Nigeria Content Online

The
storm is gathering and the dust has refused to settle after FIFA, the
world football governing body, named Russia and Qatar the hosts of the
2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively.

The 22 members of
FIFA’s executive committee – they would have been 24 had Amos Adamu of
Nigeria and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti not been suspended – chose Russia
over Spain/Portugal, Netherlands/Belgium and England for 2018 and Qatar
ahead of the United States of America, South Korea, Japan and Australia
for the 2022 World Cup.

Firstly, both
countries will be hosting the world’s largest single sport competition
for the first time and FIFA showed that they are ready to venture into
previously uncharted territory.

Russia, the world’s
largest country will be hosting the Mundial in 2018, after hosting the
Winter Olympics in 2014 and Qatar, with a population of 1.7 million
people, became the smallest country to be awarded the hosting rights.

Secondly, the
bidding pattern showed that FIFA and other sports bodies like the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) do not take the issue of human
rights into consideration when awarding hosting rights. Take the
instance of awarding the 2008 Olympics to China and now FIFA, awarding
the 2018 World Cup bid to Russia – the major selling point is believed
to be money. Russia, through President Vladimir Putin, has promised to
inject over $10 billion into hosting the world in 2018 and Qatar, is
known as the richest oil-rich country in the world. The Qataris have
promised to provide air-conditioned stadiums so that the heat, which
reaches about 50c, in summer, will be controlled.

After the pronouncements, Blatter was quick to state his happiness at the choices made by the executive committee members.

“Never has the
World Cup been in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and
Arabic world have been waiting for a long time so I’m a happy president
when we talk about the development of football,” Blatter said.

But this
declaration will not stop the rumours and the side talks that the bids
were as corrupt as they could ever be. Before the voting on Thursday, a
McKinsey report scored Russia last amongst the 2018 bidders and Qatar
was placed second to last of the five 2022 World Cup bid candidates.

All for the money

FIFA’s executive
committee members are now seen to have voted with their calculators and
in the end the billions of dollars that were on show to be tapped in
both Russia and Qatar won over the ‘best technical bids’ of both
England and the USA, in the words of FIFA’s president, Joseph Blatter.

At the moment,
Russia and Qatar cannot boast modern football stadiums – they will have
to be built or renovated to taste. Where England spent £15million on
promoting its 2018 bid, Russia spent at least £25million, with
oligarchs such as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich contributing millions
more. Qatar spent an estimated £108million.

Both countries are
propped up by the billions flowing in from their vast oil and gas
reserves. Russia revealed in its bid document that there will be a lot
of new stadium construction and renovations on old ones. The bid
proposed 16 stadiums, 13 of them would be newly built, at a cost of
$3.82 billion.

Qatar will build
nine new stadiums and renovate three with a total cost of $3 billion
including the climate-control technology that will be needed to keep
the temperature on the pitch to 27c but it would still be over 50c
outside on the streets.

Why did England fail?

It had also been
reported that FIFA requested, as a condition if England had won the
bid, an exclusion from a range of UK laws including the one governing
Banks and Foreign Exchange Operations. FIFA had asked for “unrestricted
import and export of all foreign currencies to and from the UK, and
these were agreed to, so why then did the bid fail?

Some have argued
that England’s bid was pretentious – they did not play the game the
right way and it has been suggested in some quarters that their bid
would have been best served if the London Times had not disclosed the
result of its sting operations on Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii. The
information could just have been transferred to FIFA’s executive
committee and that would have been enough to sway the votes their way.
But that was not the case and if the damage and embarrassment caused by
the expose was not enough, BBC had to run an edition of its documentary
programme Panorama on Monday – preceding the voting on Thursday –
accusing FIFA officials of corruption, dating back 16 years ago.

If the first expose
did not dent its chances, the Panorama programme blew a large hole,
which could not be filled by the three Lions, Prime Minister David
Cameron, Prince William and David Beckham in England’s bid. Before they
got to Zurich on Wednesday, England’s bid had already foundered.
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not help matters when he
jumped on the FIFA bandwagon by castigating the English press.

Putin said: “I
would like to note that recently we have watched with disappointment as
an obvious campaign was being unleashed against members of the FIFA
executive committee.

“They are being
smeared in dirt and compromised. I consider it as part of unscrupulous
bit of competition in preparations for the selection of the
host-country for the World Cup.”

Blaming the media

After the initial
shock which followed the announcement, the BBC and other media
organisations were roundly castigated for England’s loss.

England captain Rio Ferdinand in his reaction on twitter said “the timing of the Panorama programme was (in) bad taste, fact”.

FIFA executive member, Japan’s Junji Ogura, who reportedly voted for the English bid, said:

“England was eliminated in the first round, and they were maybe affected by the BBC and The Sunday Times’ reporting.

“England has full
facilities and they could hold the World Cup any time. I think
England’s media reporting affected FIFA executive committee members.”

But England’s Prime Minister said the country could not have done any more to secure the tournament.

Prince William also
spent the last three days meeting with FIFA delegates round-the-clock
trying to reverse the damage already done to their bid by their media,
but the efforts seem to have come too late.

“Well, obviously we’re extremely disappointed and so is the team. We had a very strong bid but sadly it didn’t work out.

“The guys are quite
down at the moment but they put their whole backs into it. It’s very
sad. We gave everything we could and the guys, I’m so proud of them.
I’m sorry for the fans back home. We gave everything we could,” he said.

‘Excellent’ but not good enough

The bid team actually gave all they could but would their case have been better served with more money?

Mr. Cameron’s
official spokesman on Friday refused to say the voting process was
either good or clean. FIFA’s controversial decisions have reinforced
insinuations that the world body is corrupt. The voting process was for
the highest bidder with FIFA apparently enticed by the amount to be
made in these new territories as against the people that will be
watching the games. From that point of view, the economic shift from
west to East and to the mid-East showed in FIFA’s voting pattern and in
that sense, the American and English bids did not stand a chance.

Hopes had been
raised when Blatter described the English 30-minute presentation as
‘excellent and remarkable’. But then there was the more galling
disclosure that the England bid did not make it past the first round of
voting and that the Netherlands/Belgium bid got more votes than the
English bid.

Andy Anson, the CEO of the England 2018 bid said believes England was betrayed.

“When people look
you in the eye and promise you something, you hope they live up to
their word – but clearly that hasn’t happened,” Anson said.

“I am not going to
name names because that is not fair on individuals but clearly some
people have. We thought we had more than six votes, perhaps seven or
eight. We got two.

“The two bids with
the worst technical reports won. We spent £3 million on ours and that
money has gone down the drain by the looks of it. For me the biggest
disappointment is that we clearly had the best technical bid, the best
economic evaluation, and everyone has told me we had the best
presentation. I was surprised to see Russia win it.”

When asked if he thought FIFA hates the English. He replied: “I don’t think they do.”

Russia and racism

The 2018 bid
engendered a cold war of sorts between England and Russia. Alexander
Sorokin, CEO of the Russian bid had started it all when he said London
was a hotbed of violence, drunken teenagers and rape. Russia’s bid
chief highlighted London’s high crime rate and youth alcohol problems.

“It’s no secret,
for example, that London has the highest crime rate when compared with
other European cities, and the highest level of alcohol consumption
among young people,” Sorokin said.

The comments not
only offended the English, it contravened FIFA’s rules, which do not
allow bid nations to criticise their rivals. He went ahead to accuse
the British media of running a campaign to smear Russia’s reputation
and added that English football had a spell with racism and was also
dealing with the issue.

While dismissing
claims of racial intolerance by Russians, Sorokin also spoke about the
incident involving the West Bromwich Albion forward, Osaze Odemwingie.
The striker was racially taunted after he left Locomotiv Moscow to join
West Bromwich Albion in the Premiership.

“We could start a
conversation about the lack of tolerance and inciting ethnic hatred by
English fans but do not behave like the aunt in the kitchen criticising
our neighbours. The banana banner was not racist. It was directed
against a particular player who got very good money, lived very well
here but for some reason did not seem to want to play well.

“Racism is a common problem, not just in Russia. All soccer countries have had this, including Britain.

Naturally we must fight this and in the Russian Football Union we have a programme to combat all forms of racism,” Sorokin said.

Nigerian striker,
Odemwingie had complained about the banner but Sorokin said: “Maybe he
(Odemwingie) simply wants to become more popular. In any case I am
sorry that this is happening.”

If it was not a
charge of racism, it would be that the country is too big and then to
an apparent lack of adequate infrastructure to cope with the expected
deluge of football fans from all around the world. The reasons given
for choosing Russia for the 2018 World Cup is then quite simple, they
had the most money to be pumped into stadia development and most
probably to spread around.

England not cheated

Russia has a record
of football racism, as other countries do and the dossier on organised
crime is well documented especially in classified diplomatic documents
recently released by wikileaks, with Putin being accused of enriching
himself to the tune of billions. The country is also so big that
travelling across it will be expensive for the normal football fan. All
these and more have to be considered – in the eight years between now
and 2018.

Putin did not help
matters when he said on Friday that he did not believe England was
cheated out of the 2018 World Cup. “No, I don’t think. You know, Great
Britain is a great football country and in Russia we have a lot of fans
of your football in general and your football players in particular.

“Great Britain
lost. It lost, but we are waiting for you in 2018 and we will do our
best for the football players, for the English football players, for
them to realise themselves,” the Daily Express quoted Putin, as saying.

But as the
disappointment sinks in further, English football fans will look to the
perceived major culprit for the missed bid, veteran investigative
journalist, Andrew Jennings of the BBC and his Panorama programme.

Perhaps the whole thing was staged by Blatter as pay back for a 2007
edition in which Jennings said over a backdrop of Blatter’s image:
“This is one of the most unpopular men in world football, and he
controls it. His name is Sepp Blatter and his organisation is in a bit
of trouble, and I’m another. My name is Andrew Jennings and Mr Blatter
can’t stand me.” FIFA’S voting indeed showed that they cannot stand the
English.