Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Qatar And The 2022 World Cup Bid

(Originally published as my 1st post as author of The Brotherly Game.  Due to pure unadulterated laziness (and possible violations of copyright law), the captioned picture I posted at TBG is not posted here.  Click on the above TBG link if you want to see it)

As soccer fans in the United States of America, we probably all remember where we were when we found out that after years of anticipation and hard work, the United States had lost their 2022 World Cup bid to a country smaller than the 48th largest state in the United States, Connecticut.  I also think we all remember how we felt when the announcement was made.  It probably is not far-fetched to say that some kind of combination of shock, anger, and disappointment dominated our feelings.  And with good reason too.

Qatar is a nation that has known issues with Israel, a possible qualifier for the 2022 World Cup.  Qatar is a nation that prohibits the drinking of alcohol, something that may cause kind of a problem when dealing with the loads of soccer fans that are sure to swarm the country.

Qatar may be a very wealthy country, but its location also has problems.  The average temperature high in Doha, Qatar, the capital and largest city of Qatar (large being a relative term, seeing as the population of the entire country is 840,926 according to the CIA World Factbook), in June is 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41 Celcius).  And with Doha being located near the coast, humidity is sure to kick in.  Now to combat this, Qatar plans on building air conditioned stadiums using technology that has not been invented yet.  For the health and safety of the players, hopefully that technology gets invented real soon.



I mentioned anger above, and frankly there are multiple things to be angry at here.  For starters, there are accusations of corruption running rampant amongst American soccer fans.  And while conclusions should not be immediately jumped to, the voting patterns are worth an examination.  From Fanhouse.

Round 1: Australia 1, Japan 3, South Korea 4, Qatar 11, USA 3 (Australia eliminated).

Round 2: Japan 2, South Korea 5, Qatar 10, USA 5 (Japan eliminated).

Round 3: South Korea 5, Qatar 11, USA 6 (South Korea eliminated).

Round 4: Qatar 14, USA 8 (Qatar wins).
In the first round of voting, the USA received the same number of votes as Japan and one less vote than Korea, two countries who hosted the World Cup in 2002 and were never odds on favorites to win it in 2022.  Perhaps most interestingly of all, Qatar lost a vote in the 2nd round, only to seemingly get it back in the 3rd round.   You can never discount the fact that someone may be ultra scatter-brained and had not made up their mind and instead went back and forth on voting, but doesn't it seem a little suspicious, at least from an outside perspective?  FIFA swears on their life that it is not corrupt, but two oil rich countries were just awarded a World Cup where there is work to do to be ready.  And this will be off the heals of a World Cup in South Africa where two schools were bulldozed in order to make room for a stadium in Nelspruit and off the heals of a World Cup in Brazil which is already way behind schedule.  All the while, FIFA could have given the 2022 World Cup to the United States or Australia, two countries where the work needed to be done to host the World Cup would have been quite minimal, at least in comparison to the amount needed in Qatar.  And after the work they put forth for South Africa and Brazil, and the improvements that need to be made in Russia, who would have blamed them for giving it to the United States, a nation with the facilities and the stadiums to host the World Cup tomorrow if need be.

But while people have every right to be angry, upset, and disappointed with this decision, there are reasons to back away from the cliff, so to speak.  For all the talk about the size of Qatar, it is easily ignored that the United States is one of the largest countries in the world and that in comparison, other countries that we would consider viable alternatives are still relatively small.  For example, England is only about the size of Louisiana.  As much as we wanted this World Cup and believed we would get it considering the competition, there was reason to believe that it would not have happened.  The United States would have been only the fifth nation to host the World Cup twice, with the other fpur being Italy, Germany, France, and Brazil.  Of those nations, the one whose wait period between World Cups was the shortest was Germany with a 32-year wait period.  Had the United States won 2022, they would have been hosting it with only a wait period of 28 years, 4 years shorter than Germany's wait period.  And while Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil are all soccer powers that have won a World Cup, the United States, while improving slowly but surely, is not a world soccer power and have never won a World Cup.

There is hope for the future, though.  With 2018 going to Russia and 2022 going to Qatar, the United States will be in a good position to reap the benefits of 2026.  There are going to be plenty of obstacles, but the United States Soccer Federation has to be looking at 2026 with wide eyes and saying that is their time.  Assuming things don't change (and that is a huge assumption; especially seeing in just the past four years Australia jumped from the Oceanic Football Confederation to the Asian Football Confederation), the Asian Football Confederation will be ineligible to host the 2026 World Cup, meaning that China, a once speculative favorite for 2026, is ineligible.  Also ineligible:  Japan and South Korea, both of whom also want back in on the World Cup, and Australia, a nation that would not have surprised many people had it won the hosting rights for 2022.  Given the fact that Europe would have just hosted the 2018 World Cup, it may not get a serious look along with other European nations.  That would essentially leave the USA competing against African nations and South American nations as nations with realistic shots of getting it.  As much as we liked our chances for 2022, I think our chances may be even greater in 2026.  Plus, four more years of time since the 1994 World Cup and the continued expansion and improvement of Major League Soccer should only serve to help matters.

USA for the 2026 World Cup, anyone?

6 comments:

  1. I appreciate your post and as a fellow American I was disappointed when the U.S. didn't win. However, I'm not so sure we all have to assume Qatar did something inappropriate to win and I felt your article seemed to be unaware of some facts from Qatar's bid:
    * Re: Israel, Qatar's bid ceo was asked that question in the post announcement press conf. and answered that all qualifying teams will be welcome in Qatar, including Israel, and will all be treated the same and extended the same courtesies.
    * Drinking of alcohol is not prohibited in Qatar. Presently, it is only available at most of the higher end hotels but in their bid book, Qatar commits to create large "fan zones" where basically anything goes including alcohol and the less appealing behaviors that go with it. It may not be a perfect solution but if you want to party, you will be able to do so. This has been pretty widely reported.
    * The cooling technology to cool the stadiums, fan areas and practics grounds is already developed and Qatar has one stadium employing the technology. They demonstrated the technology to the FIFA site visitation team and reports were FIFA was satisfied with the technology but did still go ahead and issue a warning in the site report about the temperatures that could be dangerous to the health of players and fans.
    * Qatar makes most of their considerable wealth from natural gas, not oil so it is not entirely accurate to identify them as an oil-rich nation.
    * It is true the U.S. is pretty much ready today to host a world cup with little construction needed and is a guranteed commercial success for FIFA (read extremely profitable). These are strong and irrefutable points in favor of the U.S. bid. However, what Qatar sold FIFA on that the U.S. can't offer is that a first-ever world cup in the middle east has aspirations the go beyond the game of football. They painted a vision of a different middle east because of football and FIFA bought into it.
    * As much as I loved the all star team making the final presentation for the U.S. -- President Clinton, Morgan Freeman and Landon Donovan it was pretty much a bomb, listing from side to side with no real point or message (most media coverage seems to agree with this view). Qatar's in contrast was woven together pretty well with a consistent message and did a competent job of pulling at the emotions. I know the final presentations likely do not win or lose the votes but if they were emblematic of the passion from the two bids it was not hard to see who seemed to want it worse.
    * I would also suggest that the success of the South African Cup this summer may have emboldened FIFA to consider new lands where they can extend the game (i.e. Russia and Qatar). The middle east is currently the fastest growing region of the world for football I believe.
    * Lastly, Qatar's facebook fan page had 1/2 a million fans...the U.S. just 70 million. Not a big deal but does seem to me like Qatar's bid seemed to have wide appeal and support from the region.

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  2. Outside of the fact of stadiums needing to be built, very little similarities exist between Qatar and South Africa. Qatar is a very wealthy nation, South Africa is for the most part quite the opposite. The Middle East is a new land, but this is a completely different project. Also, I would argue that the success of South Africa has been overblown ad nauseum. There were some colossal failures on FIFA's part, including the destruction of schools for the Nelspruit stadium mentioned above. Any sporting project that needs to bulldoze 2 schools is not a success no matter how you look at it. Sure it was beautiful during the time and no one of note was seriously injured or died, but the definition of success should stretch far beyond outer beauty. South Africa is now stuck with a bunch of now rarely used stadiums, one of which the conditions of would have disgusted most high school soccer stadiums by the time the World Cup ended (read: Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth). There were successful aspects of South Africa 2010, no doubt, but the overall success is overblown, as there were some failures that cannot be ignored.

    By 2022 there should be no warnings or concerns from FIFA on the about the dangers of the temperature to players and fans at the staduim. Like I said, technology that has not been invented yet. If you think I should have put "successfully," it really is just an argument over semantics then.

    We are absolutely sure Israel will be welcomed in Qatar, and not be forced to play their games in a made-for-Israel venue to be built in the deserts of Oman? They will welcome them because FIFA will make them should Israel qualify, but that does not mean everything is guaranteed to be a big group hug between the teams and the fans.

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  3. Is it safe to say that since Justin could only argue against the South Africa part, and make a joke about the Israel part, that Justin was just qatar'd up on his first ever TBG post by someone that (obviously) knows much more about the topic? I think so. BTW, that was hilarious that you called qatar an "oil-rich nation." I guess stereotyping is easier than research.

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  4. @ Strength: Thanks for your extremely well-intentioned comment that added so much to this conversation. I may also commend you on how you completely skipped over where I responded to his compliments about the heating system. Job well done, sir. Also, you may note that my "joke" was actually snark intended to make a point, a point you obviously did not get.

    "Oil rich nation" meaning a country that got rich through oil. Natural gas may be a bigger export now, but a basic research of the history of Qatar reveals that the natural gas was not discovered until 1971, whereas the oil was discovered all the way back in 1940. Hence, Qatar is an "oil rich nation." And guess what, oil is still a major export of Qatar today.

    If you are going to needlessly pile on, make sure that you have your facts straight next time. kthxbye

    Sources

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/qa.html

    http://www.companiesinqatar.com/Companies/natural-gas.html

    http://www.geoexpro.com/history/qatardiscoveries/

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

    http://www.jstor.org/stable/1793379?seq=1&Search=yes&term=qatar&term=oil&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3Dqatar%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3Doil%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D&item=1&ttl=2649&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null

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  5. Good point. Next time I argue I'll get my facts straight off of Wikipedia just like you!!!


    likeomfgidkdatweeznvrlikepssdda6thgrade.

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  6. I take it you did not read the J-Stor article then?

    ReplyDelete

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