Qat-are You Serious, FIFA?

Upon the announcement that the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would be hosted in Russia and Qatar respectively, I wrote a piece for the University newspaper defending the decision to award Russia the 2018 tournament, but displaying some confusion at the choice of Qatar for 2022. Though in the interests of writing brash and sensational articles for the University I put the decision down to money, at the time I concluded internally that such a feeling could only be a result of the anger we were all feeling that England's realistic bid for 2018 had been rejected at the first round of voting.

There was definitely a cause for concern when the choices were made. With Qatar especially, it became very difficult to rationalise how they had bluffed their way into hosting a World Cup. The national team have no presence in the world of football and construction had started on almost none of the proposed stadiums to be used for the tournament in their bid. With nations such as the USA and Australia (had they been chosen, the World Cup would have had the distinction of being held in every continent) pitted against them for the 2022 event, it simply became a question of 'why?', and the idea of money was not a stranger to many lips.

Though the thought was tempting, in truth I considered Russia to be a huge footballing nation that, by now, really should have hosted a World Cup. Though Qatar was a more difficult choice to justify, I also considered that this was the sort of region football owed a visit. Given how Formula One spends a lot of time in places like Abu Dhabi and Bahrain despite these countries having no real pedigree for the sport, it seemed that perhaps FIFA's decision came from a similar ambition to place the prestige of the World Cup in this region, and to give the unique tournament another unique location in which historic moments could take place.

 

Boy, was that a stretch.

It only took a short while for issues to be raised that made Qatar out to be a massively unsuitable location for a World Cup. The first was the problem of homosexuality, which is outlawed in Qatar. It is debatable as to whether the FIFA executives were aware of this, or whether they were ignorant enough not to see it as a problem, but with football still struggling to get to grips with the idea of  homosexuality in the sport this was a bad time to take the most prestigious event in the sport to a country with such a discriminatory attitude. Though David Cameron recently showed the sort of poise natural to a politician by dancing around the issue in relation to the Winter Olympics in Russia (we can let FIFA off with the World Cup in Russia, as the laws were not in place when they were awarded the tournament to them), Blatter clumsily clattered into the problem by commenting that gay people should "refrain from sexual activity" when attending the event.

Then came the revelation that it's quite hot in Qatar, and this has put many footballing organisations into a troublesome bind. With temperatures of up to 50°c commonplace during Qatari summers, it quickly became apparent that playing football in such weather was a terrible idea. Just as Blatter scrambled to pretend that the homosexuality issue had indeed been considered by FIFA and there was a simple answer to it, he repeated the same trick with this more practical problem by suggesting that the World Cup would be held in winter.

Naturally, many football fans weren't too impressed by the idea of overturning the whole calender of football for a season in order to accommodate for FIFA's idiotic whims, but Blatter pressed on with the idea in the face of opposition. FIFA vice-president Jim Boyce's comments today suggesting that the Premier League should just get on with it are frustrating enough, but one part of the article on BBC Sport confirmed the very worst of my fears. To quote the piece:

"[Boyce] also acknowledged that, before it voted in 2010 to award the event to Qatar, Fifa did not fully consider the implications of playing there during the summer, when temperatures can reach 50C."

I can't profess to knowing the ins and outs of how FIFA's decision making process works for the hosting of the World Cup, but if the first question is not "Can you play football there?", then something is seriously, seriously wrong.

It is impossible to put up a front and say that there is any alternative. FIFA executives, when making the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, clearly did not take into account footballing pedigree, spreading the tournament across the world, existing infrastructure, the political situation of the country in question, or even whether it is feasible that football can take place there. I used to believe that my conclusion three years ago, that money was the root of the decision, was a cheap way to push the reader into a reaction. Now is the grim realisation that I had actually hit the nail squarely on the head.

Despite the strong opposition from the Premier League, it is difficult to envisage a way in which a winter World Cup does not take place. Playing in such heat would not only be difficult for players, it would be outright dangerous, so that possibility is out. FIFA won't reverse their decision either, as I'd imagine it would allow Qatar to take legal action against the organisation, and that would mean money coming out of executive pockets, so this is not going to happen either. The only conclusion now is for the tradition and legacy of the World Cup, and an entire domestic season, to be ruined by pigs in need of a bigger trough.