No World Cup in Paris

[Big Saft Kid]

The world cup was handed to a totally non footballing country in suspect circumstances and where it's unfit to hold it for numerous reasons. They've essentially built stadiums with modern day slavery and with poor health and safety to say the least. They've repeatedly hidden reality from the public and journalists. Their equality laws are completely inappropriate for the modern era and fifa's supposed views.

'Fair' ownership of a club has little (but not nothing) to do with the above.

The world cup this year is an abomination. I genuinely hope it's an unmitigated disaster. Sponsors deserve as much wrath as fifa as only they could have pressured a change and they didn't.

But it's different to the state funds owning clubs issue, which is much more murky.

I sympathise entirely with the thrust of what you say but it's not true that Qatar is a 'non footballing country'. Qatar has lots of football fans and lots of teams, but it is very small, so the standard of the local teams is probably something like our League 2, or the old 4th Division. I actually saw a match involving the Qatar national team in an international tournament all of 52 years ago in 1970 (in the first edition of the 'Gulf Cup'). Near neighbours Kuwait qualified for the finals of the 82 World Cup and did OK. The main practical problem for Qatar is that the infrastructure isn't there to cope with the numbers who go to a typical World Cup -- nowhere near enough hotel rooms, for instance. Something like 80% of them have already been booked by FIFA!

 

[sillytuna]

I sympathise entirely with the thrust of what you say but it's not true that Qatar is a 'non footballing country'. Qatar has lots of football fans and lots of teams, but it is very small, so the standard of the local teams is probably something like our League 2, or the old 4th Division. I actually saw a match involving the Qatar national team in an international tournament all of 52 years ago in 1970 (in the first edition of the 'Gulf Cup'). Near neighbours Kuwait qualified for the finals of the 82 World Cup and did OK. The main practical problem for Qatar is that the infrastructure isn't there to cope with the numbers who go to a typical World Cup -- nowhere near enough hotel rooms, for instance. Something like 80% of them have already been booked by FIFA!

You serious about the hotel rooms? What the hell?!

You're write about the non football it. I stand corrected.