OT: Still Time to Drop Qatar & Bring the 2022 World Cup to America

Submitted by stephenrjking on

We must beware catching a whiff of politics here, but a number of Middle Eastern nations have suddenly severed ties with 2022 World Cup host Qatar, allegedly over ties with Iran. Were there to be serious international political issues, FIFA would have an excuse to do something they should have done anyway, stripping Qatar of the World Cup and returning the event to its proper summer position.

And the logical place to hold that World Cup is the US. Yeah, there's a joint US-Canada-Mexico bid out there for 2026, but why wait? And, no offense to my family in Canada or our passionate friends in Mexico, why bother crossing borders? The US doesn't need to build or modify a single stadium or update a single piece of infrastructure to host the event. We have, by far, the biggest collection of appropriate stadiums in the world. It's not even close. FIFA need only ask which cities it wants to be in.

Because of our infrastructure situation, they really can pull the trigger any time up to the year before. However, doing it now will allow Qatar to avoid investing in pointless stadiums they don't deserve anyway. Move the World Cup.

Blue in Paradise

June 5th, 2017 at 1:10 AM ^

The FIFA scandal. I like the idea of bringing it back to the U.S. (should have gotten it in the first instance) although I would say that a few other places could also handle it relatively easily, mainly the big countries in Europe.

JMo

June 5th, 2017 at 1:11 AM ^

Sorry Rev. Time to make peace with the fact that 2018 Qatar was bought and paid for, and will be delivered by the sweat and literal blood of slave labor, and played at hell-like temperatures in the middle of the desert.

Screw corrupt FIFA.

stephenrjking

June 5th, 2017 at 1:13 AM ^

2018 will be in Russia. 

And everyone knows that the process was hopelessly corrupt. Blatter has since been thrown out on the street, which means there is a small hope that FIFA will use something like this as an excuse to do what it should have done anyway.

BIGBLUEWORLD

June 5th, 2017 at 2:43 AM ^

Maybe we should have another Winter Olympics in Russia, so the skiers can slide around in wet sluch like they did at Sochi.

Russian people are cool. But their leadership is so bad they make our nincompoops look like Eagle Scouts. You want to keep this about sports, how about them getting kicked out of the Olympics because most of their athletes were on steroids?

Those thieving Russian oligarchs are so corrupt, they make the SEC look honest...Well, uhm, maybe that's a little exagerrated. Nothing can make the SEC look honest.

huntmich

June 5th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^

I read this from that article:

 

"A construction manager describes arriving for work “at 5:00 a.m. and there was blood everywhere. I don't know what happened, but it was covered up with no report. When I reported this, I was told that if I didn't stop complaining, I would be dismissed.”"

 

Wouldn't being dismissed seem like a blessing here? Couldn't you then return to your country's embassy and get the fuck out of there? Does that kind of government protection just not exist for people from Nepal?

 

Man, sometimes you forget how good it is to be American.

San Diego Mick

June 5th, 2017 at 1:12 AM ^

but you have to believe it would piss off a lot of people in the Middle East if one of their country has it stripped from them and awarded to us despite the severing of the ties thing you mentioned.

If they're going to move it let some other country have it and maybe we can get it for 2026.

Rabbit21

June 5th, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^

Agreed, it absolutely cannot go to the country that was complaining the most about it.  

Just for sanity's sake I'd like for the cup to go somewhere with decent infrastructure that wasn't involved in the Qatar bid round and I'd really be okay with having it in Asia along the lines of Japan or China or if we have to stay in the Middle East, Turkey.

gwrock

June 5th, 2017 at 1:19 AM ^

Unless something has changed recently, US Central Command (CENTCOM) has its forward headquarters in Qatar. I would think that arrangement would get awkward quickly if Qatar had meaningful ties to Iran.

BlueintheLou

June 5th, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^

This is laughable coming from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an established, slightly less brutal (maybe? definitely publically) ISIS. This isn't even mentioning any sort of tertiary funding that leaves the country and bounces around banks until falling into nefarious hands. This is a total ploy from KSA (not saying Qatar may not have their own nefarious dealings, though).

fksljj

June 5th, 2017 at 1:22 AM ^

just isn't right. All the European leagues should be boycotting this as I'd imagine they don't want a break in play. Or if they don't have a break in play they don't want the superstars gone.

Yabadabablue

June 5th, 2017 at 7:14 AM ^

whoever thought going to a country that bases their legistlation on Sharia Law was a good idea... oh yeah they have lots of $$$. Makes me sick that people turn a blind eye if the price is right. 

Everyone Murders

June 5th, 2017 at 7:56 AM ^

I support virtually any proposition that takes the World Cup out of Qatar.  Sepp Blatter's love child should be stillborn.  They have foreign laborers suffering dire abuse (and sometimes death) to build stadiums that will mostly sit as empty monuments to avarice after 2022 - all so that Qatar can feel like a first-world nation.

Plus, is it "Cutter" or "kuh-Tar"?  People can't even agree on how to say the country's name.

Everyone Murders

June 5th, 2017 at 8:28 AM ^

So I should say it like a mortally-wounded adolescent cartoon* mouse with a difficult-to-place accent saying "gutter" just prior to its death throes.

("Gutter" being the place said young mouse's life came to a merciful end, after a short dalliance with pimping itself for cheddar cheese while battling consumption and dropsy.)

*Sorry, I meant to say anime.

LSAClassOf2000

June 5th, 2017 at 8:48 AM ^

Well, to be fair, it is the only place in North Korea where you could plug in the shaved ice maker and be reasonably certain of getting roughly six hours of continuous operation out of it to combat the lunch rush. Any other city and they would need to consider playing under the same conditions they did in, oh, Uruguay in 1930. 

Night_King

June 5th, 2017 at 8:31 AM ^

I will be fucking pissed if the World Cup stays in Qatar. I hope they continue spending their money on state of the art stadiums that never get used. Fuck them.

Also, the world cup was never meant to be played in November-December timeframe. Bring it back to the U.S. and play it in June-July as it is meant to be. 

uncle leo

June 5th, 2017 at 8:44 AM ^

Is just horrible on so many levels.

-A big article was written a year or so ago on ESPN about the labor to build the necessary seating for the Cup. People are literally dying every day, being shipped over from poor nations to build and are being mistreated on massive scales.

-I am not sure if Cup is being moved to the winter time for Qatar or what season it is over there, but the conditions will be absolutely brutal.

-On the soccer side, a nation like Qatar gets a free bid to the WC which has absolutely no business being in. Their team is like a semi-pro mix of a bunch of random players. They will steal someone's spot who deserves being in.

JClay

June 5th, 2017 at 8:52 AM ^

I want people to put their money where their mouth is on this issue: refuse to watch the World Cup and demand the USMNT pull out. In fact, go one step further and fully defund the USMNT and the USWNT for good measure. Make youth soccer illegal. Do it for the sake of what is right and good.

uncle leo

June 5th, 2017 at 8:57 AM ^

But you can't ask the players, who go through painstaking efforts to qualify and have trained for a LONG time for the WC, to not play.

You cannot punish them for this. All the nations need to come together and decide on a Plan B. It would take minimal effort at best to pick another country with the already built infrastructure and sort out the logistics.