World Cup Willy
I was disappointed but not surprised by today's World Cup decision.My sons will be 9 and 11 respectively in 2018, perfect ages to experience the amazing experience of the World Cup.....in Milton Keynes.
Now I'm conscious that by the time we might conceivably win the right to host the tournament again, I'll be 57 years old.
Realistically despite the usual English arrogance about the 'unique' attributes of the bid, Europe is the global hotbed of football and once-a-century is about all we can expect given local competition and global rotation.
It's hard to argue why the 9th most populous nation in the world shouldn't have the right to host a World Cup.
You just have to hope fans don't get the 2018 and 2022 World Cups mixed up, and go to Qatar looking for call girls. There's plenty of natural gas in both though.
Clearly the Qatari bid winning 2022 is ludicrous, although once I'd had time to think about it, it might actually be a fabulous first tournament to attend in person.
Given how close the stadia will be to each other, fans can remain at a single hotel and for example, aim to attend one game per day for a week then head home.
After all, there will be nothing else to do inbetween matches. Once you've seen one sand dune, you've seen them all.
Seriously though, I'm tending to view every major global event these days through the lens of 'old world versus new world', the UK firmly being in the former category.
Old world countries are indebted, ageing and rapidly losing the standards of living they once took for granted.
New world countries are in surplus, vibrant and hungry for the above standards of living. Qatar is probably the richest nation on the planet.
A recent headline made me chuckle: "Russian debt set to rise to 16% of GDP by 2012." The UK's is already at 71.3% and rising.
So when pundits say England 'earned' the right to host the World Cup in 2018, what do they really mean?
posted by New York Addick @ 8:31 PM
5 comments
One might argue that Europe's position as a hotbed of football is precisely the reason to export our beautiful game to emerging countries in the Middle East. What worries me more than "divine right" is the promise to bring the playing temperature DOWN to 27C. We won't stand a chance with our kick and rush game while the Spanish walk the ball around and hardly break sweat.
NYA n- sadly, I agree completely re your old and new world analogy. I look after large volumes of Indian workers who do call-centre and software development for us at prices and volumes we simply can't compete with in Dear Old Blighty. We joke that with our respective economies heading in opposite directions that we will finish my careers taking calls for our business that the Indians will no longer be able to compete with us for on price. It's not such a laughable idea.
Ugly American -
I had a similar thought about us losing 2022 to Qatar. I'll be 61 then and my son 28 - a man, but young enough to have some time to see a game with Dad. Besides he owes me. I didn't attend games in '94 because of the difficulties he was giving my wife in her last trimester.
Great point re old and new world. What gets me is the surprise that we failed. Blatter came into the job saying he wanted to spread the football word around the world into new markets. He almost said as much again on the platform when he congratulated England on their presentation. He was almost apologetic. Bring back the Home Internationals and invite another European team to make it interesting.
I think the sad thing is that corruption has played a huge part in it. I am all for sending football around the world, breaking new grounds - but why did it not go to Egypt, or the UAE where it can at least be spread around the seven emirates. The sad fact is that the reason it has gone to qatar (with a population 40% of that found in Singapore) because they will have sweetened it. For me this is without doubt, but I also doubt we will ever find the true details...