Spain hosted in 1982, we last hosted in 1966 so they might not moan as loudly as we are.  It looks like the Americans and Australians are having a good moan and they have every right to moan considering who won in the same group.

 

What have Qatar done to host a World Cup?  You can't dismiss the history of countries that have been competing for years as if that was worthless.  Without the game being played historically we wouldn't have a future, we'll have a footballing future without Qatar.