by laza » Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:37 am
This article from Australian football site which also highlights the need for Blatter to fend off Asian Football chairman from his FIFA post
Jesse Fink
Like many of you, I’m still trying to process exactly what happened in Zurich in the early hours of the morning. I thought about going back to bed, but couldn’t sleep. My head was whirring with thoughts. It still is.
Direct from the Messehalle where the decision was made, a friend of mine very high up in the England bid sent me a message at about 3am: “I’m sitting in a corner. There will be many questions.”
There will. About how England finished dead last in the voting for 2018. About how Australia finished dead last in the voting for 2022. About how the results were allegedly known an hour before the announcement.
About how the biggest country in the world, Russia, won 2018 in a canter. Do travelling distances matter a jot?
About how Qatar, one of the smallest countries on earth with a climate as conducive to football as Dante’s inferno, could trump the might of the United States in the face-off for 2022.
The plain unvarnished truth is there had to be three winners in Zurich. The third winner was FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last week for the AFC Annual Awards and all the furtive talk was that Asian Football Confederation chief Mohamed bin Hammam was readying himself to challenge Blatter for the FIFA presidency if Qatar did not win 2022.
Hammam, an iron-willed political operator, is not a man to be underestimated.
Though an awful orator, he doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to making friends or maintaining his networks.
He was meeting suspended Oceania Football Confederation president and FIFA executive committee member Reynald Temarii in a hotel room in KL just before the vote. (Oh to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.)
Days later he came out and supported Temarii’s decision to stick with his appeal against his one-year ban from all football-related activity and not allow his deputy, David Chung, to represent the OFC in the ballot. Convenient.
What happened in Zurich? The vote came down to a tussle between Qatar and USA, Qatar winning in the fourth round, 14 votes to eight. An easy win for the tiny Middle East emirate.
Qatar’s victory gives Blatter a reprieve. Unfettered passage to a fourth term as FIFA boss.
Hammam, triumphant, stays as AFC chief for now with the glory of winning the World Cup to keep in check his ambitions.
Now some people will buy the legacy argument. Some people will swallow the nice words about bringing peace to the Middle East. Some people will believe these two decisions are about taking football to new frontiers and making history. That’s their prerogative.
But I don’t.
The Russian and Qatari World Cups came about because of influence and money. Because of backroom deals and strategic alliances. Because of the need of some very rich and formidable men to shore up their own power bases and extend their political lives.
Do fans really matter? It would appear not.
In my opinion Belgium/Netherlands, Spain/Portugal, England, Japan, Australia, South Korea and the United States would all have delivered better experiences for the football fans of the world than Russia and Qatar.
If they don’t die travelling by plane in Russia they’ll perish in the heat trying to find a drink in Qatar.
I have no doubt the pair can deliver on what they are promising (and to Qatar’s credit I think their final pitch was absolutely perfect while ours was a clichéd, anachronistic mess – Phillip Noyce was totally owned by fellow Aussie Derin Seale).
But let’s not mince words: our collective faith in the integrity of the World Cup bidding process has been damaged by the events in Zurich and the good name of football has taken a hit.
As my gutted English friend said, there will be many questions.
Right now, like most of the world, I have no answers. Only whirring thoughts.
Forever Red in this life and the next