The corruption and lies that have gone on with the Qatar World Cup bid wouldn’t have looked out of place on Corrie or Emmerdale, or whatever you youngsters watch nowadays! Maybe it’s all due to the fact that Sepp Blatter is one of those people who likes to hear himself talk, or whatever.
There have been a lot of rumours about moving the Qatar World Cup to another country though. Of course, the one name that has been been mentioned is the United States. I’m an American and of course this is all very exciting, but is it likely?
Yes, the US has the infrastructure to pull off a World Cup in most of the cities, but Miami and Washington DC would be a problem. Washington DC and soccer stadium proposals are something a good writer could write a book on. It’s complicated for various reasons. This isn’t something we need. Send the World Cup to Australia, they’ve not had it, and it would give them guaranteed entry into World Cup 2022.
You don’t want to move the Qatar World Cup into a western country, for political reasons. It’s an Islamic area and us, as a nation, are hardly top of their friends list at the moment. Most of the region that Qatar is in, already hate the United States. Take the World Cup away from them, for all the good it could do there, and the backlash would be huge. Apparently there haven’t been any approaches from the USA yet anyway, so despite the media may say, it seems some way off.
So, where should the World Cup be held? There’s five potential places for me – China, Italy, Spain, Germany and Australia. China is a massive country, and yes it has its communist government but it has a lot of money, and a lot of space to build the stadiums. It could work. Italy would be an interesting place to put the World Cup also. It has enough quality stadia and a massive history in the sport, plus it could be the kick in the pants that the league needs to be one of the best in the world again. We all know how great Spain and Germany are domestically and internationally, so it would be a great to see them host it. Australia is my shout, but it has two problems – the A-League is still a hipster league and relatively unknown and the time difference would seriously annoy a lot of people. Watching games would be tricky, but they’ve proven in the past that they’re capable of hosting major tournaments and, as a nation, they certainly love their sport.
Please FIFA, do the smart thing and don’t shove the World Cup in the States like you apparently want. It could get ugly politically and there’s better options anyway. Our time doesn’t have to be now.
By Stephen Brandt – Liverpool fan – @yellowcardSCB
I think we’ll get it.