I guess everyone accepted the inevitable since no posts here since August 1st. Now that Quatar is in a bunch of hot water over a spy ring in the Olympics how does it effect their WC? https://english.alarabiya.net/en/sp...overing-Qatari-spy-cell-disguised-as-NGO.html
Qatar World Cup 2022: Four years out, what do we know so far? https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46294929
World Cup 2022: Qatar 'falling significantly short' on reforms - Amnesty International https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47136103
Qatar World Cup 2022: Damian Collins urges FIFA to investigate bid claims https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47513524
Not even this stake through the FIFA heart will have a negative effect on their (and Qatar's) greed and corruption.
Full damage control mode or just more of the same old "fake stories" http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/mar/06/ap-source-fifa-explores-kuwait-oman-as-2022-world-/ https://www.thenational.ae/sport/fo...-to-host-matches-according-to-report-1.834075
This has all been a joke from the start. The only way the event gets pulled from Qatar is at the very last minute if the TV broadcasters come to believe that the event just won't happen (thus damaging their investment and triggering whatever rights they may have under their contracts). That's a long time to come.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/sport/fifa-council-miami-qatar-world-cup-2022-spt-intl/index.html "A decision on whether to increase the size of the 2022 World Cup from 32 to 48 teams will be made in June, the head of football's world governing body FIFA has said. . . . Infantino also said doing so would require some neighboring countries to share hosting duties and that FIFA was "working very closely" with Qatar to explore the possibility of tournament expansion."
Seems a bit too late in the game now to be considering such a major formatting change as this one. EDIT: I also have to wonder if this is a panic maneuver, caused by fears of Qatar not being able to hit the hotel room target.
Interestingly hotel rooms was one item (and there weren't many) that Qatar had a good rating on in the technical report when bids were being considered.
I doubt FIFA has a clause in their contact allowing broadcasters to withdraw their investment if it looks like the event won't happen.
I don't know how trustworthy this source is, but it only adds more fuel to the fire of the controversy: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...uded-to-get-qatar-2022-world-cup-8471758.html
Old news. That was from 2013. And since then most of the allegations in that article have been shown to be so. It’s what set off FIFAgate to begin with. Note that Michael Garcia’s report on this was suppressed bu Sepp Blatter and co.
Actually the contract has set dates for the competitions. Broadcasters won’t sign any other way. That’s why Fox got the next cup at a cut rate without competitive bidding when the Qatar cup got set during The American Football playoff season and championship period for most first divisions in Europe. The original contract said July-August. What will be interesting is how they get all the matches in a span of 28 days ending on Dec22 without a pile of injuries to the most expensive players on the planet.
The pile of injuries likely won’t occur in December. They’ll occur the during the last two months of the club season when all of that fixture congestion “debt” comes due. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a CL winner whose core consists of World Cup players who went crashing out of Qatar early.
We've been waiting too long for the final shoe to drop---the results of the Swiss criminal investigation that has been going on for years, now.
I don't mean any disrespect, but get over it already. The 2022 WC will be in Qatar. Close this thread already because you are all wasting your breath.
But why? 2022 remains a travesty that was ill got. Nothing will change that whether the shit show happens or not.