"Fifa members 'pressured into Qatar vote'"

The decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was called into question by new FIFA executive committee member Theo Zwanziger, with the German saying some of his fellow members had been pressurised by their governments to vote for the bid.

The comments from the 66-year-old president of the German Football Association (DFB) to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper are significant as he was appointed last week by FIFA to head one of the new committees established to clean up the organisation.

Accusations of bribery and corruption over the last year have dogged world soccer's governing body. ...

See the whole article here, courtesy of stuff.co.nz.

Kicking Back Comments: No surprise to this reader ... but it is amazing how many people want to tell this story, and how relatively well they line up with each other. Something happened folks, no question in my mind. Just when will we get the whole story? Is Jack coming out with a book soon?

EPFL v. FIFA - Round 1

Euro leagues thrown down FIFA gauntlet

The European Leagues have flexed their muscles towards Sepp Blatter and told FIFA in no uncertain terms that there will be no interference with the international fixture calendar, there will be no winter World Cup in 2022 or any other time, and they will not be dictated to on the size of national leagues. ...

See the full story here, courtesy of ESPN.

Kicking Back Comments: I am tickled that the EPFL is growing a spine in this regard and hope they remain staunch in the face of FIFA's whining that will most certainly come.

I wonder if he does birthday parties too

From World Football Insider, I caught a good article which included the following:

"Zidane: Bid Backing About Football Growth

Zinedine Zidane says his support of Qatar 2022 wasn’t about the money.

Instead, the French football legend told L’Equipe on Wednesday, he backed the bid because of a desire to spread football throughout the Middle East.

The 38-year-old, who also holds Algerian citizenship, is the greatest footballer of Arab-extraction of all time and was unveiled in September as a surprise ambassador of the oil-rich nation's bid.

Zidane admitted Wednesday he was paid millions of dollars by the bid committee, but nowhere near the $13 to $17 million floated by various media since Qatar’s Dec. 2 triumph."

The full article is here from World Football Insider

Kicking Back Comments: Are you kidding me? This smacks of FIFA's absurd tagline, "For the good of the game." Who's good are we talking about here? I would opine Z's only.

I mean, millions of dollars ... really?

An amazing player in his day to be sure, but please don't insult our collective intelligence by saying that it was not about the money, and take millions. Unless of course, I missed the follow up story that he donated his earnings to a worthy charity. It must be around here somewhere. Hang on ...

It is tough to come off as altruistic when you are stuffing your pockets full of money. Please leave the altruism title for those who truly selflessly dedicate themselves to THE game, not a hired gun to make a country millions.

Bribe ... what bribe? That's a "private agreement".

Qatar's World Cup Spending Spree

Qatar's winning bid to hold the 2022 World Cup was marked by a spending spree that included investments in the home countries of several executives who were responsible for choosing the host nation, according to internal documents from the emirate's bidding committee.

The spending sheds light on how FIFA regulations—outlined in the two-page rules of conduct for World Cup host-nation bidding—left the door open for hopefuls to open wallets to exert indirect influence on international soccer's small circle of decision-makers.

Qatar also paid soccer-world luminaries—hailing from France, Spain, Argentina and elsewhere—who publicly endorsed its bid, according to Qatar bid committee documents and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some were paid more than a million dollars in connection with the endorsements, said a person familiar with the situation. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of the WSJ.

Winter in 2022? Looks like we will be there soon.

FIFA plays God with winter World Cup talk

PARIS — FIFA talk of possibly switching the summer World Cup of 2022 to winter is scandalous on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin.

For starters, what arrogance. The World Cup takes a full month. Add to that pre-tournament training camps (essential for teams to gel) plus warm-up matches (equally essential) and at least one week of post-tournament recuperation for the players (they earn it, no?) and you're talking six to seven weeks.

So what about the rest of Planet Soccer? Would it simply be expected to stop and twiddle its thumbs while FIFA holds its party in Qatar, the Gulf emirate that roasts in summer? ...

See the full story here, courtesy of USA Today.

Interesting Spin on Climate Change

Photo (c) by Flickr user scpgt. Used under a Creative Commons 2.0 licence.

Climate changes in sport

There is much talk about the weather these days, as it is – as usual – behaving out of the ordinary. There are two ways to approach extreme weather. One is climate initiatives, and the other is to adapt to the weather conditions. In national and international sports, there is increasing talk about the latter. ...

See the complete article here at Playthegame.org.

Cost of hosting the 2022 World Cup ... $78.4M?

Series of Gaffes Ends Soccer’s Big Year

It began as a celebrative year for Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body. He took the World Cup to Africa for the first time, although many were sure that South Africa would fail as the host. As it turned out, Blatter, 74, was right. The stadiums were full, the South Africans were welcoming hosts and capable organizers, and fears of violence were unfounded.

The problem with the end of Blatter’s year, though, is that FIFA has never adapted to the standards of transparency that govern many international entities. Based in Zurich, it is an insular body unregulated by any outside organization. And since his election in 1998, Blatter and other top FIFA officials have faced repeated charges of mismanagement and corruption. ...

See the complete article here, courtesy of  the NYT.

See you in January?

Players support winter World Cup in 2022

After the comments by Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer that the 2022 FIFA World Cup should be played in January instead of June/July, strong support has come from FIFPro, the world footballers’ union which also believes the 2022 World Cup in Qatar should be held in the winter instead of summer.

Summer temperatures hit 50 degrees centigrade in the Gulf and FIFPro has said it is pleased FIFA is open to changing the tournament’s timing to address the issue of heat. ...

See the full article here, courtesy of George Cumming's Football Blog.

Just watch ...

Or here, if the embedded video does not work.

Homosexuals need not attend 2022 World Cup - Blatter

I don't know what else to say except, "wow."

After all how does one rationalize what FIFA President, Sepp Blatter said (even jokingly) at a Monday (13-DEC) press conference in South Africa, of prospective gay fans: "I would say they should refrain from any sexual activities."

This because homosexual acts are illegal in Qatar.

Maybe Sepp is just trying to be the emissary of the 2022 World Cup and let everyone know what to expect?

Maybe Sepp was just hosing down the pitch with testosterone to keep up with South African President Jacob Zuma, who has said at the same press conference that, "When I was growing up, a (insert "homosexual" slur here) would not have stood in front of me. I would have knocked him out."

Nice.

The president of FIFA and the president of South Africa ... what a fitting couple.

As you can imagine there is a backlash to these comments from a variety of sources, and an interesting article is here from the WSJ about the whole situation.

This will however be an interesting mix in 2022 ... culture for cash. We will see just how far people in Qatar are willing to trade their way of life for sponsorship dollars ... at least for a month (in January??).

US Out of 2018 World Cup Bid

USA Bid Committee To Focus on 2022 FIFA World Cup

NEW YORK (October 15, 2010) –The USA Bid Committee announced today that it has withdrawn from the 2018 FIFA World Cup bid and will exclusively focus on the 2022 campaign. 

The decision comes after several months of careful deliberation with FIFA, UEFA and members of the USA Bid Board of Directors. Four European candidates now remain in the race for 2018 (Belgium/Netherlands, England, Russia and Spain/Portugal). Since the FIFA Statutes indicate that the competition cannot be held on the same continent on two successive occasions, the 2022 campaign will now be between Australia, Japan, Korea Republic, Qatar and the United States. ...

See the full article here courtesy of US Soccer.