South AFrica received the best technical report of the 2010 bidders. So did Brazil, but then there was only one bidder for 2014.
Compare its technincal report to that of the current bidders, not to the ones it was against (which were the likes of Morocco, Tunisia/Libya and Egypt). Has everyone forgotten how much complaining there was in the years leading up to the tournament?
That's not relevant. What is relevant is if they were the best technical bid of the nations competing at the time.
But the bids in SA and Brazil had the highest technical ratings during their bidding processes. Given that the technical reports are the whole basis of the bidding process, again, I ask, why bother with the charade of a bidding process at all? Perhaps the World Cup SHOULD be awarded pretty much exclusively on touchy-feely factors like where it will do the most good for the promotion of football. Maybe the chosen hosts fit that criteria best. But if FIFA were so fixated on giving Russia and Qatar the World Cup that no technical evaluation was going to overturn that, then the entire bidding process was a complete farce and a waste of time and hundreds of millions of dollars.
The point I'm making is those bids were not technically brilliant, either. Yes, they were the better of the ones available, but they were also proving they would be prepared for the tournament. As, we're to understand, will Russia and Qatar come their turns (Russia should definitely be ready by then). I guess what I'm probably trying to say, in a nutshell, is that while the technical report should be compiled and looked at seriously, it's perhaps not in the same way you all think it should. It should be considered as a report of the current standards of those countries, what changes will be made in that time, how it will improve those technical standards and whether the time between then and the World Cup is a realistic timeframe for all of this to happen. If we're to look at technical reports as purely what can be offered right now, then we should just look to announce the hosts the year before the tournament and not 8-12 years before. And give it only to a select few countries on a rotational basis, as AKITOD suggested, until all other countries are up to scratch.
Whilst I agree with you on the technical reports, when FIFA rated the risks they did not do so on the current capability. They did so on the percieved ability to live up to the bid documents. We were short on some areas, but still rated low risk because of the percieved capacity to deliver. Qatar didn't fulfil the minimum requirements. They weren't even close in terms of infrastructure for transport and tourism. Their proposal to combat the heat requires them to develop technology, not just use current technology. If the process was the same as for the Olympics then they would have been eliminated before the final vote. They won on politics, not on bid merit. Anyone that argues otherwise is either being mischeivous or kidding themselves.
How the double dealing went down. (from the England bidding view) http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10692159
Australia's World Cup bid too 'clean' http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10692688
I think this is a fairly appropriate article to post... Conspiracy theories about 2022 embarrass Australia
We all knew the bidding system had it's flaws (that was made evident with the whole Iberia-Qatar thing plus the Adamu & Temarii thing). We just didn't think it would go this far.
What do you mean, "This far"? What do you know for certain that nobody else does? Here's another article from Scott McIntyre.
Things we know for certain. 1. Qatar did not fulfil minimum technical FIFA requirements in almost every category, and have medium to high risk that they wont be able to fulfil them in the 12 years to 2022. 2. There is already a campaign started to move the tournament to January because of the huge doubts that Qatar can fulfil their promises to make conditions safe by air condition stadia (and they even promised to do it with "solar power") 3. Politics won them the hosting rights.
Disassembling and reassembling stadiums was a strong vote clincher for Qatar outside all the possible bids. [It may actually change the face of football stadiums around the world, financially it could mean that another country could sponsor part of the expense of each stadium and then get that stadium transported across to them.] Although they have the inclination to transport the stadium to a poor 3rd world country. This will spread the FIFA mantra of promoting the game around the world. It does it also means gone are the days of white elephant stadiums? The design for the stadium would be interesting to look at. It would be interesting if they are able to pull it off cleanly.
1. Can you tell me exactly where it says, with reference to exact pages in the technical report, they will not be able to host a successful World Cup in any capacity? 2. No, there have been suggestions from people outside of the bid that it should be moved. Nothing more. 3. So? Australia tried to play the political card, as did Japan, England, Iberia, Holland and everyone else. What did you think we were trying to do when we were rubbing up against as many delegates as possible over the last year? That's not an argument, that's just bitterness that Qatar was better at politicking than us. Those articles about sour grapes, people complaining just because we weren't the ones that didn't get it; seems to relate quite heavily to you. Sorry. The one key complaint I've heard since the announcement is about heat. Not only is that covered in their bid book, presentation, and everything else they've used to promote their desire to host the World Cup, but has been proven it's not an issue in the fact they've had plenty of World Cup qualifiers and all other games around that time of year. Hell, we played them in Doha last year in June, for Christ's sake. If none of our players died while they were there, and considering the advancements they've addressed in their bid, it will be a million times better by the time they host. So there's really no problem whatsoever.
No of cities (page 7). No of hotel rooms (page 16/17) Transport (page 22) Operational risk (page 34) Have you read it yourself? Now we are also hearing senior FIFA officials saying that maybe some other neighbouring countries could host matches. You really like to paint things differently don't you. If you read the bid reports you will know that the weakest technical bid won the hosting rights. When I say that politics won the bid, its a pretty accurate statement. It doesn't state that no one else tried to play politics, just that Qatar did it much better. Pretending they won becuase they had the best technical bid is nonsense on so many levels. We didn't have the best either. The USA's was the best technical bid, with not much difference between Korea, Japan and us. Clearly we were the worst at the political game, which saw is dip out early in the voting. You are reading way too much into things. You also need to learn what "sour grapes" really means. If you say so. That factor still remains a "high" risk as outlined in the operational risk rating.
No. of cities: Sec. 3, paragraph 2, first sentence: "The bid proposes seven Host Cities and 12 stadiums, thus meeting FIFA's minimum requirement for the event." The host cities listed: Doha, Al-Rayyan, Al-Daayen, Umm Slal, Al-Khor, Al-Wakrah and Al-Shamal. No. of hotel rooms: Sec. 3, page 4, paragraph 4: "[...] suggest that the tranditional venue-specific team hotel (VSTH) and venue-specific training site (VSTS) approach may not be needed." Paragraph 5: "In terms of accommodation, over 84,000 rooms have already been contracted, thus eceeding FIFA's minimum requirement of 60,000." Transport: Sec. 4.6, page 14, Analysis and comments: "- According to the information provided, all stadiums would have sufficient public transports links to their respective city centres" Sec. 4.10, page 19: "The hotels are located within the FIFA cluster, have excellent transport links with the airports, and all stadiums (except Al-Shamal Stadium) are within 30 minutes' drive." Actually, the whole of pages 19, 20 and 21 address this and your mentioning of page 22, after re-reading it to find your point (after having read the bid about five times prior), I still don't see anywhere that says it cannot be done or fails in any area. Operational risk: Uh... sorry, but what about it? Yes, there's one high risk rermark in the team facilities, but it's not something that hasn't been addressed, as has everything else in the bid. According to the report, it does fulfill the minimum requirements of hosting a World Cup and has alternatives in some cases. The only pattern of concern is congestion. There is no "failing" annywhere. If there were, the bid wouldn't have been accepted in the first place. Skipping the rest of your post, the one additional comment I will make is: Where have I said they won because they had the best technical bid? That's absolutely absurd.
I wouldn't get carried away Bassor. Qatar's 7 "cities" are a joke. Umm Salal & Al Khor have populations, as of 2004, of 31,000 people. It would be like Adelaide holding the entire World Cup, and saying that Murray Bridge is a city. Qatar's only city, as such, is Doha. The rest are towns, and even in 12 years, are never going to be close to being called a 'city'.
Actually, they were promoted as "ports" and more would be created to accommodate the expansion. Even what they're considering "Doha" in the bid is just a port, not the whole of the city, kind of like Oldham is Manchester is the Greater Manchester Area. I'm just quoting, word-for-word, what it says in the book. Hardly means I'm getting carried away if I'm just quoting exact text.
I honestly think there are many reasons why Qatari FWC could be one of the best ever. My only thing that I think they should change is their alcohol restriction. I'll let you all know in January when in Doha whether the Asian cup had a good atmosphere about it.
So the only technical criteria that is at all relevant is whether it is conceivable that a country can potentially hold the tournament? Talk about low standards. Again, for the fifth time, what is the point of having a bidding process at all if you are going to pay essentially no attention to the comparative quality of the bids put forward? You may as well just do a quick check of the chosen candidate's bank account to ensure they can afford it, and save everyone a few hundred million dollars in terms of putting together competing proposals. If the World Cup is going to be awarded purely on the basis of politics, fine. But it means the entire bidding process is a farcical waste of time.
We're all having a laugh at what constitutes a "city" here in Qatar. Al Gharafa and Al Rayyan are regions of the city of Doha itself, Um Salal is essentially a small suberb of Doha. Al Khor and Al Wakra are to the north and south respectively and aren't yet extensions of Doha but will probably become eventually. Both are about 15 mins drive away. Al shamal is on the northern tip but is a coastal village with little interest to foreigners. Their football team made it to the Qatari first division last year but were routinely thrashed with scores like 8-0. If you wind up there you somehow got very, very lost. All these places have a population of around 30,000... Al Daayen, I have no idea where or what that is. Let me know if you have any questions about Qatar.
Al-Daayen (as best I can tell from the transport maps and google earth images) is a patch of desert on the northern fringes of Doha on the road to the motor racing circuit. There does seem to be some construction activities going on. The photos all describe the area as Lusail.
Who or what is the biggest threat(s) to the growth of football in Australia? Last week I wrote a blog for http://www.wearethereds.com.au about how I felt optimistic about the future of football in Australia. I stand by those comments and I continue to feel that confidence. However, there is always a flip side and anybody that goes around ignoring the downside to focus only on the up-side is seriously mentally unstable in my opinion. Which brings me to my topic for this week: Who or what is the biggest threat(s) to the growth of football in Australia? You might expect me to list off the usual gang of idiots (as MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman might say) of #1AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, #2 dinosaur journalists who are ignorant and appear to hate the world game such as Roy Masters, Rebecca Wilson, Peter Fitzsimmons, or even plump a bit closer to home; a man some including myself have derided as an AFL Trojan Horse, #3 FFA CEO Ben Buckley. I’ll say right now I am not worried by these folks and their effect on the beautiful game in Australia. Mr Demetriou was only doing what any competent administrator would do in protecting his turf. Perhaps we in football-land are so unused to seeing a competent administrator that we automatically switch to hurt-mode to hide a bit of jealousy that our current administration is not (yet) in the same sphere of competence or reach. Perhaps we will get a football administrator to replace Mr Frank Lowy on that sad day when he shuffles off this mortal coil. Messers Masters and Fitzsimmons are a vestige of ‘the old guard’ of sports journalists who were brought up in the “one-code for life” era. They have failed to read the winds of change that Australia’s demographic changes have demonstrated that the average sports consumer/fan is more than capable of watching and supporting many different sports as their tastes and disposable incomes desire. Masters and Fitzsimmons fear for their place in the work-force in the same way that farriers and blacksmiths feared the motor car 80 years ago. They will eventually move on(or perhaps pass on) and as they do they will be replaced by new blood more representative of the current generation of sports fans in Australia, like Mr Dan Silkstone of fairfax, who is able to write eloquently about both AFL and world football without any noticeable bias towards one or the other. FFA CEO Mr Buckley has hardly proceeded over a golden period of administrating the game, with expansion hardly to be considered a success and the farcical ’acceptance’ then still-birth of the Sydney Rovers FC entry to the A-League. That leaves the cupboard pretty bare for what worries me about the future of the sport in Australia. The biggest threat in my mind is you my football following friends. But we love the game you say, how can we, the very lifeblood of the game be your number one enemy? Please allow me to elaborate further by defining specific sub-groups of football fans. It is these subgroups that worry me greatly. They are: #1. Eurosnobs: Eurosnobs claim to follow and even like the sport, but only if it’s a game involving a member of the English Big 4 or Spain’s Barca/Real Madrid duopoly. Perhaps they extend their latin Love to Italy’sSerie A. These people constantly talk down the local product providing ammunition to those who would have their views reinforced. For example: Peter thinks he might go to a football game to experience the atmosphere for himself and have a go. He’s seen highlights occasionally on TV and has perhaps even watched the Socceroos during the World Cup, maybe his kid plays a bit on the weekend. Not really knowing much about the game he looks for an ‘expert’ close by. He remembers a colleague wearing an Arsenal/ManU/Chelsea/ Barcelona or any Eurosnob favourite-shirt last Casual Friday in the office and tracks him down. He says “Dave you follow Soccer, I’m thinking of going along to watch a game this weekend, got any tips?” Dave’s response ”Ah Pete why would you do that? The A-League is crap and nowhere near as good as the European game”. It is highly unlikely that Dave has been to an A-League game in recent times as he might be shocked by the improvement in standard in the 6 years since the inaugural season of the A-League. Dave might have grown up in another country following his local club, but has moved to Australia for various reasons and this blogger is certainly not suggesting a person should forsake their original club, for that would break with one of the central tenants of following football (any code).Thou shall NOT change your team, in fact you cannot change your team once you’ve invested emotional capital into the success or otherwise (like Spurs fans!) of that team. So for a bloke like Dave who claims to like football, has he really been helpful? #2. Football zealot(aka extremists). Like most examples of extremism, the football zealot litters his or her language with fiery emotional terms such as bogan-ball, gayFL, thug-by League, Hand-egg. And “Its not soccer, its football!” when participating in ‘discussions/rants’ regarding other sports played at a high level in Australia. There can be no doubt that the world game engenders a particular type of passion. It’s part of what makes the game so special. It helps breed the type of supporter who spends money on creating tifos and who will stand in terrible weather singing and chanting to exhort his/her team towards glory, at the same time creating the type of atmosphere that is a point of difference when compared with other games; the point of difference that can act like a beacon in attracting new fans. When they are hearing words like gayFL and bogan-ball to describe games they grew up watching, how welcome do the new fans feel though when they look to immerse themselves in this new game in town (lets not kid ourselves, the A-League is still a lot more accessible to new fans than the old NSL was, hence many general sports fans are unaware of the long and distinguished history of club football in Australia extending back prior to 2005). Think back to how hurtful it was/still is to be referred to as a fan of Wog-ball, or f@g-ball or to see written in any numerous opinion piece articles ”who cares, its only Soccer” The chief offender (mainly because his opinion is spread far and wide via his newspaper columns) in this IMO is the High Priest of football zealotry, SBS’s football ‘expert’ and respected former Socceroo, Mr Craig ‘Fozzie’ Foster. Now this isn’t so much an attack on the man, whose passion and experiences in the great game I very much respect. It is more a look at the tactics. Fozz quite rightly bangs on quite a lot about tactics in football, but perhaps he needs to re-examine his tactics as self appointed Chief Cheerleader in the mainstream press. Fozz hit a new low even for him when earlier this year during the bitter media campaign being ‘fought’ between the AFL and the FFA regarding stadia for the 2022 World Cup Bid he said ”AFL it’s not even a sport is it?” I believe the point he was trying to make was to draw attention to the fact that outside the Southern states of the world’s most isolated continent, The game known as ‘football’ to 7 million paying spectators in 2010 is hardly known. Regardless of his intentions, the result came across as terribly arrogant (a brush which then paints Joe and Jane average-world-football-fan) and I feel it seriously browned off a lot of potential spectators for the A-League. I wonder how many AFL fans heard that comment and thought, screw you, I will never ever give even 1 dollar to soccer let alone shelling out the $20 it costs to go to an A-League game. Australia only has 21 million people. If we are to continue to see growth of the game of football in Australia, I firmly believe we need to accept the fact that a vast majority of our future fans are already interested in what we refer to as a competing code. Melbourne Victory have apparently conducted internal polling and determined that approx 50% of its season ticket holders are also members of AFL clubs. There is no code war. There is an internal war amongst football fans to realise that the growth of our game relies on us to be accommodating and welcoming of new fans, not exclusive and arrogant. That path will only turn off future fans. If person A can afford it, why can’t they follow St.George/Easts/ Collingwood or Carlton in Winter and then switch to their A-League club of choice for summer? It seems to work in America where once the NFL season is over in January, fans switch their attention to Basketball (College or NBA) and then they might take a passing interest in Baseball or MLS as Summer arrives only to repeat again as the NFL season rolls around in October. Our game survived the 1940’s and 50’s because the Anglo sports clubs didn’t welcome the wogs readily to join in and play, with the odd exception of course. Let’s not make the mistake of closing our game off to new fans by placing ourselves above fans of other sports. We are not better, merely different. We’d better not be bitter; we need to be welcoming anyone with even a passing interest in the game with open Arms. As for the Eurosnobs, this I’ll slide-rule-pass back from the by-line to the FFA and the media such as SBS to stop talking down the local game and to help get people already partial to the game (partial enough to learn how to say Real Madrid properly and/or to get up at 3 am to watch an EPL game in their pyjama’s without having experienced live the thrill of a crowd going bananas for a long awaited goal.) I firmly believe that although the quality of the A-League is not and may never ever be up to the standard of the Premiership/LaLiga/Serie A, nothing can possibly compare to the feeling of joy when you as part of a crowd of likeminded fans witness one of those special goals that win a game or secure a lucky point after investing yourself emotionally in the fortunes of the local XI as they battle away against that pack of ‘cheats’ from ’over there’. The FFA needs to promote this type of feeling for the local game in the face of competition from older, better and more established leagues around the world. We are in a bit of a plateau at the moment, but the fans are out there. I hope that the FFA uses the sting of FIFA rejection to focus on the threats to the local game and to solve them. We as a football community need to take ownership of the problem of getting more people along to A-League games with us. To pinch the yanks WC2022 slogan, the game is in US!