FIFA: Re-run of 2022 World Cup vote a possibility

Hopefully they have a bunch of sworn statements, although I think USA has given up on this with POTUS change.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soc...ched-off-soccer-scandal-dead-at-72/ar-BBEjSjN

 

Six middle east countries ask FIFA to withdraw 2022 WC from Qatar
http://www.espnfc.com/blog/fifa/243...qatar-of-2022-world-cup-says-gianni-infantino

 

Only question that matters is "how much are they willing to pay?"

 

Of all the reasons to not hold the World Cup in Qatar, this is the least compelling one possible. I'm honestly not sure I even want it to happen if this is gonna be the reason.

 

Not having the cup at all would be the best message to send to FIFA, and possibly the easiest change to organize.

 

No kidding. Thousands of slave labor deaths, clear bribery and the fact they went back on every single proposal in their bid other than "hold a soccer tournament", and some relatively trumped up crap made by countries that actually do support terrorism (*COUGHSAUDIARABIACOUGH*) is the straw that breaks the camel's back?

It's so stupid I expect it to happen.

 

It's not "relatively" trumped up, it's 100% trumped up. It's fake. The "news" that gave those 6 nations an excuse to be mad at Qatar was done by a computer hack. There's literally nothing real to the story, except Saudi Arabia playing regional power games.

I read that someone has come up with software now that can take footage of a person speaking and digitally alter how the mouth moves and what they say so that you can make the person say anything you want. Sort of like that norml software from years back, but a million times more sophisticated. The next election cycle is going to be a doozy.

 

Forget all the hoopla and news/fake news. The fact is simple. Qatar made a bid proposal to FIFA based upon the FIFA request for proposals. Qatar made FALSE claims in their proprosal how they could hold it in the summer (FIFA requirement) and keep playing field conditions acceptable in regards to the heat index. Every engineer on the planet knew this was bullshit from day one.

So FIFA awarded it to Qatar and now we have all seen what a joke this was and will be.

 

I read the same thing, I think it said the technology to do it convincingly is still 2-3 years away....but yeah, will be in play for the next election cycle. Fun.

To be fair though, even if this particular spat was rooted in fake news, Qatar DOES actually support terrorism (as of course does Saudi Arabia), so...

 

They're having a fight over which terrorists are better to support.

 

"Six middle east countries" pressuring Qatar... "six countries"... now where have I heard that before? Oh, that's right:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...an-trump-saudi-arabia-hard-line-a7834536.html

Amazing to me that it was a Chinese bank that got cold feet over conflicts of interest with Kushner Companies. When the Chinese are pointing out your conflict of interest problems, you've got some damn big conflict of interest problems.

So there's a new political dimension to the Qatar22 World Cup from the US side that can't be ignored, but that's probably not going to carry the day.

The bigger issue is going to be the $50B? $70B? that has already been spent on infrastructure, hotel, and stadium construction in Qatar22 preparations. No one can turn back the clock and undo that spending, and FIFA does not want to become the defendant in the many lawsuits that would ensue if the venue were moved.

Wish it were not so, but by my analysis, that's some pretty powerful momentum that keeps Qatar22 on track.

 

Those other countries may be using the WC threat to get some concessions out of them.

 

To be fair, the 9/11 terrorists were:
15 Saudis
2 from the U.A.E.
1 from Egypt
1from Lebanon.


Osama himself was from the most powerful non-royal family in Saudi Arabia.
A congressional commission said Saudi top officials appear not to have been involved, but that "less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role"

Which side are we supporting?

 

Wow, nothing here on all the corruption arrests in Spain.

http://www.espnfc.us/blog/fifa/243/...son-arrested-in-anti-corruption-investigation

 

Hey don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if it is a hypocritical gift horse.

 

Slightly off topic, but the name of the 8th person at Trump Jr's meeting last year is out. He is involved with two of Russia's stadia for next year.

 

True although a) 9/11 was 16 years ago b) Saudi Arabia has hundreds of royal family members c) they recently (right before the falling out with Qatar) had a shakeup in their government where a prince in his 30s who is believed to view Wahabbism as a threat to the kingdom was elevated to crown prince and most importantly d) when we're talking about Islamist terror groups the nationality of the individual terrorists involved is far less important than the money trail

Now that all being said, Saudi Arabia is responsible for about a huge chunk of this bullshxt, in large part by funding radical madrassas all over the world in places like Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa. The recent resurgence in Islamism in Indonesia (where it had been more or less wiped out by the tsunami) is directly attributable to Saudi money. They're not our friends, but that doesn't mean that the interests of their ruling family won't align with ours from time to time

 

This is more accurate than it should be.

 

So many frenemies. So many competing interests. That stuff gets complicated so freaking fast.

 

BTW, I don't think Clinton would be somehow strong-arming FIFA. I think FIFA just waited it out, and then it was business as usual. You know, like most organized crime operations. Wait until the police lose steam, then just resume operations.

The Swiss banks still keep money without questions. The money keeps changing hands. And the top crooks keep the right palms greased to keep everything going as planned.

 

It's the old keep your friends close and enemies closer. Better to be friends with Pakistan and Saudi than openly hostile like vs Iran. At least the hope is you can steer policy in a certain direction. Of course one can debate how effective that is.

 

16 years or no, it is by far the biggest terrorist incident, dwarfing all other attempts put together. It is only because US interests, including the Bush brothers, are in business with the kings of Saudi Arabia through the Carlisle Group, which specializes in investments in Armaments and war. It is, through corporations such as XE and Bechtel, the main beneficiary of money from Middle East violence.


As to how the terrorists get money, much of it was selling discount oil through Turkish pipelines under the aegis of the son of the president of Turkey.

Also, investigations show the London bombings were financed through IMG Bank in London ( normal ATM transactions)

Direct funding of operations in Syria are through the simple expedient of using ATM's in neighboring countries like Turkey and Lebanon, often run by European banks, including Those that have offices in London.
Another major source cited by UNESCO is what they call "industrial mining" of Syrian antiques looted from Syria and Iran which, again, are showing up on the LONDON antique market. I don't think it is intentional British cooperation, but they are the biggest bank hub in the region.

Another source is by diverting aid from Islamic aid organizations, the major source of which is those maridases you mention, and the major donors of which are from the biggest countries, including Saudi Arabia and (probably unwittingly) Indonesia and Malaysia. Again, those are funneled through international banking sustems, the largest of which are London and Switzerland, with secondary laundering through normal offshore tax haven countries and, interestingly, USA offshore branches. The transactions are usually in amounts that don't trigger banking disclosure laws, with banks, who could report the transactions anyway, turning a blind eye to them. So, basically the same system FIFA corruption uses.

And a small but still significant portion of the money has come through ransoms, from high powered westerners to middle class Syrians and Iraqi citizens. European banking is openly and heavily involved in facilitating those transfers. While the NYT says that the USA and its banks are prohibited from funneling ransom money, Euro governments and banks have, according to the Times, become " the unwitting major funders of ISIS".

None of which require Qatar to function. While undoubtedly, Qatar banks are part of the money flow, they are no more a part of it than European banks and probably much less so.

 

One thing that'll be interesting, with the fracking boom and Europe's stated goal to move off fossil fuels by 2040 (whether that happens or not who knows), the Gulf could go back to being irrelevant. Historically the Arabian peninsula was a backwater wasteland. Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia were the historical power houses of the region. Only in the this century have those Gulf countries become more relevant due to fossil fuels.

The US Saudi relationships goes back way before the Bushes and the relationship was simple, we give protection and they give a steady supply of oil to world markets. If scoff all you want but every single person here benefits from it.

Of course if the world doesn't need oil then those countries offer absolutely nothing.

The biggest issue is that the Saudis want to rule the Arab world and Qatar is relatively friendly with Iran. They have to be to co develop their gas fields.

I also wouldn't hold out too much hope that Mohammed bin Salman will be a huge reformer.

 

The original US-Saudi relationship was through Averel Harriman, George Herbert Walker, and Prescott Bush, ( have you heard those names before?) who needed a place to transact after their treasonous NY operations being bankers for Nazi Germany which were shut down in 1942 under the trading with the enemy act ( the only USA corporation ever seized under the act).

They transacted with the Nazis as a segue from their monopoly railroad transactions with JP Morgan before WWI ( Union Pacific railroad) . Brown Bothers Harriman was the largest private investment bank in the country just before WWII, with Prescott Bush installed as managing director. They bought huge lots of Standard Oil of California and Texaco in 1936, when they weren't finding oil, both became involved in the founding of ARAMCO. SoCal actually struck oil first in Bahrain in 1936.
Though agreements were signed with the Saudis in 1933, nothing really came of it until about 1938 when the USA and Britain acted mostly to keep the oil out of Nazi hands and little development happened. The oil for security agreement started when Roosevelt and Abdulaziz met in the Persian gulf in 1944, and by then, they had struck oil. (Dammam n°7 in 1938 was the first Saudi strike.)

The Harriman-Bush connection has been involved since. ( Harriman , as special envoy to Truman, was also instrumental in the CIA overthrow of Mossadeg in Iran and the installation of the Shah over oil nationalization).

By the time of the Afghan-Russian war, George HW was CIA director and installed the son of one of his Saudi business partners as a main insurgent around 1984 ( Salem bin Laden and Saudi Royals were major investors in Zapata and Arbusto oil (Shrub in Spanish, though Bush may have thought it meant bush). These investment were a sop to the bushes when the Saudis decided to squeeze USA interests out of ARAMCO in 1980.

This Spring, Saudi ARAMCO just had an IPO. Major buyers were Chinese, Japanese, British, and American interests. The Saudis Just bought the largest oil refinery in America and are pouring $10 Billion into the Texas operation. They are also buying up interests in oil pipelines from Canada with the Koch brothers. ARAMCO now has to answer to outside investors. It could be more advantageous to USA interests if we divorced ourselves from Saudi oil before they buy the rest of the USA. Their economy is big enough that they could buy, say, Pennsylvania.

Whether this benefits all of us is a question. Since 2011, we are a net oil exporter and We use very little Saudi oil (11% of imports, and about 4% of oil consumed in this country.) There are now more gas and oil reserves in Canada (38% of USA imports )and it is our largest oil supplier. Mexico is third at 7% followed by Venezuela and Colombia. Argentina has just confirmed huge oil and gas reserves in the vaca muerte field ( I'll leave the Malvinas continental shelf reserves out for now) All have more quality oil to offer. Furthermore, there is maybe 25 years of quality crude left for the Saudis, and perhaps part of this current mess with Qatar is over gas reserves now shared by Qatar and Iran.

Though the thought of Saudi Arabia fading in 25 years sounds consoling, that puts me at 95 when we are free from the Saudis and N. Korean nuclear radiation consequences.


Though there would certainly be handwringing with major USA investors (cough-Bush and the Carlysle Group) , the loss of Saudi Arabia Oil would be a two month blip in US oil supply until other sources ramped up. We now own the direction of Iraqi oil lock, stock, and barrel, and any disruption or redirection of Saudi oil would probably drop the price per barrel.

And all of this is to say we need to be a lot more respectful to Canada than to the Saudis. Trump's bluster about negating NAFTA is just stupid in the context of energy.

 

It's not about how much Saudi oil we use as a country. I'm sure you'll well aware that oil is a global commodity so taking away Saudi supply just means someone else is going to be buying Canadian oil and raising the price. Maybe you know more about the Iraqi oil industry than I do but as far as I'm aware US companies only own half of the Qurna field and a quarter of the Zubair field. And with the government in Baghdad heading towards an Iranian puppet I don't understand how we own Iraqi oil production lock stock and barrel.