Stand by for the racism; plus planes landing in the wrong place (suddenly). « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does
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by Phil Gregory
So the news is in, Russia has the 2018 World Cup and Qatar the 2022. Anyone who is connected to the Untold facebook page will know my thoughts already, but I decided to elaborate on them and put together a quick article.
There were seemingly three real front-runners for 2018: Russia, Spain-Portugal and England. I’m not entirely sure how FIFA decides how to choose it’s World Cup hosts. Russia has the most expensive capital city in Europe (yes, ahead of London) and has huge problems with racism in domestic games.
The banana banner that attempted to congratulate West Brom for taking Odemwingie off Lokomotiv Moscow’s hands was bad enough, but sadly, not a surprise. A few years back, Dick Advocaat came out and said that it wasn’t possible for him to sign black players as Zenit’s fans simply wouldn’t accept them.
Zenit were charged for racial abuse during a UEFA Cup tie with Marseilles, so it’s not like the issue has gone under the radar, unlike the 36 times Justice Adjei was stabbed in Moscow in a racial attack. This sort of attitude has no place in the civilised world or the 21st century, and yet Russia have the World Cup. How can we have grandiose gestures like Kick Racism out of Football and then hand the World Cup to Moscow? Somewhere, FIFA have messed up their priorities and it is an absolute disgrace.
Concerns over air safety (read: the planes have a habit of falling out of the sky) and infrastructure round of the backstory for the Russian bid, and yet they won. Mind-blowing stupidity on the part of FIFA. North Korea for the 2026 World Cup anyone?
All I can say is I’m thankful they didn’t give the World Cup to Spain-Portugal. Both countries are well on their way to sovereign bankruptcy (Portugal at least, is small enough to get bailed out, but Spain? Good luck!). I won’t bore you with too much economics, but suffice to say that Portugal’s government is so short of people to fund it’s debt, that its banks are actually lending the government money. This is a move of absolute stupidity, as once the Portuguese government starts to cut its deficit and the economy shrinks, the banks will find their losses mounting as people default on their loans/mortgages, and in turn demand money back from the government. Best of luck with that Portugal.
Aside from those same economic issues, barely any of Spain’s proposed World Cup stadium were even built, and most of them were funded by local authorities, the very same local authorities who are a bit strapped for cash amidst widespread concern over the Spanish economy. And yet I doubt any FIFA representative even broached the subject.
The issue of sustainability should be at the forefront of concerns: “if you build these stadiums for the World Cup, are they going to get used afterwards?” should be asked. It has to be a total deal-breaker if a country has to build a bunch of stadiums that will then stand derelict. FIFA should have learned from the Athens Olympics, where many facilities were built purely for the games and then afterwards lay unused, while the Greek economy crumbled.
The Qatar 2022 World Cup will have Greenpeace seething with rage. With scorching summer temperatures, high-level sport will be nearly impossible. Good job then that Qatar plan on air conditioning all the stadiums then! Having visited the country myself, I can attest to it being a beautiful place but given the income inequality, I cannot see how they will sell tickets to the locals. Sure, the wealthy expatriate oil engineers and architects will pick them up easily, but that won’t fill stadiums. The very stadiums that I bet most will be custom-built and never used again. It truly beggars belief.
England apparently had the best technical bid, and were ticking all the boxes commercially too. You could have stadiums based all around the country, and very few would need upgrades. You’d have a few brand new stadiums by the time the World Cup came around, but you would have neither funding concerns nor time concerns (if they are delayed, there’s a plethora of other suitable stadiums). The infrastructure would be adequate if not perfect, and there would be both the funding and the time to make a few improvements if FIFA deemed it necessary. There’d be no nonsense of flying around the country like there was in South Africa, to the benefit of the fans’ pockets. How then did England only get two votes?
As a proud Englishman, I have to say I’m gutted at what was ultimately an abject failure of our bid. As ever though, I’d urge the bid team to be proud of their efforts, and remind themselves that the FIFA representatives are, almost to a man, corrupt and terribly misguided. All that I can say is FIFA can’t be considering the core issues for the bid’s but some wishy-washy “expanding the game into new areas” by awarding it to Russia. That’s all well and lovely, but let’s just wait for the first racist incident in Moscow. Once the World Cup comes around, we won’t be waiting long.
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