The soccer scoreboards show that the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups have been announced. Russia will host the 2018 World Cup, whereas the competition in 2022 will be hosted by Qatar. This decision, which was announced on 2 December 2010, took many soccer fans by surprise. Russia won the bid over the favourite England and Qatar won the bid over the favourite the U.S. England was given the best chance of winning the hosting rights but in the end it was Russia who emerged as the winner. England was promised that it would receive seven votes, but instead it got only two and got knocked out in the initial round.
Controversy surrounds the 2022 World Cup hosting which Qatar won over the heavily favored United States. Obviously there is no comparison between the two countries, and many people were shocked that a country smaller than Connecticut could win over the U.S in the hosting rights. Many people allege that Qatar bought its votes. There are reports that in order to receive support from the FIFA executive committee member, Julio Grundona, the Qatar Soccer Federation paid him $78 million. Moreover, two other executive committee members were also paid $1.5 million for their votes. These reports should be investigated into right away, as, lets face it, they are proberly true!
Qatar, being such a small country with few facilities, needs to start a massive constuction program. The place is very hot during summer and players will have a really tough time playing during the 2022 World Cup under the Middle-Eastern sun. The country needs to build an airport at least 3 times big as it is now and build 9 more stadiums and soccer scoreboards for the World Cup from stratch. This is in contrast to most countries who host the competition which already have a large number of stadiums already built. On the other hand, Qatar has the kind of money it takes to host this kind of major event and to build stadiums, which, according to them, will revolutionize the sporting world.
They have proposed to build 12 stadiums, half of which will be in the capital, Doha. If you take a look at the pictures of the stadiums which Qatar plans to build you will be highly impressed. Their bid’s organizers have said that all the stadiums will use solar panels to turn the sun rays into electricity which will be used when the games will be taking place, and their ambitious aim is to make the stadiums carbon-neutral.
Let’s hope that Qatar, despite being a small country with an underdeveloped infrastructure and a great security risk sets an example and creates history in terms of hosting the 2022 World Cup. Lets hope that fans come home after experiencing one of the best World Cups ever!
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