2018 & 2022 World Cup Bids - Pre/During/Post Announcement

"Average England fan" is not equivalent to "all England fans"...

 

This whole WC will only cater to the rich anyway. The rich would rather spend their time between games networking in the hotel bars anyway, so they don't need anything else to do.

Qatar has made plans to create new hotel beds - 80,000 of them apparently, but they are ALL made up of 5 star accommodation. It's not really the climate for the tent cities we saw in Germany and Sth Africa for the cheaper tours and it's not really the country to open itself up to the backpacker market. Qatar will end up being FAR more expensive for the average fan than the other bidders would have.

Probably the way the Exco like it so they don't have to mix with the great unwashed.

 

I think for this to work, attendance-wise, every Qatari male citizen is going to have to be indoctrinated for the next 11 years that they absolutely must, for the sake of the nation, attend at least 10 games. Maybe more. Otherwise I just can't see anyone attending a Paraguay-Slovakia game. Who is going to go to that game? No one's going to drive from Saudi Arabia or fly from Dubai for it. Neither team would bring a lot of traveling fans to Qatar, most likely. In a normal World Cup it would be filled with local soccer fans wanting to see an important soccer game between two good teams. Will there enough of those in Qatar to even come close to filling stadiums for 20-odd games between teams that aren't "sexy"? Right now, I'd say no way. The government had better convince a lot of people in the next 12 years to go to games every single day.

 

I wonder how much will this affect ticket sales.Some people will be reluctant to try the first World Cup in the Middle East knowing that it's a different culture and for other reasons,mainly people from the ''West''.However,as the Qatar spokesperson said on the eve of the final vote,2 billion people less than 4 hours away by plane.That's the closest the World Cup will ever get to this part of the world for who knows how long...So people in the Gulf might compensate for the ones who will not find it appealing to go to Qatar.

 

I would expect Qatar Airways to run some ridiculous specials to get people to the matches. Packaged deals w/ airfare + a few nights accomodations at a newly built beach resort + several matches over a few days at significantly discounted prices. This is a great opportunity for Qatar to advertise itself, and that includes beach vacations and their national airline.

Another thing that I think could go a bit in their favor is the difficulty western expats face living in a small enclave such as Qatar/UAE/Hong Kong/Singapore. Westerners in those markets tend to feel pretty culturally starved. Even in a place like Hong Kong, which has a bit more going for it than the other three, the national pastime is shopping. There's just not a lot to do and you can't get home as often as you would like. Expats grasp on to anything they can that makes them feel remotely at home. In HK, they have the rugby sevens tournament which is hugely attended...and it's not even full rugby. It would be like 130,000 Americans turning out to watch 4 spring training baseball games in HK and building huge corporate parties around it. People who don't like rubgy turn out heavily just because it seems more culturally familiar (yes, it's even popular with the Americans). The 100,000 predominantly male highly skilled expats living in Qatar (probably twice as many in 2022) will latch on to that month for all its worth and then some. They're making lots of cash with nothing to really spend it on, and a lot of them will be going to 4-5 matches per week just because it beats waiting for the next sand storm to roll in.

 

They couldnt even beat Haiti at home.

Its no surprise they are so low.

 

They will probably give tickets away. Qatar arent hosting the World Cup to make money, they are doing it to show off to the World.


Its Hard to see large numbers from the Western world going to the middle east when something like this can happen :

Club soccer fans banned from alcohol, kissing at World Cup in Abu Dhabi


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wo...cup-in-abu-dhabi/story-e6frf7lf-1225966707695

 

Re: Qatar - the upside

what footballing history did the US have when they were awarded the '94 WC? And hasn't it been said that '94 was the most $ucce$$ful WC ever?

I thought football was the World's Game.

No fans? No passion? Are you kidding me lol. You think WC matches will have only Qataris in the seats? In 2014 I know I'm going to my 1st WC and my 2nd in 2018...and my 3rd in 2022.

And how do the fans lose?

 

Yeah, the idea that loads of the people out there are going to de-camp en masse to watch a football match is wide of the mark I'd say.

It's an absolute monarchy... maybe they'll just 'decree' it. That should make for some good atmosphere. LOL

or maybe it'll be like this...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/world-cup-north-korean-fa_n_614510.html

f you watched North Korea play a hard-fought game against Brazil in the World Cup on Tuesday, you may have wondered how all those North Korean fans were able to attend the game given the nation's dire economic condition and dictator Kim Jong Il's strict prohibitions on leaving the country.

Although the news has been circling the Internet for a month, AOL's Fanhouse brought to our attention yesterday that North Korea provided 1,000 tickets to a group of Chinese fans, including actors and musicians, to fly to South Africa for the game.

I can just see some Lindsay Lohan and a load of other washed-up has-been actors and actresses standing there shrieking their heads off for Paraguay.

Kissing? What about the players after they score???

 

Re: Qatar - the upside

My advice is: go to a World Cup or two, and see how you get on. After that, decide whether you want to go to one in Qatar. At least by then you'll have some idea of what makes for a good tournament for travelling fans, AND it might be possible to tell (despite the inevitable propaganda) whether Qatar is really going to be ready to host it.

 

The 2 billion number is a red herring. Given that much of those 2 billion live in places like India and Africa, most of them are likely so poor that attending a WC is simply impossible. Sure, there are over a billion people in India, but 90%+ of them can't afford to fly to Qatar and stay at an overpriced hotel. Also, given that only a handful of countries from Asia will qualify anyway, most of those people will not have their national team in the WC, so their interest level won't likely be high.

So, other than the relatively small handful of people in the Gulf states who live close enough to Qatar that they can attend relatively easily (and have the money to do so), most WC travelers will need to come from Europe and the Americas. But the problem is that Qatar is not an attractive destination for most people. One of the reasons the US, France and Germany were succesful WC's is because a lot of people want to travel to those places, regardless of whether there's a WC going on at the time.

If the two WC's had gone to England and the US, you probably would have had the two biggest WC's (in term of attendance) ever. And in terms of fan experience, you couldn't beat those two countries.

But FIFA decided to give the finger to the regular WC fan.

 

I agree 100% on the fan experience component, but in terms of travel times, to be fair to Qatar, it's quicker to get from even Dublin to Doha than it is to get from Dublin to Chicago. The return trip is longer for Doha-Dublin than Chicago-Dublin due to the jetstream, but there is also the obvious advantage in Qatar's favor in terms of not requiring fans to travel once they show up. Argentina is a lot closer to the US than Qatar, but travel within the country could make this a more difficult trip for an Argentine in the US. BA>NYC, staying in the NE for podded, group games, then a trip to Chicago for the R16, before having to go to Dallas or CA for a quarter, then getting knocked out and having to find your way home from there.

IF they build enough hotels (even if they are 5-star), the supply could keep prices low enough for this to actually be a relatively affordable WC for travelling fans. I still don't like the concept of Qatar hosting, but that is one advantage.

 

Why should the US have another shot so soon after they hosted in '94? Funnily enough, there are other areas of the world that have never hosted. I don't agree with Qatar getting '22, but all this US whining is pretty pathetic. The country to feel sorry for is Australia.

 

I think it's in FIFA's interest to develop the game around the world and as such it's perfectly reasonable to give preference to bids from areas that have never hosted as opposed to a bid from a country that hosted as recently as '94. Funnily enough, there is a world outside of the US. But, yes, FIFA is clearly run by "a bunch of corrupt incompetent boobs".

 

Let's not forget that we are talking about a World Cup that is more than a decade away.In Africa,it's not hard to believe that a few from Egypt could head to Qatar and maybe Sudan since it's their ''World Cup''(The Middle East's World Cup).Other then that from the African continent,Ethiopia has a big population but I'd be surprised honestly if they can countribute for some mentionnable percentage,probably not.However,to the east of Qatar,you have Pakistan and India.While it's true that most people in those two countries are kinda poor(not sure how poor),this a pretty much untapped market that FIFA would probably love to get it's hands on.1% of India's total population is more than 11 million people,1%!You sure can find a few from India who would be willing to go.But to be fair,India and Pakistan are cricket hotbeds.Anyway,if Qatar is counting on India and Pakistan to come and fill some of the stadiums,they have about ten years to convince those cricket crazy nations...

 

I'll admit Australia had a very strong argument to host. Certainly, bringing a sports-mad country like Australia more securely into the soccer world would be a good thing. Australia would have been a bold, but understandable choice.

But Qatar? Come on, there's little long-term upside in the country or the region. I can understand hosting the WC in places that are on the cusp of becoming serious soccer nations. That's why the US and Japan/Korea were good choices. And I can see the same argument for Russia. But both SA and Qatar are marginal soccer countries, and there's no indication that either of them are going to be particularly relevant in the sport any time soon.

 

99% of the Americans are under no illusion that we're entitled to host. You keep saying we just hosted in 1994, so we shouldn't get another one yet. That's 28 years from 2022. If that's the way FIFA and the ExCo think, they should have just told US Soccer not to bid. With CONMEBOL and UEFA out of the equation, there wouldn't be a lot of choices left, now would there? Japan and Korea hosted 8 years after USA 1994, so they would be out too, right?

That leaves Australia, Qatar, and maybe somebody else entering in a thin field like China or Canada. And yet Australia still would have lost playing against that crap field. There just aren't that many areas of the world that have never hosted that actually could host that want to host. Qatar getting 2022 makes that pretty obvious, doesn't it? We Americans aren't your problem here. The system is.

 

If there's a minimum number of years required between WC's, FIFA should say so. The USSF could have found better uses for its money if it knew it was basically out of the running because of this.

 

To me,what is more of a slap in the face to the defeated countries bids,is that FIFA had stated that only 1 city could be host to two stadiums.The next thing you know is that Qatar wins the rights to host the World Cup with 6 stadiums that are listed as being located in Doha...

 

They've abandoned ALL of the rules they'd recently stated and even many of the old ones.

For instance, there's a reason why the eastern bloc didn't hasn't had a WC in living memory. It was to stop a repeat of the 1936 Nazi rally celebrations. Now they've given it to an absolute monarchy with a reputation for laws leading to effective slavery for foreign workers.

 

Hey don't let logic and all good reason get in the way of a big chequebook.

Silly you!

 

It's not an advantage, it's imaginary.

There are about 10,000 hotel rooms in Qatar, and that's already too many: http://www.rediff.com/sports/report...ship-for-world-cup-accommodation/20101207.htm
There's a current program to open more, but it's slipping behind schedule this year. No doubt they'll try and step things up, but why would the hotel chains want to open so many hotels in Qatar so that prices will be low even during the World Cup peak?

 

I'm not suggesting that it should have been out of the running because of hosting only 28 years prior. I am saying this should have been a significant negative factor about their bid. Had Australia not bid, I think the US should have won.

The US could and should have known that hosting in '94 was likely an impediment to their winning for '22. Maybe they got blinded, like so many round here, into thinking that because they had the shiniest and biggest stadia they would win anyway?