4AM is the standard time for a World Cup final kickoff here in Australia (or Champions League, or any other major game). At least I can watch the game before I head off to work on a Monday morning. Our 3 games in the Confed Cup all kick off at 1AM Sydney time. This is just standard if you want to watch international football in Sydney.
Of course, this is only a hypothetical argument as there wont be a World Cup in Australia during my lifetime.
I hope that's not true. But I agree there are factors lining up against it. However, Australia/NZ have stadiums and are wealthy enough countries to pull it off properly. I'm still very hopeful I'll get to see one there in my lifetime, and I don't have that many WCs left.
A cursory look at the wikipedia page suggests that China could be ready at the drop of the hat. 28 stadiums of the right size virtually all of them under ten years old or renovated.
lol Sounds bad, although on weekdays I would still prefer what you have over what I have. On the east coast of North America almost all football happens during the work-day. I thought the Brasil WC would be different, but nope, most matches kicked-off between 11h00 and 15h00. For Russia’18 it’ll be 9h00 and 13h00 for the knockout rounds. I’d prefer kick off times in the middle of the night over that.
Qatar World Cup 2022: Tournament's sanctity a bargaining chip for Gulf foes: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/07/football/qatar-world-cup-2022-future-gulf-crisis/index.html Nothing new but comprehensive summary.
Qatar is ranked higher than many other countries that have hosted the FIFA World Cup! *all Middle Eastern nations and nations that have hosted or are scheduled to host the FIFA World Cup are listed below (including football tournaments at the Summer Olympics and Intercalated Games before the FIFA World cup) ALL TIME RANK (year initiated into wealth and population adjusted Elo ratings) #3: Uruguay (1922) #4: Brazil (1922) #7: Argentina (1922) #12: Spain (1922) #28: Italy (1920) #30: England (1872) #32: Chile (1924) #33: Germany (1922) note: this includes West Germany #41: Mexico (1934) #47: Russia (1993) note: Soviet Union was initiated in 1958 #48: Netherlands (1911) #49: Sweden (1914) #52: Iran (1972) #53: Jordan (1984) #58: Bahrain (1981) #61: Egypt (1928) | #61: Kuwait (1973) #62: Qatar (1980) #64: Syria (1971) #65: Greece (1934) #65: South Korea (1961) #68: Israel (1954) #69: Iraq (1971) #72: Belgium (1912) #73: Turkey (1937) #74: Switzerland (1921) #78: France (1911) #78: Oman (1989) #83: Saudi Arabia (1976) #93: Lebanon (1974) #108: Yemen (1993) note: South Yemen was initiated in 1976 and North Yemen in 1985 #109: Palestine (2001) #109: South Africa (1993) #111: United Arab Emirates (1960) #117: Cyprus (1965) #135: Japan (1971) #153: United States (1930) #155: Afghanistan (2003) CURRENT RANK (year initiated into wealth and population adjusted Elo ratings) #1: Brazil (1922) #4: Chile (1924) #6: Argentina (1922) #10: Uruguay (1922) #12: Belgium (1912) #16: Spain (1922) #18: Germany (1922) #20: France (1911) #23: Mexico (1934) #33: Italy (1920) #35: England (1872) #39: Egypt (1928) #39: Turkey (1937) #43: South Korea (1961) #45: Saudi Arabia (1976) #47: Iran (1972) #51: Jordan (1984) #52: Netherlands (1911) #54: Switzerland (1921) #56: Greece (1934) #58: Sweden (1914) #63: Palestine (2001) #64: Syria (1971) #68: Japan (1971) #73: Bahrain (1981) #80: Iraq (1971) #83: Israel (1954) #86: United Arab Emirates (1960) #87: South Africa (1993) #88: United States (1930) #90: Lebanon (1974) #92: Cyprus (1965) #94: Russia (1993) note: Soviet Union was initiated in 1958 #95: Qatar (1980) #102: Yemen (1993) note: South Yemen was initiated in 1976 and North Yemen in 1985 #110: Oman (1989) #110.5: Kuwait (1973) note: rating from 2015 #115: Afghanistan (2003) SOURCES all time ratings: http://internationalsports.nfshost.com/index.php/home/load_all_time/5 2017 rankings: http://internationalsports.nfshost.com/index.php/home/load_sports/5/2017
Meh... I just tried to buy a ticket to the World Club Cup Final in Abu Dhabi in December. FIFA is having a Visa card presale at the moment, and seeing Real Madrid & Ronaldo will be there - Abu Dhabi is only a 50 minute flight from Doha, and as this falls on Qatar's National Day holiday, meaning won't have to be back to work until a couple of days afterwards.... thought, might as well, after all, surely this will all be over by then, and I've always regretted having not done it to see Messi + Barcelona back in 2009... but then, strangely enough, my credit card is not going through... probably because my visa is through a Qatari bank.. I also lost thousands of dollars as just after buying tickets to Moscow with the family on FlyDubai (one of the Middle East's best-deal discount airlines), have had to re-book via Qatar Airways for around 3-4 times the price. Should be interesting to see what the atmosphere is like at tomorrow's world cup qualifier against South Korea in Doha...
I wonder if BeIn Sports will be unblocked in the UAE for two hours during the Thailand-UAE qualifier today. Will certainly check. If this prolongs the UAE television rights will have to be repackaged separately for various high-profile competitions. The way things are developing (Turkish troop deployment in Qatar, food delivery from Iran) this diplomatic impasse may take longer than expected to resolve. As of now Infantino is sticking to his message, but if we approach the Russian World Cup next year without progress I would expect his tune to change. Infantino backs Qatar 2022 saying there is plenty of time for diplomacy to work http://www.insideworldfootball.com/...qatar-2022-saying-plenty-time-diplomacy-work/
ouch no BeIn Sports? Now that's the true pain of all of this. I'm still getting Abu Dhabi Sports so I can watch my beloved MLS at 3 in the morning...
Nope. No temporary unblocking for the UAE national team either. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have now also taken action against BeIn Sports. While I don't think too many people will protest about not being able to watch the Confederations Cup this has to be sorted by the time the major European leagues and UEFA Champions League are back. Perhaps in the form of a brand-new sports network? Of course the tricky thing will be refunding BeIn Sports for the countries affected and re-selling the various rights of which there are many: - English Premier League - Spanish La Liga - Italian Serie A - German Bundesliga - French Ligue 1 - UEFA Champions League - AFC Champions League - CAF Champions League And that's just some of the properties. Guess in the meantime I will be watching Copa Libertadores and MLS re-runs.
Not directly related to the World Cup but indirectly has a connection: Qatar football team faces FIFA sanction for Emir shirt http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/...tion-emir-shirt-170614052607240.html?src=ilaw
At the Qatar political front, it doesn't look like any Western sanctions are going to follow the Saudi-led isolation efforts. Quite the opposite in fact, the US government just agreed on a USD 12 billion arms deal only days after criticizing Qatar. This certainly works in favor of Qatar 2022.
political hypocrites are always around. Specially if lots of money is put up front. So that's how they call money, at FIFA, now Infantino sure must be filling his pockets with lots of diplomacy.....
Qatar World Cup organisers admit stadium construction safety issues http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cu...sers-admit-stadium-construction-safety-issues
CAF issues warning over using football as a political weapon to isolate Qatar AFC warns members to ‘respect principle of political neutrality’ Things could get messy in West Asian football if the blockade lasts until next year. In case you are not up to date politically, Qatar has been given a 10-day ultimatum. So far Qatar appears to have resolved its food shortage. The question surrounding the 2022 World Cup is whether they can do the same with construction materials. Having been deemed a "family issue" by most countries (no others have signed up to the sanctions) the World Cup will not be pulled from Qatar over this unless they can't get the construction done.
While the death of a British worker was the lead in the story, it was good to see that there is inspection beyond just that incident or like incidents, but across the whole construction spectrum. The story ends by saying how many hours have been spent on getting better, without any mention of the actual benefits of actions taken; e.g. reduction in injuries/deaths on the job. While saying the efforts have led to 'blacklisting three contractors and demobilising nine over workers' welfare abuses." is nice, who were the contractors? (i.e. were they bit players or important players?) It's a good step, but not a convincing one yet.
In summary - it contains heaps of horrendous allegations, most of which are very probably true, but (to quote the journalist who obtained the report) it As you would expect, everybody is going to claim it proves everything they ever said from day 1. In essence, most of the allegations (at least the those in the press) were pretty much standard operating procedure for bidding in the 1980s-1900s-2000s, free flights, five-star lifestyles, fancy watches for the men, fancy handbags for the wives, private school entry for the kiddies - only this time all the wins went to the nasty people, not the good people "forced" to stoop to their level just to compete (and I say this coming from a country that employed a "vote-fixer" to "help" "aid" "us" in our "bid" for a couple of mil or so - a guy so noble that he did the PR for Union Carbide in the aftermath of the Bhopal Chemical "accident"). J "allegedly"
From the BBC article: "Peter Rossberg - the journalist who claims to have obtained the report - said it "does not provide the proof that the 2018 or 2022 World Cup was bought". He described its findings instead as "like a puzzle that only makes sense when all parts are put together"." The 2nd part of the quote is key. It's not that there is no evidence of wrongdoing, just apparently, there is not the "smoking gun" evidence some of us were expecting [or hoping for]. But instead it describes a series of smaller bits of evidence and wrongdoing that put together, show the dirty dealing and payoffs that helped these bids succeed. The complexity of the evidence is probably enough that the story will be a minor one and fade away. I expect a series of articles here in the near future as the report gets analyzed and then the story will fade as the excitement of the upcoming tournament starts to dominate the headlines. Maybe at best the report will lead to punishment for a few more dirty players. But I guess we'll see as this plays out over the coming days and weeks. Note also that ESPN-FC is reporting that today FIFA officially released the entire report today, which is meaningless as the leaked version was available yesterday. http://www.espnfc.us/blog/fifa/243/...uption-in-2018-2022-world-cup-bids-after-leak
Direct link to the FIFA download: http://www.fifa.com/governance/news...rt-2898791.html?intcmp=fifacom_hp_module_news