And the world cup goes to...Qatar?

[mayney93]

a sport i care nothing for? let me find my care face, nope can't find it, i literally don't give a rats ass about football, it was the mechanism for my torment during school so it has been cast into the depths of Mt Doom, burnt from my memory

 

[Stephanos132]

1. It would've been countrywide (unlike the LONDON olympics), so the entire english nations resources could've been put to good use.

We could do what China did and use the entire country's resources for the Olympics anyway. Just because it's not your city doesn't mean it's not still your country. And it would mean embarrassment for all, not just Londoners >.>

I think that presume a level of decisiveness and sense I fear is sorely lacking in our government. But, still, the majority of the pressure would fall upon London, as it is still the host city. I agree with you though, not holding out much hope for the olympics.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

I´m just glad Portugal and Spain didnt win the election. Spain wanted to host the opening game AND the final match. To me(being Portuguese) that´s unacceptable.

As for Russia and Qatar, i wish them all the luck. I´m sure that everything will work out fine.

 

[AndrewFFC]

well Qatar being in the world surely means its eligible to host a "world cup" is it not fair for these competitions to be held in places other than central europe and south america?, where a vast majority of them have been held already. Lets face it this has been a monpoly for the usual faces for too long, just because its a bit "risky" is not a good enough reason for it not to go somewhere, i think because south africa went so well it has opened up oppertunites for others who perhaps won't have been considered before. As for the potential booze ban, i dont think its fair to go to another country and expect it to change the law just cause you showed up with all your mates, it is possible to enjoy football without beer (really it is!). So stop all your whining just cause its far away from you and you won't be allowed to act like a drunkin' lout while you're there, sake man up already.

also being scottish makes watching england fail once again is enjoyable.

Im afraid your talking garbage here.

Firstly the world cup has just been at South Africa. Qatar is a nation of 1.5million people, thats less then the Glasgow metropolitan are.

Secondly if the agenda was about world sharing then Australia was the much more logical choice.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

We could do what China did and use the entire country's resources for the Olympics anyway. Just because it's not your city doesn't mean it's not still your country. And it would mean embarrassment for all, not just Londoners >.>

We run the Premier League (and the rest of the football league) without much of a hitch every week, I'm fairly sure when it comes to running a series of football games and getting people to them we have that pretty much spot on.

We do, but it's not the games that will be the source of the embarrassment. It'll be our fans being the usual drunken, fighting louts and any attempt at a special opening that will do us in.

 

[Alade]

Didn't they learn anything from South Africa? I can't see why anybody is praising that damn World Cup it was the worst one I've seen in the last 12 years, they're really gonna risk another vuvuzela, and taking football fans who probably most of all love to get wasted to a non-alcohol country, really?

 

[AndrewFFC]

We could do what China did and use the entire country's resources for the Olympics anyway. Just because it's not your city doesn't mean it's not still your country. And it would mean embarrassment for all, not just Londoners >.>

We run the Premier League (and the rest of the football league) without much of a hitch every week, I'm fairly sure when it comes to running a series of football games and getting people to them we have that pretty much spot on.

We do, but it's not the games that will be the source of the embarrassment. It'll be our fans being the usual drunken, fighting louts and any attempt at a special opening that will do us in.

Domestic football in this country is the safest and least violent it has ever been, arrests are ridiculously low and not higher then a concert of comparitive attendance.

And this is opposed to.. Russia who have a serious issue of hooliganism, racism and violence.

Fact is England has been at the last two world cups with next to no violence.

 

[irani_che]

Qatar have crazy money,
I saw some of their plans. They will build one helluva stadium city between now and then.
If you do not beleive how fast they can build, let me illustate
http://www.skidubai.com/aceimages/skidubai/dubai-90-photo.jpg
this is dubai main street in 1990 and in 2002 and here is a pic of it now
http://www.guide2dubai.com/gallery/sheikh_zayad_road.jpg

 

[Snork Maiden]

We could do what China did and use the entire country's resources for the Olympics anyway. Just because it's not your city doesn't mean it's not still your country. And it would mean embarrassment for all, not just Londoners >.>

We run the Premier League (and the rest of the football league) without much of a hitch every week, I'm fairly sure when it comes to running a series of football games and getting people to them we have that pretty much spot on.

We do, but it's not the games that will be the source of the embarrassment. It'll be our fans being the usual drunken, fighting louts and any attempt at a special opening that will do us in.

As long as we don't play any games near Millwall I think we'd of managed. "British fans are all louts" has been less and less true since the early 90s.

EDIT:

Fact is England has been at the last two world cups with next to no violence.

Ah, good to see someone beat me too it.

 

[supermariner]

Russia: fair enough, as an englishman i still genuinely think they were best choice

but Qatar? it'd be interesting to know what their reasoning was

its in the middle east - time zone issues with the world cups biggest audience: western europe
the country will have to cater for nearly half a million supporters wanting to go see their country play

it doesnt make sense to me

 

[RoyalWelsh]

I don't mind Russia hosting it, would've preferred England though, just because I could go and watch some games. However Qatar is a bit of an odd choice. :/

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Hehe. I like the decision because I've always wanted to go to Russia and I might be able to get a deal of some sort going over there

As for us English hosting it? Nah. We're going to screw up the Olympics already, we don't need more opportunities to embarrass ourselves internationally.

I'm sure our stadiums for it aren't even properly built yet.


As for the OP, well, we'll have to wait and see, maybe it's the best World Cup ever, who knows?

 

[WorkerMurphey]

I just hope the next world cup teaches me about new obnoxious instruments like the vuvuzela. As an American who doesn't really care about soccer I'm just in it for the music vocab.

 

[Hyper-space]

Isn't Qatar a pretty rich country? its supposed to have either the first or second highest GDP per capita in the world and is pretty rich in oil.

So i guess they could afford a fancy stadium (that is, if they do not already have one) with all their sweet oil moneh.

EDIT: did a wee bit of research, apparently they are building a new city thats supposed to be high-class and if their website is any indication it will be filled with glass towers and shit.

Link: http://www.lusail.com/English/The-City/Pages/Location.aspx

 

[Arkley]

It's absolute political bullshit that Russia got the world cup. Now, I don't really care who got it and who didn't, in fact I don't care much about soccer/football in the first place, but looking at the other competitors and seeing Russia win boils my blood.

The other competitors have tons of world famous stadiums already.
Russia will have to build a bunch of stadiums.

The other countries have major football leagues as part of their infrastructure.
Russia has no significant football infrastructure, certainly not on the same scale as the other bidders.

The other bidders are stable, wealthy, first world nations.
Russia has little control over many of its own provinces, hundreds of human rights violations, and massive corruption in every official office, from police to local government.

In the bidding process, the other countries sent significant figures as a show of interest and dedication. Britain in particular sent one of the most famous and successful football players in the world, along with its prime minister, and its future king.
Russia's prime minister refused to attend.

Ho yes. I see it, too! I would've given it to Russia as well. Totally.
Political bullshit like this in any sport pisses me off to no end.

 

[Mr Montmorency]

I'm glad it didn't end up in England. We have better things to spend our public money on than a bunch of overpaid chimps running around for 90 minutes.

 

[Falconcry]

well Qatar being in the world surely means its eligible to host a "world cup" is it not fair for these competitions to be held in places other than central europe and south america?, where a vast majority of them have been held already. Lets face it this has been a monpoly for the usual faces for too long, just because its a bit "risky" is not a good enough reason for it not to go somewhere, i think because south africa went so well it has opened up oppertunites for others who perhaps won't have been considered before. As for the potential booze ban, i dont think its fair to go to another country and expect it to change the law just cause you showed up with all your mates, it is possible to enjoy football without beer (really it is!). So stop all your whining just cause its far away from you and you won't be allowed to act like a drunkin' lout while you're there, sake man up already.

also being scottish makes watching england fail once again is enjoyable.

Im afraid your talking garbage here.

Firstly the world cup has just been at South Africa. Qatar is a nation of 1.5million people, thats less then the Glasgow metropolitan are.

Secondly if the agenda was about world sharing then Australia was the much more logical choice.

so populace is a defining reason for selection? then only USA, Russia, China and India should apply everytime. Also there is not 1.5 million people in Glasgow or evern greater Glasgow, there's bearly even half of that. Also the next world cup will be in Brazil, for the second time, then to russia-europe, the qatar- asia, pretty fair i think.

 

[ActivatorX]

So the poor human rights record of Qatar was obviously not enough to exclude it from this?? Shame and dishonour on the committee for all eternity and all that other stuff...

Sure, they're better than many Arab countries in terms of human rights compliance, but they're FAR from perfect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Qatar

Qatar.

As far as Eastern states go, I'd say it's fairly successfull.

Definitely not "crappy".

Not as far as Eastern states go no.

World's second nominal GDP per capita. They have a lot of money. They don't have too many people.

Still, I read that as successfull.

Oh no, I agree. Good on Qatar.

Yeah... but what they're NOT telling you is that nobody can get into the country without a "sponsor". And once you come IN for that sponsor, they have a massive amount of control over you. You can't work for anybody else. You can't leave without their permission. Even if they let you leave the country, they can forbid you coming back for YEARS. I'm not surprised they can keep the population down.

Maybe we should start doing that in the UK. Might control immigration a bit. Oh wait... that's pretty much a total breach of human rights. Maybe that's why they don't do it here.

Doh!

How poor is their human rights record exactly?
Want to give us some statistics?

Russia: fair enough, as an englishman i still genuinely think they were best choice

but Qatar? it'd be interesting to know what their reasoning was

its in the middle east - time zone issues with the world cups biggest audience: western europe
the country will have to cater for nearly half a million supporters wanting to go see their country play

it doesnt make sense to me

What timezone issues? Qatar is GMT +3, Western Europe stretches from GMT to GMT +2.
I don't see any "issue" with the timezone, really.

 

[ActivatorX]

I'm glad it didn't end up in England. We have better things to spend our public money on than a bunch of overpaid chimps running around for 90 minutes.

The money that is invested is probably returned with some profits.
Hotels, pubs, restaurants, airports, airlines, gift shops, souvenir shops, etc. Think of how much money all those put together.
Oh, and don't forget the match tickets.

 

[Mr Montmorency]

I'm glad it didn't end up in England. We have better things to spend our public money on than a bunch of overpaid chimps running around for 90 minutes.

The money that is invested is probably returned with some profits.
Hotels, pubs, restaurants, airports, airlines, gift shops, souvenir shops, etc. Think of how much money all those put together.
Oh, and don't forget the match tickets.

The problem with that is that people most likely aren't going to be very relaxed about their spending in this day and age. But I suppose that's making sense in the long term, but at the moment, it seems like such a waste of money that the period where it'll have to make it all back will probably be a serious fork in the road.