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Post by Macmoish on Jan 9, 2011 10:08:28 GMT
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Post by blueeyedcptcook on Jan 10, 2011 11:52:56 GMT
Tonight 8.30pm Perth time India play Australia in the Asian Cup. Board Members might recall the Indian Manager. He is Bob [Bobby] Houghton who played for Fulham, and later managered some of the smaller English clubs. His big claim to fame was to take Swedish club Malmo FF in 1979 to the final of the European Cup and were beaten 1-0 by Nottingham Forest. Mac he also managered in the US.
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 10, 2011 15:54:31 GMT
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Post by blueeyedcptcook on Jan 11, 2011 1:40:45 GMT
Did you not notice, two Indian men in the crowd both wearing a QPR shirt.  |
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 11, 2011 8:25:37 GMT
 Meanwhile interesting piece re Qatar have to do before 2022 TELEGRAPH
Qatar has 11 years to vindicate Fifa's strange decision to hand them 2022 World CupThe journey from Doha to Lusail, the city that will host the Qatar 2022 Fifa World Cup final, takes you on a short road to nowhere. By Paul Kelso in Doha Drive three miles north from the cluster of skyscrapers in Doha’s West Bay and the buildings give way to an expanse of desert being reclaimed by construction, the horizon broken only by cranes. Drive a further two miles on Tarmac pockmarked by an endless stream of construction traffic and the road stops altogether. Beyond the security barriers lies a vast site that in 11 years time will be a new conurbation, extending the Greater Doha area to a sprawl 25km across. At its heart, thanks to Fifa’s decision last month, will be the 86,000-seat Lusail Iconic Stadium. The only guide to what the city will look like is a billboard on the side of the road, featuring an artist’s impression of a verdant cityscape, palm trees and parks separating rows of elegant towers and residential complexes. It clearly predates Qatar’s sensational victory in Zurich as there is no stadium on the drawing. Perhaps someone will be along shortly to paint one in. If only the reality of delivering a World Cup in a desert city state were so straightforward. The dusty expanse where Lusail will one day stand encapsulates the challenge Qatar has accepted in bidding for the World Cup, and the monumental gamble Fifa’s executive committee has taken by choosing to come here. Plenty of successful World Cup bids have promised new stadiums, but this is the first one that needs to build the host city first. Why 14 Fifa executive committee members chose to vote for Qatar despite the manifest obstacles, and how they were persuaded, is a question yet to receive a satisfactory answer. Fifa being Fifa, it may never emerge, but now the tournament is committed to a peninsula, smaller than the Falkland Islands and hotter than Hawaii, the question Qatar would prefer us to concentrate on is, ‘Why not?’ Qatar’s supporters are prone to accuse their doubters of Eurocentrism, and blame scepticism on a failure to appreciate that the global centre of gravity in sport, as with much else, has shifted east. This ignores the fact that no one is questioning Qatar’s soaring ambition, simply the probity of the decision and its credibility as a host. There is much to admire during a week in Doha, but questions over what appeared a preposterous decision from a distance are not all allayed by a week on the ground. Qatar’s dynamism, resources and ambition are not in doubt, and no nation has punched higher above its sporting weight in landing football’s ultimate prize. The scale of the task is immense, however, and the appetite of the population for football unconvincing. Fifa provided a guide to the challenges in its own technical inspection, the most obvious of which was climate. Qatar campaigned to host in June and July, when, if the temperature reaches the seasonal average of 40C, it is illegal for labourers to work outside between 11am and 3pm. Fifa’s inspectors were sceptical, warning of a “health risk” and that the solution — solar-powered air-conditioning at stadiums and training sites – was unproven technology. That issue may be resolved by the apparently inevitable move to winter, but the challenge does not stop there. As well as one city and nine completely new stadiums, Qatar is committed to build a new airport, an entire public transport infrastructure from scratch including a metro and rail network, $20 billion-worth of new roads, a bridge to Bahrain, 54 team base camps, up to 32 training centres and half of the unspecified hotel itinerary required to accommodate spectators. All in a decade. “The significant construction work involved merits consideration,” wrote Fifa’s inspectors with considerable understatement. Even once the construction work is completed, delivering the tournament will be an unprecedented challenge. Qatar is proposing to host a World Cup in the space required for an Olympic Games, with 10 of the 12 stadiums clustered in a 25km radius. The alluring prospect of spectators watching three games a day could founder on basic logistics. Imagine fans attending successive games at the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and Wembley. The government insists all this is achievable, with many of the projects already planned as part of a development planned aimed at transforming the peninsula by 2030. Given Qatar’s natural gas resources and the evidence of the past decade, few doubt the infrastructure challenge will be met. The towers of central Doha have soared out of the desert in less than a decade, with more to come judging by the foundations excavated seemingly on every unoccupied block. Their rise has been accompanied by an investment in sport and culture that has earned Qatar a reputation as the most progressive and outward looking of Gulf states. The World Cup will take this political, economic and social experiment to another level entirely. The government’s commitment to sport is certainly genuine. The Aspire Academy, built for the 2006 Asian Games, is a world-class facility used by scores of leading European clubs. Bayern Munich trained there this week. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played in the ATP event in the city, and the 16-team Asia Cup began on Friday, Qatar’s biggest ever sport event. So far. Even Pakistan’s accused cricketers are having their case heard here. Given the planned transformation, the Asia Cup, using four modest stadiums, three of which will be transformed for the World Cup, provides only a limited guide to what to expect in 2022. It has offered an early warning of perhaps Qatar’s biggest challenge: the apparent indifference of the local population to football. There were 3,000 empty seats at the 40,000-capacity Al Khalifa Stadium for the opening, with many more vacated when a poor Qatar side went 2-0 down to Uzbekistan with 20 minutes remaining. Even with tickets ranging from £1 to £26, early matches not involving the hosts have been largely ignored by Qataris, and tickets were available for all games including the final yesterday. China v Kuwait officially attracted 7,423 (though my estimate would have put it at half that) with the majority of those supporters of the two sides. Japan’s draw with Jordan drew 6,255 in a 19,000-seat venue, though Syria v Saudi Arabia drew an impressive 15,700. Asia Cup veterans say these are good crowds for the tournament, but World Cup capacities start at 40,000. Plainly, building a football culture and a team worthy of a World Cup is just as challenging as constructing the venues. Of the 1.6million population just 300,000 are Qataris, a shallow pool from which to find a new generation of players and supporters. If Qatar cannot fill the stadiums, foreign fans will have to, but they will find the absence of street culture on the city’s six-lane boulevards. Doha’s Soukh Waqif, rebuilt twice in the past decade (first to make it look modern, then to make it look old again) is a charming exception, but it is one destination in a city that proposes to host fans of 32 nations. Anyone visiting today would find a hole in the heart of Doha where the new national convention centre is being built. In 2021 this will host the World Cup draw, and a year later it will be Fifa’s temporary home. Today it is screened from view by a huge banner sponsored by an oil company which reads: “Inspiring Qatar. The new global sports capital.” Five weeks ago that was an empty slogan. Qatar has 11 years to prove it has substance. www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/8249265/Qatar-has-11-years-to-vindicate-Fifas-strange-decision-to-hand-them-2022-World-Cup.html
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Post by Lonegunmen on Jan 11, 2011 10:43:31 GMT
.....Why 14 Fifa executive committee members chose to vote for Qatar despite the manifest obstacles, and how they were persuaded, is a question yet to receive a satisfactory answer......
Perhaps the brown envelopes had the biggest offer - allegedly....
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 12, 2011 17:25:52 GMT
Moving from a Summer 2022 World Cup in Qatar to a Winter World Cup spread through the Gulf?
(Sounds like "bait and switch" - Agreed on one thing; getting another)
BBC Gossip
Fifa vice-president Michel Platini wants Qatar to share hosting 2022 World Cup matches with its Arabian Gulf neighbours. "I hope it will be a World Cup of the Gulf," said the Frenchman. (Associated Press).
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 12, 2011 19:29:06 GMT
FT Qatar 2 (Red) China 0 !
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 13, 2011 9:58:35 GMT
And in greater detail from Michael Platini - Exemplifying famed Gallic cynicism "... Asked why such drastic changes could be considered when they were never mentioned during the bidding campaign, Platini added: "Who will remember the words in 12 years? In 12 years everybody will be happy to have a very well-organised World Cup and not remember what's happened before. "When I organised the World Cup in France we did [things] differently from what we proposed in the bid." BBC Uefa president Michel Platini proposes Gulf World Cup Uefa president Michel Platini has called for the 2022 World Cup to be played across the whole of the Gulf.Qatar won the right to host the 2022 tournament but the decision has not been without controversy with Fifa boss Sepp Blatter keen to hold it in winter. Neither proposal was suggested during the bidding process and Qatar have always maintained the tournament will only be held in the tiny Arab country. "I hope it will be a World Cup of the Gulf," said Platini on Wednesday. Qatar will be the first Arab and Muslim majority nation to host the tournament. It will also be the smallest and the hottest. The heat in summer can hit 43 degrees, which has led Fifa to suggest the idea of going against tradition and holding a winter World Cup. As well as concerns over the weather in Qatar, there are also worries about how the tiny country will cope with the thousands of spectators that will travel to the 2022 tournament. Qatar occupies a small peninsula that juts out into the southwest of the Gulf, bordering Saudi Arabia. It covers an area of 11,437 square kilometres (4,575 square miles). And this has now led to Platini to suggest spreading the hosting of the tournament to neighbouring Arab countries. However, the Qatar organising committee themselves see the size of their country as an advantage with fans not having to travel vast distances to see matches, with the possibility to also see more than one game in a day. "It could be the World Cup of Qatar but played in the Gulf," said the Frenchman, who is on the Fifa executive committee. "I think we need political people [for this to happen], but I think so." Asked why such drastic changes could be considered when they were never mentioned during the bidding campaign, Platini added: "Who will remember the words in 12 years? In 12 years everybody will be happy to have a very well-organised World Cup and not remember what's happened before. "When I organised the World Cup in France we did [things] differently from what we proposed in the bid." newsvote.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9359803.stm |
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 13, 2011 16:15:57 GMT
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? WCup in Qatar raises Olympic quandary-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.supersport.com/football/fifa-internationals/news/110113/WCup_in_Qatar_raises_Olympic_quandary13 January 2011, Fifa said on Thursday that talk of dates for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was "speculative," as suggestions of holding the event in winter raised the prospect of a clash with the Winter Olympics. The president of world football's governing body, Sepp Blatter, said last week that he expected that Qatar's cup would be held in the winter, after the emirate was controversially chosen for 2022 despite its searing summer heat. While that would represent a historic shift for the world's most popular sports event, the idea also brought about the possibility for the first time of a clash with the Winter Olympics, which is held in the same year. "There had never been any reference to a date," a Fifa spokesperson told AFP, while confirming that Blatter "expects that Qatar will be a winter World Cup." "What he stressed is that first the request must be made by the organising committee of Qatar," the spokesperson added, insisting that talk about more specific timing was "speculative" for now. Blatter has said the issue could be discussed at a Fifa executive committee meeting in March. "Given that both the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and FIFA distribute revenues across the global sport industry, there is a need to ensure that a winter world cup does not negatively impact on the ability to generate revenues," said Geoff Walters, of the Birbeck Sports Business Centre at London University. While it was bidding, Qatar outlined high tech and innovative plans for cooled stadiums for the World Cup. Its organisers showed little sign of preparing to stage the event in the cooler winter climate in the Gulf. So far, the Winter Olympics, which are staged every four years, have been held in the northern hemisphere during the coldest or most snowbound period around February. The International Olympic Committee will choose a host for 2022 in four years' time. "If it was decided that the World Cup will take place in the winter months of 2022 then Fifa will have to work with the IOC in order to avoid a clash," Walters explained. "There are a number of key stakeholders that such a clash could impact on, including the broadcasters and sponsors." Any impact on TV audiences would make them "less inclined to pay the substantial sums involved in televising and being associated with the events leading to a reduction in revenue," he added. Both the Winter Olympics and World Cup command big television audiences, rights and sponsorship deals, some of which have only just been sealed or are in the course of being negotiated. The IOC was holding a regular executive board meeting on Thursday for the first time since FIFA's president -- who is also an IOC member -- made his suggestion. © Backpagepix |
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 14, 2011 7:00:43 GMT
This was in yesterday's Wall Street Journal - What Qatar Spent - and on what - to get the World Cup By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
.Qatar's World Cup Spending SpreeQatar's winning bid to hold the 2022 World Cup was marked by a spending spree that included investments in the home countries of several executives who were responsible for choosing the host nation, according to internal documents from the emirate's bidding committee. The spending sheds light on how FIFA regulations—outlined in the two-page rules of conduct for World Cup host-nation bidding—left the door open for hopefuls to open wallets to exert indirect influence on international soccer's small circle of decision-makers. Qatar also paid soccer-world luminaries—hailing from France, Spain, Argentina and elsewhere— who publicly endorsed its bid, according to Qatar bid committee documents and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some were paid more than a million dollars in connection with the endorsements, said a person familiar with the situation. View Full Image Agence France-Presse/Getty Images A girl celebrates after the Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup in December. .The documents don't show that Qatar violated the rules set down for World Cup host-nation bidding by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, which in December chose host nations for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Rather, they highlight how Qatar worked within FIFA's broad guidelines to win what was initially seen as a quixotic quest to host international soccer's marquee event. FIFA bidding rules bar prospective host nations from promising favors or gifts to FIFA executives or their representatives. But the rules don't address whether would-be hosts can invest in the home countries of these executives, who, using secret balloting, determine the host of what is arguably the world's most lucrative sporting event. FIFA's decision to award the World Cup to Qatar capped a scandal-plagued campaign that included allegations that the Qatar committee and Spain-Portugal's 2018 bid committee colluded to trade support from Africa for support from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries for the committees' respective bid years. The committees said the allegations weren't true. FIFA's ethics body didn't punish the bid committees, saying it didn't find sufficient grounds to warrant punishment. An official speaking on behalf of the Qatar bid committee and its chairman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad al-Thani of the Qatar royal family, said Qatar did nothing wrong throughout the bid process. A FIFA representative said its regulations ensured a fair and ethical competition. "FIFA has established clear rules of conduct for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process, which are also public and available on FIFA.com," the body said in a statement. "The bidding process has been supervised by FIFA's Ethics Committee since the beginning and this Committee acted whenever necessary." View Full Image .Qatar bid-committee documents outlined how the emirate expanded the activities of a Qatar-based soccer-training academy—Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence, also controlled by the Qatar royal family—into a total of 15 countries world-wide. One bid-committee document from 2009 states plans to expand grass-roots soccer training in Nigeria and to "build a football academy in Thailand emulating the Aspire Football Dreams Academy in Senegal." Both Thailand and Nigeria had representatives on FIFA's executive committee who, at the time the document was produced, could provide Qatar with two of the 13 votes it would need on Dec. 2, 2010, to secure hosting rights. Thailand is home to executive committee member Worawi Makudi. According to people familiar with the FIFA's secret balloting, Mr. Makudi voted for Qatar in the final round. In keeping with FIFA's rules on confidentiality, Mr. Makudi declined to confirm which country received his vote, but said it had nothing to do with the Thailand Football Dreams program referred to in Qatar's bid documents. "I don't know about this" Qatari plan to build an academy in Thailand, he said in an interview in late December, adding that Asian countries often send their best players to Qatar to train. "There is no deal about it at all." According to the Qatar documents, in 2009, Aspire continued its work in 10 African countries through the Football Dreams program, three of which—Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Nigeria—were home to executive committee members. Executive committee members from Ivory Coast and Cameroon didn't return messages seeking comment. The Nigerian executive declined to comment. In all, six of the 15 countries singled out by Qatar for Aspire expansion—or 40%—were home to FIFA executives. Internationally, by comparison, FIFA's two dozen executive committee members account for about 12% of its 208 member associations. Qatar says programs have been held in the countries discussed. The Thailand academy has yet to be built. In a statement, Phil Hall, chairman of a London-based PHA Media, which is representing Qatar2022, said the group is proud of Aspire's academies and programs across the world. "Inevitably some are in countries which are the home of executive committee members and many are not," he said. "At no time were they established to secure votes." Many in the international soccer community were dubious that FIFA would bring its flagship event to Qatar, which has an average summertime high temperature of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and needed an estimated $50 billion in new infrastructure to host the event. Qatar's victory was criticized by Australian, U.K. and U.S. officials, whose bids for 2018 or 2022 were rejected though all received stronger scores for their technical or financial attributes from FIFA consultants. Qatar officials say the criticism is a result of misconceptions and prejudices against the Middle East. FIFA has said bringing the World Cup to new lands is central to its mission to expand soccer internationally. Last week, FIFA President Joseph "Sepp" Blatter said due to the extreme temperatures he expects the 2022 tournament to be held in the winter, breaking with the 90-year tradition of holding the cup during international soccer's traditional off-season. Confidential Qatar committee bid documents reviewed by the Journal also show that on one occasion, Qatar bid officials and their advisers discussed circumventing a FIFA request, made in a letter to bid committees, not to hold high-profile events during the FIFA World Cup. In a Jan. 4, 2010, strategy meeting, several top bidding committee executives discussed the need to improve Qatar's standing within the world soccer community by helping South Africa's poor during the 2010 World Cup there. "If FIFA regulations prevent these initiatives then a way has to be found to do these under a different name (e.g. through the embassy or as the State of Qatar)," minutes from the meeting state. Qatar2022 spokesman Mr. Hall described the minutes as "an expression of strategic thought" and denied the committee attempted to circumvent FIFA rules. "We did not want the projects we planned to support to suffer because they may have been thought to be in contravention of FIFA rules," Mr. Hall said in a statement. "We subsequently concluded that any help from any Qatar organization could be misconstrued and they were NOT followed through." FIFA regulations don't limit how much prospective bidders can spend. But a 2010 budget document reviewed by the Journal shows Qatar's bid committee had budgeted $43.3 million for marketing and event-related spending for that single year, a figure that hadn't previously been made public. Qatar declined to disclose its total expenditure for the bid. By comparison, the Australian government, which financed that country's effort, put its overall tab at $45 million for two years. U.S. bid officials said their campaign cost about $10 million, not counting in-kind contributions for such items as legal services and office space. A spokesman for Russia's successful 2018 bid said the country spent about $30 million, half from private sources and half from the government. Watch Qatar's ad for the country's bid to host the soccer World Cup in 2022. .To talk up Qatar's quest, the nation hired an international slate of "bid ambassadors," including French star Zinedine Zidane, according to bid-committee documents. These endorsements were important, FIFA officials say, because they helped Qatar establish its legitimacy within FIFA and connections to executive committee members. The FIFA rules on cup bidding don't address such payments. The U.S. and U.K. bid committees said they didn't pay celebrities who endorsed or worked on behalf of their bids. A 2009 document called "Scope of Work for Zinedine Zidane," one of several similar ambassador documents reviewed by the Journal, proposed paying Mr. Zidane €900,000 ($1.17 million) for a series of appearances and €5,000 for each interview. Mr. Zidane received $3 million in all for his endorsement, a person familiar with the Qatar bid said. In Qatar's public bid brochure, published last year, Mr. Zidane is quoted saying that what the youth of the Middle East are missing "is an event like the World Cup." Mr. Zidane couldn't be reached for comment through several representatives. A spokesman for Qatar said: "These were confidential arrangements and thus I am unable to comment except to say the figures do not accurately reflect what our ambassadors were paid." —Wilawan Watcharasakwet in Bangkok contributed to this article. Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203513204576047681613086452.html |
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 14, 2011 7:06:12 GMT
And Qatar don't want a Winter World Cup! INDEPENDENT
Blatter isolated as Qatar choice comes back to haunt Fifa
Emirate's refusal to consider winter switch for 2022 World Cup finals threatens to divide governing body By Sam Wallace, Football Correspondent The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, was facing meltdown in his organisation last night after Qatar, the tiny emirate controversially chosen by football's world governing body to host the 2022 World Cup finals, rejected Fifa's proposals to switch the tournament to the winter.
In a move designed to cause the maximum embarrassment to Blatter, Mohammed Bin Hammam, the Qatari representative in Fifa's all-powerful executive committee (ExCo), also dismissed recent suggestions from his fellow ExCo member Michel Platini that the 2022 tournament should be spread around Gulf states.Blatter had hoped to see off some of the public backlash to the decision last month to award Qatar the 2022 finals by switching the tournament to the cooler month of January – but in light of Bin Hammam's comments it would appear that Fifa has no option but to stage the tournament in temperatures of 50C-plus. Related articles Sam Wallace: Final proof that governing body is not fit for purpose James Lawton: A desert storm of the disingenuous cannot hide Platini's howling error Search the news archive for more stories Having explored ways of extricating themselves from the embarrassment of staging a World Cup in desert heat, Blatter and the Uefa president Platini now look damaged and isolated on the world stage. In the febrile political atmosphere of Fifa, Blatter, its 74-year-old president who will stand for re-election for a fifth term in April, in particular looks vulnerable. In a further attack on Blatter's fitness to lead Fifa, Bin Hammam, who will challenge for the Fifa presidency in April, admitted that the organisation was out-dated and lacking in transparency. This is exactly the kind of criticism that has been levelled at it from outside since the vote for the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals on 2 December. Bin Hammam told Sky News: "I think we [Fifa] need to be more open to the people, more transparent. A lot of things could be done. Maybe the actual administration can do that, they have to commit themselves to doing that. The structure is not helpful or useful for our world." Also very telling was Blatter's ignorance of Bin Hammam's position – which was made clear by the views expressed by the Fifa president in an interview with CNN's World Sport yesterday, his first major one in English since the 2022 decision. It was evident from Blatter's claim that the likelihood of staging the Qatar tournament in the winter "is definitely over 50 per cent" that he had no notion of Bin Hammam's stance. The hard-line position of Bin Hammam means that the only way in which Fifa can now avoid the tournament being played in the sweltering temperatures of a Qatari summer would be to make a monumental U-turn and take the finals away. As Blatter himself admitted, the prerogative to change the dates of the tournament rests with the host nation – it cannot be imposed by the ExCo. The suggestion from Uefa president Platini that the 2022 World Cup be played all around the Gulf states – further evidence that Fifa is simply making up the rules as it goes along – was rejected by Bin Hammam. The president of the Asian football confederation thinks that the ad hoc nature of Fifa's major alterations to the staging of a World Cup were not acceptable. Bin Hammam said: "I believe Qatar can stand alone and organise the competition by itself and I'm really not very impressed by these opinions to distribute the game over the Gulf or change the time from July to January." He added later: "We submitted a bid suggesting we are going to be ready in June, July. And we said we are going to face all the challenges and we are going to meet all the requirements. Our focus is June, July. It is never our interest to change one week beyond June, July. "I know, from the bottom of my heart, there are a lot of stakeholders who should be consulted [and] their views brought to the table. It's not up to one, two or three members of Fifa to talk about changing the time without getting the real stakeholders' opinions." He added: "We will not [change our minds]. We are not interested. We are very happy and we are promising the world that we are going to organise an amazing World Cup in June and July. And even here in Qatar that is going to be a perfect welcome." Breaking the usual code of silence among the ExCo members, who currently number 22, Bin Hammam discussed the perception of corruption within the organisation, admitting that "people are seeing us [sic] that way". He hinted at an independent regulator – "there must be [something] that people can really measure us on" so that "people see us from [the] inside". Meanwhile, in the interview Blatter gave to Pedro Pinto of CNN, the Fifa president was blissfully unaware of Bin Hammam's frame of mind. Blatter, so rarely outmanoeuvred, claimed that "the final decision has not yet been taken" on whether 2022 would be switched to the winter. He said: "It would be unfair to the players to play in summer when there is a possibility to play in winter." It also emerged yesterday that the two ExCo members suspended over corruption charges relating to The Sunday Times investigation – Reynald Temarii (Tahiti) and Amos Adamu (Nigeria) – are appealing against their sentences. www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/blatter-isolated-as-qatar-choice-comes-back-to-haunt-fifa-2184072.html |
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Post by saphilip on Jan 14, 2011 11:04:46 GMT
I just read "Foul" - THAT book about FIFA- the other day. After reading that, and seeing what happened in SA, no further explanation was required about why Russia & Qatar were handed the rights to host the WC.
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Post by klr on Jan 14, 2011 14:16:30 GMT
I think even our own ex Italy & Juventus legend would be thrown out of FIFA for being too honest!
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Post by Zamoraaaah on Jan 14, 2011 14:21:16 GMT
I think even our own ex Italy & Juventus legend would be thrown out of FIFA for being too honest! Not before checking the silverware. Mohammed Bin Hammam's comments are very interesting. |
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 16, 2011 7:51:15 GMT
Observer/Paul Wilson
Qatar takes on Sepp Blatter in World Cup battle it cannot win
Gulf state plays the good guy in resisting Fifa's wish for a winter tournament, but do not expect a fair fight
Qatar, quite clearly, will be a dreadful place to host the 2022 World Cup and the decision to award the tournament to such an unsuitable and undeserving non-football nation said more about Fifa's warped priorities than any amount of after-the-event English carping about the 2018 vote going Russia's way. That said, one can only admire Mohamed Bin Hammam and the Qatari Football Association for their refusal to let Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini kick sand in their faces. Bin Hammam has just told Blatter he can forget about switching the 2022 event to winter and was even more scathing about Platini's insulting suggestion that Qatar could share its World Cup with other Gulf states. Imagine if England had won its bid and then been told before the celebrations had died down that it might have to farm out a few games to Holland and France. Qatar won the vote fair and square – it must have done because Fifa said so – and now has the right to organise its own tournament as it wishes. If the summer temperatures will embarrass anyone who cares about the welfare of footballers or the standard of games, Fifa's executive committee should have thought about that in the first place. If Qatar is too small and restrictive to do full justice to the world's biggest football tournament, one would have thought the matter might have been noticed in the years of campaigning that led up to the vote, not a month or so afterwards. The 2022 event is rapidly turning into a fiasco that can only bring even greater embarrassment for Fifa, which is why everyone is siding with the president of the Asian federation and enjoying the discomfort of Blatter and Platini. Because neither of those administrators could resist twisting the knife after England had lost the 2018 vote. Rather than admit their voting process might be flawed or the terms of engagement somewhat unclear, both preferred to depict the English as bad losers, for having the ill grace to grumble when a fair vote went against them. Now Blatter and Platini are doing exactly the same thing, seeking to amend after a vote what should have been clearly established before it and Qatar is having none of it. Even people with no previous knowledge of Qatari football – that is, 99.9% of the world's population and most of Qatar – are cheering for Bin Hammam as though he were the new Pelé. While Fifa's version of Sons of the Desert is not quite as funny as Laurel and Hardy's, it has certainly gotten them into another fine mess. Three outcomes now seem possible. Either Fifa graciously back down and the 2022 tournament goes ahead in the Qatari summer. A moral victory for the host nation but bad news for football, even if this was the formula that all Fifa's eminences actually voted for. Alternatively, Fifa could get tough, admit a mistake and take the tournament somewhere else. There would be severe legal and financial consequences and Fifa's reputation as honest brokers and trusted guardians of the game would never survive, but that may not be the worst of developments. At least we might have a chance of a decent tournament. More likely, given that the tournament is still 11 years away, some sort of compromise will be hammered out and the event moved a few months forward. Fifa may have copped a bloody nose or two in the skirmishes of the past week, but Blatter knows how to play the long game. All he needs to do is get re-elected for a fifth time in April, maybe by making a concession or two on goalline technology, then he can deal with the pesky Qataris at his leisure. The only problem is that everyone's favourite pesky Qatari, Bin Hammam, will be standing against him for the Fifa presidency, arguing that the organisation needs to update itself and become more transparent. It is hard to know whom to support in this fight. Right is on Bin Hammam's side, right up to the point where he insists on a summer World Cup in Qatar. Everyone would like to see Blatter get a kicking, but then everyone would like to see World Cups shared fairly around football nations and not hived off to petrodollar economies that immediately encounter difficulties. Just don't forget this is Fifa. There's no point expecting a fair fight or for the good guy to win. What is about to happen has probably happened already and only the terminally naive build up the same hopes twice. www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jan/16/sepp-blatter-qatar-world-cup
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 18, 2011 7:35:15 GMT
Lawrence Donegan/Guardian
All that oil money only fuels more doubts over Qatar
Qatar's bid won over Fifa but it would take billions to convince the public that a desert World Cup is a good thingMoney can't buy everything. This isn't an original proposition although proof of it sometimes comes in the most unexpected ways. Take the newly-minted revelation, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, that Qatar set aside £26.5m for PR and marketing last year as it sought to persuade Fifa that the 2022 World Cup should be staged in a desert nation the size of Glasgow. With oil heading towards $100-a-barrel and 15 billion barrels still underground waiting to be welled, that sum of money probably sounds like armchair shrapnel to a member of the Qatari ruling elite. But it's not. It is, for instance, four times the amount spent by United States on its competing bid. Australia spent a reported £25m chasing the 2022 dream – again, on its entire bid. Meanwhile, back in the cheap seats, England's two-year long, headless-chicken themed effort clocked in at £15m. The corollary is obvious, or at least it is to the cynics and the losers who have spent the weeks since the 2022 decision complaining the competition was not judged entirely on merit. Naivety is always welcome in the corridors of power but, really – it was a Fifa bidding process. What else did they expect? Likewise, confirmation of Qatar's outlandish spending has also been seized upon as proof that the World Cup was "bought" when in fact all it proves is Qatar got terrible value for its £26.5m. Marketing and PR campaigns are supposed to persuade and convince a broad audience. They are supposed to build momentum, to turn "why?" into "why not?". On the eve of Fifa's decision there were murmurings Qatar might be coming up on the rails. It is the measure how little impact its money had made that even then no one outside the black-hearted bubble of Fifa politics took the idea of a desert World Cup seriously. It is this dissonance between broader expectation and the eventual outcome of the Zurich vote that has fuelled the worldwide cynicism now engulfing Fifa's showcase event, and has Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini scuttling around trying to restore its credibility. How about a January World Cup? How about a "Gulf-wide" World Cup? Qatar will have none of it, dismissing both ideas in recent days, and why should they? Under the terms and conditions of Fifa's bidding rules (such that they are) they won. Case closed. As for the money they spent trying, and failing, to persuade a broader audience (as opposed to a narrow Fifa electorate), at least it is being put to use now as an army of marketing and PR men attempts to explain away revelations contained in Qatar's own bid documents. Is it really true that when the Emirate invested heavily in academies sited in the home nations of Fifa executive committee members via its Football Dream initiative – six of the 15 countries singled out for help by Qatar (40%) were countries of Fifa execs, when executive committee members account for fewer than 12% of Fifa's 208 member associations? "Inevitably some are in countries which are the home of committee members and many are not," a Qatar spokesman told the WSJ. "At no time were they established to secure votes." And what of the minutes showing how Qatari officials discussed circumventing a Fifa directive telling bid countries they should not stage lobbying events during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? "An expression of strategic thought," said a spokesman. "It did not happen." As for an offer to finance the relocation of the Asian Football Confederation to Qatar, lock, stock and, in the words of the documents, "a large-sized BMW" for the AFC president: "We understand the AFC discussed the possibility of a move of its headquarters to Doha but this was rejected." It is also suggested the Qatari-owned television network Al Jazeera could bail out the financially-stricken Argentinian Football Association by buying television rights. "It is true that our client carried out detailed due diligence on the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, however, our client did not adopt or proceed with any steps to intervene in or assist with the financial position of it," lawyers for the Qatar bid told the Telegraph. And so on, and on, and on until we return inevitably to the formulation that seems destined to echo down the years. "The Qatar bid played within the rules laid down by Fifa at all times," a spokesman for the bid said. Maybe so but until someone explains how the 2022 World Cup ended up in the desert when the case against it was, and continues to be, so lacking in credibility and public support, then all in the oil money in Qatar won't make the cynicism and the suspicion disappear. www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jan/18/qatar-2022-world-cup-fifa
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Post by Macmoish on Jan 20, 2011 16:23:19 GMT
For what it's worth. A little less concrete than the headline www.iol.co.za/sport/soccer/cup-competitions/fifa-rule-out-winter-qatar-wc-1.1014756 Fifa rule out winter Qatar WCJanuary 20 2011 at 05:59pm Fifa say they will not move the Qatar World Cup to January unless the countrys FA puts in a request, which they too have ruled out.Berne – Fifa have quashed talk of a winter World Cup in 2022, saying they have no plans to change the international calendar and that any switch of dates would have to be proposed by the Qatari hosts. Qatar also said they were going ahead with organising the tournament in the summer as presented in their bid. “Any potential move of the 2022 Fifa World Cup from a summer to a winter period would have to be initiated by the football association of Qatar and would have to be presented to the Fifa Executive Committee,” Fifa said in a statement. “At this stage there are no concrete plans to change the international match calendar.” The statement appeared to mark a U-turn by soccer's governing body as Fifa president Sepp Blatter said this month that he expected the tournament to be staged in the winter. Blatter's comments echoed those of other leading figures including Uefa president Michel Platini, who even suggested that Qatar could co-host the event with some of their neighbours. But Mohammed Bin Hammam, the Qatari president of the Asian Football Confederation, said the 2022 World Cup hosts would continue to prepare for a summer tournament. “We submitted a bid for the World Cup to be played in the summer and any other opinion should be discussed among all the stakeholders – Fifa, national associations, players, leagues and clubs,” he said. “Our bid is for June-July and we are going to organise the World Cup for June-July unless the other stakeholders have different opinions. I'm not opposing or proposing to move it.” Bin Hammam said it was important now to focus on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. “It is quite strange actually the World Cup in Brazil is just three years away and nobody is speaking about it which is actually quite uncomfortable to me,” he said. Blatter's comment led to suggestions that Fifa was effectively changing the rules as the contest for the 2022 World Cup, in which Qatar beat Australia, the United States, Japan and South Korea, was based around a June-July tournament. U.S. media called for the bid process to be held again if the tournament was moved. Qatar have insisted that the fierce summer heat will not be a problem as all their stadiums will be air-conditioned but this has failed to allay fears about the weather. Philipp Lahm, who captained Germany at last year's World Cup, said it would be “madness” to stage a summer World Cup in the Middle East and Fifa's inspection team said conditions were a potential health hazard to players and supporters. Fifa executive committee member Chuck Blazer, who represents the U.S., told Reuters that switching the event to winter may take 10 weeks out of the international club season and would “upset the entire football world”. – Reuters |
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Post by Jon Doeman on Jan 20, 2011 17:12:09 GMT
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Post by londonranger on Jan 20, 2011 19:22:37 GMT
Why do I get cattarh when I read about qatar??   |
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