Egypt's bid to host +IOC #Winter Olympics
Note this article again updated on 26 December 2014 to include a LINK to the resignation of Michael Garcia, the attorney hired by FIFA to report to them on corruption. He is unhappy with FIFA's handling of his report.
Note: this article has been updated as at 30 Nov 2014 to include a LINK to a UK newspaper dossier regarding WC corruption which was handed to the House of Commons.
So you knew when you read it something was wrong, and it bothered you enough to check it out. Well done, YOU!
You figured it out that not only is Egypt a place with lots of heat, deserts and no snow, but there is also no tradition of Winter Sports.
And yet, what's so different about #Qatar and its bid to host the 2022 #FIFA +FIFA WORLD CUP ?
Well the only difference I can make out is that Qatar's bid was seriously entertained by #FIFA and its bid succeeded against those of countries with far superior bids on almost every ground. Why?
+Doha Qatar2022
Qatar is situated in one of the hottest regions of the World. The World Cup Tournament always occurs in June / July, when highly lucrative European Leagues take a break. During Summer, the climate is not only hot, but extreme.
The minimum temperatures during June / July seldom dip below 30 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperatures vary between 38 degrees and 46 degrees. Day or night, Qatar's summer climate is too extreme for soccer players. Indeed it would not only be unpleasant to play soccer in such extreme heat but it would of course also be dangerous to the heath of the players if they did so.
Unsurprisingly, Qatar's extreme climate does not lend itself towards the pursuit of any Football to speak of, let alone Major League Football.
One wonders what took place on the very first occasion when officials from FIFA first encountered someone from Qatar who revealed his fanciful and absurd notion of that country hosting the Soccer World Cup Tournament, despite its extreme climate. It's almost as absurd as Egypt bidding to host the Winter Olympics.
The FIFA officials ought first to have discretely enquired into the sanity of the person concerned, and upon satisfying themselves of the existence of some on his part, they should have politely advised him that Qatar's climate rendered it unsuitable as a host country for the tournament.
Instead, however, FIFA not only entertained a self-evidently unworkable bid from #Qatar, but against any logic and despite all odds being against such a bid, FIFA's World Cup committee ended up voting for and allocating the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Bribery? / Corruption?
To almost everyone but FIFA (and some in Qatar) there is one and only one reasonable explanation for the success of Qatar's bid which presents itself. The result must have been the result of bribery and/or some foul play.
Allegations of corruption and of shady practices involving FIFA are not new, FIFA's standard response to most such allegations has generally been dismissive. FIFA's failure to deal with allegations of corruption in a decisive and open manner has done little to quell such rumours.
Gifts?
In addition, FIFA have also failed to adequately acknowledge or address the highly questionable practice of the provision of gifts to members of FIFA's World Cup Committee by or on behalf of bidding countries. Although these "incentives" or gifts may fall short of actual bribery or corruption, the failure to eliminate these practices does FIFA no credit.
No matter what FIFA says, permitting, or failing to ban such gifts outright, in itself goes a long way to muddying the water between innocent low-value tokens of esteem, and actual bribery. Indeed, one of the FIFA officials recently accused of bribery has predictably resorted to suggesting his receipt of gifts from bidding host countries' representative is both acceptable and common practice.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/the-2022-world-cup-bidding-process/written/15880.pdf
http://www.guerardmedia.com/ethics-investigator-michael-garcia-resigns-from-fifa-committee/
It seems each step FIFA take to "fix" the unfixable" quite predictably only makes it worse.
http://www.guerardmedia.com/fifa-to-publish-redacted-world-cup-corruption-report/
FIFA's explanation
One thing in particular added weight to the Bribery / Corruption Argument. FIFA's bid committee did not appear to have ever properly applied their collective minds to the one phenomenon which obviously made #Qatar an unsuitable World Cup Host in the first place i.e. - The extreme climate. Frankly, such an oversight is inexplicable and bizarre.
It seems someone perhaps thought they could get away with it if the world matches were only played at night. Anyone thinking this would clearly did no research into the prevailing temperatures at night in Qatar's summer.
Alternatively FIFA simply turned a blind eye to the reality that, even at night in Summer, the temperatures are around or can even be above that of body temperature. Such conditions would not only be considered extreme and highly uncomfortable to almost any footballers from around the world, but these conditions would also be considered unsafe for the sport by the medical profession.
FIFA had tried to wriggle out of this by arguing that thinking behind the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar was motivated by the need to promote and expand Football throughout the World and not only in countries where the sport thrives.
It was only some time after the tournament had already been allocated that +Sepp Blatter and #FIFA acknowledged for the first time that the extreme heat in Qatar represented a problem. The inordinate delay in admitting that which was always self-evident, only serves to pour additional fuel on the corruption rumours. Surely, no international governing body, or even a school PTA, could possibly be capable of such gross incompetence.
#FIFA's Solution - Hold the tournament in the Northern Winter
#FIFA, much like the old communist Russians, do not manage the truth well. Instead, its the prefer the truth in instalments approach. Don't admit anything until you really have to.
Instead of cancelling a clearly unworkable, clearly bribery plagued event, FIFA suggested that Qatar could still work as a venue if the Tournament was held in winter.
Sadly for FIFA, their solution only exposed them to further criticism and it revealed FIFA's decision to award the tournament to Qatar as being ill-considered and ridiculous.
The Major European Club Leagues operate in Winter.
The major European Club Football Leagues, which form the backbone of International Soccer, occur throughout the entire European Winter, not to mention Spring and Autumn too.
Most of the World's top players play for some or other European Club. The Major European Club Leagues are not only supported in their own respective countries, but club competitions such as England's Premier League and its Spanish, Italian and German equivalents al have massive and dedicated world wide television audiences.
The European Club season is well-entrenched and involves so many interested parties, such as football federations, television stations, and advertisers etc. located in various countries throughout the world.
The more one thinks about it, the logistics involved in negotiating a one-month break during the winter of 2022 with each interested party in order to permit FIFA to hold the World Cup in the Northern Winter are massive. It would take years of negotiation and, even then there would be no guarantee of success.
The revenue raised by the European Club Soccer Leagues, in particular by the sale of television and advertising rights, runs into hundreds of billions of Euros. It goes without saying that during the Christmas / New Year period, when many people around the world take some time off work, the television audiences are at their highest, and so too, is the revenue raised by all stakeholders involved.
So many are the stake-holders who stand to lose if the World Cup is held in the Northern Winter, that I doubt any workable unanimity amongst all of them would emerge no matter how many years are allowed for this and no matter how Herculean the effort to achieve this might be.
All of this serves to expose #FIFA to the inevitable conclusion that such was their greed amongst at least some of its officials and such is the extent of their corruption in the bidding process, that no doubt enormous bribes were allowed to supersede logic or shame, and they went ahead with that which they knew was indefensible, illegal, and immoral.
They hoped that by the time FIFA was called upon to deal with all the fall-out from their malfeasance, no-one would be able to prove who had received what from whom, and that, FIFA, true to its record, would do nothing to expose the rot at its core.
Reports of bribes
When reports emerged earlier this year to the effect that someone said to be acting on behalf of +Qatar, or its football association, apparently made substantial payments to one or more members of FIFA's world Cup Committee in exchange for their votes in favour of +Qatar's bid, hardly anyone raised an eyebrow.
After all, how else could +Qatar's bid have ever succeeded. The reasons against the bid are as insurmountable as the bid itself is flawed, tainted and ill-considered.
Despite the reports, and despite growing world unhappiness at #FIFA's handling of all this, FIFA have refused to announce that the entire bidding process for the 2022 World-Cup be repeated, or at the very least that the bids of the Runner's up who lost out be granted an opportunity to repeat their final presentations, (hopefully in front of an independently appointed Committee, until FIFA gets its house in order.)
+FIFA have arrogantly refused to agree to these reasonable demands.
LATEST
The +German Football Team yesterday held a formal celebration to acknowledge this year's remarkable win of the 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil
The occasion was attended by FIFA head +Sepp Blatter . Of course, the festering sore FIFA refuse to deal with, its highly controversial and shameful allocation of the #WorldCup2022 Tournament to +Qatar, was raised by the attending media.
"Does FIFA intend to revisit the process in terms of which it allocated the 2022 World CUP tournament +World Cup Portal to Qatar? If so? when?" they asked.
+Sepp Blatter shrugged the question off by with yet another denial that #FIFA have any plans to do so.
I end by quoting a Latin Maxim we use to have certain facts which are so-self evident they do not require proof admitted into evidence.
RES IPSA LOQUITUR - The Facts speak for themselves. It's now no longer a question of whether the +Qatar bribed FIFA officials to win the SWC2022 bid. I say that its a FACT that FIFA officials were bribed to award the tournament to +Qatar!
http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/11/fifas-attack-on-englishfa-shameful.html
Siegfried Walther
Cape Town November 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment