2022 World Cup Qatar

^The Qataris must have given Infantino another massive bung to get that performance out of him.

He wants Europe to apologise for the past while he cunningly ignores Qatar's present. Twat.

^ Blunt but I am in agreement with you.

Infantino has done very little to ease any suspicion of continued institutional corruption existing within FIFA and if anything his prolonged rant will have made things worse rather than better.
He may have a point about Western hypocrisy but in all honesty hypocrisy and double standards have never and will never be confined to Western nations by virtue of past, present or future so to a degree it's a pointless dig. The large majority of his 50 odd minute rant was disingenuous nonsense.

He, his organisation and all national football associations have not taken responsibility adequately imo.
And why?
Money, that's why.

It's the players and managers being asked a whole load of tricky questions when the decision really should have been taken out of their hands. Meanwhile the abuses and exploitation continue in Qatar but Infantino clearly wishes all of that be ignored.
It won't and it shouldn't.
Infantino is an idiot and represents a continuation of all that is wrong with FIFA and it's ethics and values.

I doubt FIFA ever realised thre logistical problems that would arise along with hosting a world cup in the Middle East once Qatar was announced. That shoiuld have been the moment Europe said 'No Thanks' and pulled out in it's entirety and we would have been spared the headaches we have now with our domestic season.

I'm pretty sure players from other countries would not have been prevented from going, but wonder if at that moment (had it happened and europe boycotted it), it would have been a good moment to have revived the home internationals had we pulled out.

Idiiot Infantino himself, probably has become Qatar's mouthpiece as I suspect that rant was written for him so one would assume Qatar's rulers are attempting to overrule every FIFA decision and press conferences. I doubt there was no way Infantino would have let rip at european teams like that but if they were his
owon words and not a script he probably has alienated any trust UEFA has in him and in any case, I would not be too surprised if UEFA don't have the courage
to hit back.
TBH I had hoped Infantino would have bought stability to FIFA after Blatter, and rooted out corruption, but instead he has left it wide open to further curruption and in any case lost trust in his leadership, We all know QATAR bought the world cup and now I hear apparently Ecuador were bribed several million dollars to throw the opening game, if that is the level this World Cup has sunk to then surely you need no further proof just how much of this world cup is controlled by the state of Qatar and not by FIFA itself, and they will squeeze every opprtunity to ensure a Qatari win or at least a team not from the west wins it.

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(18-11-2022 21:46 )Doddle Wrote:  I still think that short of going "nowhere in the Middle East is fit to host", Qatar was one of the least worst options. Banging the "human rights" drum, however sound, is a bit hollow when Saudi Arabia and Israel both kill journalists and basically get away with it, and are still "friends of the West".

When will Australia get a turn to host? Surely they're big enough?

I don't doubt Australia could stage a great FIFA World Cup they have staged the Olympics twice and have been great hosts as well as Commonweath games and Rugby World Cupd, F! tennis with great success. Whether FIFA see the issue that Australia doesn't have the proper infrastructure to host one or the time differences are an issue too. I even begin to doubt FIFA will ever return to England because they don't like our drinking cultures!!!

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I bet it won't take long for ther AC in stadiums to fail

Their chance to stop the World Cup in Qatar came and went when the Qataris asked to shift it from summer to winter.

They campaigned on the promise that a summer World Cup in Qatar was possible, presenting a bunch of hare brained schemes to cool down stadiums. Within months, they turned around and said they couldn’t do it in summer and would have to host in winter instead — which they must have known the whole time.

At that point, FIFA could’ve said, ‘sorry, but rules is rules.’

But we all know the bizarro world of FIFA politics, so here we are

And also I would not be surprised if the refeereeing standards are just as awful. I would have thought even at that stage, they were too far down the road to pull the plug on Qatar when they asked to shift to winter but surely FIFA even knew then the upheavals in Europe for that were far too massive to coordinate. The european soccer season is the most challenging in the world. evwn Germany has lost interest in it I hear. At leasst thr GGermans vloiced their concerns about it at games, I don't recall if similar were done at games here.

In future, they should have in place a system where if one host fails on one criteria and they scoring offer the competition to the next highest scoring nation. it is a pity they have never considered Australia which has hosted Commonwealth Games, Olympics, F1,Rugby World cups (in both codes), Ashes cricket, to name but a few anf hosted them succesfully but I think the logistics of fitting a FIFA world Cup in Aussie with other continents probably has some logistics that make it impossible.

Snooks, you echoed my thoughts perfectly, probably more eloquently too.

I totally agree with snooks,I would say Infantino should apologise to the world form of picking an awful country in an awful part of the world with poor infra structure and human rights records,poor woman's rights, gay rights,workers rights..my list could go on but he should also apologize for giving the beer rights to Budweiser.

Ps I would have a look at the fans £175 a night accomodation on the BBC website.a joke.

whoever lifts the trophy it will be a hollow victory, shit competition, ruined the domestic season

I would not be surprised if backhanders are still going on and the Qataris are still bribing opposing teams to throw matches

(21-11-2022 06:45 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  I would not be surprised if backhanders are still going on and the Qataris are still bribing opposing teams to throw matches

What, like the opener they lost?