Who Do You Think Will Host World Cup 2018

[villa4europe]

Anyone know if Qatar are relaxing the drinking laws? Would anyone in their right mind go to a world cup without booze? I bet bud won't be too happy either

[The_Rev]

Maybe. But then this is the internet so you have to take things with a pinch of salt. You get people on this forum who are convinced the BBC hate Villa if they dont show all 90 minutes of our match on MotD and make Lineker, Hansen & co wear claret and blue ties during the analysis!

I rest my case!

[LondonLax]

Anyone know if Qatar are relaxing the drinking laws? Would anyone in their right mind go to a world cup without booze? I bet bud won't be too happy either

Yes, they will have fan sites set up where the sell booze.

[leviramsey]

Isn't the CL and Europa League UEFA and nothing to do with FIFA?

I'm sure if David Cameron and Price William felt particularly aggrieved at this pleb Blatter undermining them it wouldn't take many phone calls to European states' governments before a new independent European ruling body was announced. The rest of the World wouldn't like to be playing in competitions without European teams so would very quickly be happy to negotiate their own subsidiaries.

Uefa answer to Fifa, if we wanted to quit Fifa we'd have to quit Uefa. Platini is a puppet of Blatter.

I think it has a chance of succeeding, because pulling out of FIFA & UEFA would make England and its clubs renegades, which would, along with ending involvement in UEFA/FIFA sanctioned competitions also make FIFA registration irrelevant to whether English clubs could sign players under contract to other clubs.

The FA pulling out of UEFA and FIFA would enable Man City, Chelsea (and probably to a smaller extent Man Utd, Spurs, maybe even Arsenal etc.) to sign players currently under contract at Real Madrid, Barca, etc. 50m signing bonus and 300k a week for 5 years to Cristiano Ronaldo to play for Man City? Nothing Real Madrid can do about that except:

a) raise Ronaldo's wages to that level and pay him 50m as a loyalty bonus (and have to pay him the bonus next year when Man City makes another offer)

let Ronaldo go

c) convince the Spanish FA to resign from UEFA/FIFA

d) resign from the Spanish FA and form a rival Spanish FA allied to the England/Australia/USA-organized "Global Football Federation"

If you're Florentino Perez, which choices make sense? Remember that if you keep Ronaldo, there's nothing stopping the process from repeating with the other major players on the squad... you're talking about having to pay a quarter of a billion every year for the foreseeable future to keep players from jumping, and given the state of Spanish government and bank finances, good luck arranging sham property deals to cover that.

The process generalizes to the other leading clubs of the world. One would suspect that most midtable PL clubs would be happy to raid Dutch clubs without having to pay transfer fees.

There have been at least two notable renegade leagues in the history of world football: the Colombian league in the early 1950s (basically the Colombian FA wanted to remain amateur, so the league broke away from the FA) and the National Professional Soccer League which after a season merged with the FIFA-sanctioned United Soccer Association to form the NASL. In both cases, the outlaw period lasted for at most a few years, though I would argue that neither league had the money or backing to survive; one would suspect that the PL has that. In both of those cases FIFA declared that players playing for the outlaw leagues would be banned for life from international football, but given the money on offer, I think many players would take the money and pick club over country; the effect of having star players ruled ineligible to play may in fact tip more FAs to joining.

If the FA plays the hand right, they can win.

[Gringo]

Never fear, Bojo's here

Mayor of London Boris Johnson cancels Fifa hotel stay

Boris Johnson has withdrawn the offer of a free stay in London's exclusive Dorchester hotel for Fifa executives during the 2012 Olympics.

The Mayor of London had offered the free accommodation for Fifa president Sepp Blatter and his team.

But after Fifa's decision on Thursday's 2018 World Cup vote - which saw the England bid get just two votes out of a possible 22 - the offer was rescinded.

[Zatman]

I see the Cypriot representative has called England bad losers and Sam Allardyce has praised both Russia and Qatar bids

[PompeyVillan]

I see the Cypriot representative has a nice new Rolex watch and a thousands of brown bags in the green recycling bin outside his house.

[Zatman]

so from your accusation you dont think English are bad losers

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

I think they are perfectly justified in thinking there was a fair degree of corruption. England was the outstanding choice to be perfectly honest and they had been led to think so by FIFA themselves, then to only get 2 votes and have Russia walk away with it is...well bollocks.

[drat01]

The key to any breakaway - and I honestly think there will be one sooner rather than later - will be tie ins with media outlets like ESPN and (cough) Murdoch. The clubs want to break away from UEFA and especially Platini (he hates the English more than Zatman :wink: ) and the ideas of FIFA are to constant penalise the West European countries. The point they are missing completely is that the money within the game, i.e. where the "stars" play are in England, Spain, Italy Germany etc.

The national bodies of these countries will be pressurised from within by the clubs and potential withholding of their "assets" - FIFA will try and claim that the rules state that national bodies can call on these at any time, it will go to court and the clubs will win. End of FIFA, and of this nonsense, end of UEFA. What you will see is something like WFA - The World Football Association.

Football is killing itself, and TBH with people like they have in FIFA and UEFA it deserves to suffer

[leviramsey]

The key to any breakaway - and I honestly think there will be one sooner rather than later - will be tie ins with media outlets like ESPN and (cough) Murdoch. The clubs want to break away from UEFA and especially Platini (he hates the English more than Zatman :wink: ) and the ideas of FIFA are to constant penalise the West European countries. The point they are missing completely is that the money within the game, i.e. where the "stars" play are in England, Spain, Italy Germany etc.

The national bodies of these countries will be pressurised from within by the clubs and potential withholding of their "assets" - FIFA will try and claim that the rules state that national bodies can call on these at any time, it will go to court and the clubs will win. End of FIFA, and of this nonsense, end of UEFA. What you will see is something like WFA - The World Football Association.

If the FA is smart about breaking away, they have to channel the club vs. country battle that's been brewing, in a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" way.

[drat01]

Absolutely Levi - The biggest asset the FA have at the moment is the premiership and especially its worldwide TV rights. Throw in some of the other factors re status of teams in terms of fan participation at a world level, the history, convenient times of matches for worldwide and you realise that here in England there is a heartbeat for the game for the armchair / pub based fan especially.

As the bid said the infrastructure and the product is here ready up and running. I am positive that it will happen and will happen very soon.

[PompeyVillan]

so from your accusation you dont think English are bad losers

No, and I don't think USA or Australia are either. I'm all for the World Cup being hosted in new footballing frontiers, however the way in which it has been actioned is a complete farce.

Are you suggesting that the way in which this has been conducted is fair and proper?

Only a handful of the representatives bothered to look at the technical bids, in order to pass on the information onto to their own countries respective bids, and presumably to wipe their arses on when they were finished.

Waste of time.

[TrentVilla]

so from your accusation you dont think English are bad losers

No I don't I just think we have a strong sense of fair play, we don't mind being beaten we don't like being cheated.

Are you saying our bid was worthy of only 1 vote (discounting our own) based upon its merits?

If not then you can't make any accusation of us being bad losers as a result of the reaction to this vote.

Corruption in football is a cancer in the game and FIFA are corrupt why should we sit back and accept that as being ok?

[Zatman]

I think the English bid deserved more votes but from what I have read not just now but in the past is that FIFA delegates hate the English because of their attitude and think they should be running FIFA and they especially detest the football coming home motto.

I think you were even lucky to get 1 vote as Hayatou gave you that vote and he owes you for backing his presidential campaign in 2002

[TrentVilla]

With respect Zatman and you are entitled to your opinion, I think that is utter bollocks.

On what exactly do you conclude that they think we should be running FIFA?

As for the 'football coming home motto' you are perhaps right but I don't believe that had any place in our bid and so has no place in this discussion.

The levelling of this arrogance view by yourself says as much about your attitude as to that of FIFA. If you think our bid was 'lucky to get 1 vote' then it is pointless even discussing this with you as you are as you are every bit as unable or unwilling to have an objective you as FIFA themselves.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

I think the English bid deserved more votes.

I think you were even lucky to get 1 vote

I see.

[Zatman]

With respect Zatman and you are entitled to your opinion, I think that is utter bollocks.

On what exactly do you conclude that they think we should be running FIFA?

As for the 'football coming home motto' you are perhaps right but I don't believe that had any place in our bid and so has no place in this discussion.

The levelling of this arrogance view by yourself says as much about your attitude as to that of FIFA. If you think our bid was 'lucky to get 1 vote' then it is pointless even discussing this with you as you are as you are every bit as unable or unwilling to have an objective you as FIFA themselves.

This agenda goes back a long time. Some people in FIFA are still pissed that UK has 4 votes on the IFAB and have asked them to surrender 3.

It is well known in FIFA circles that they dont like you and the naivety of the FA to think they could get them to change their mind is a joke.

Their is some people on that panel who are very questionble like Warner but Franz Beckenbauer voted Russia. I cant imagine him taking a bung to give Russia a vote.

Also the reason Sepp Blatter is hotile to England is they tried to oust him from power in 2002 albeit a previous regime so i dont blame him for holding some sort of grudge

Also maybe arrogant is the wrong word but i didnt coin it. These are what FIFA has called the FA many times in past

[Gringo]

Winning Englishman rubs salt in wounds

England's attempt to win the right to stage the 2018 World Cup has been slated by a public relations expert who was behind Qatar's victorious 2022 bid.

While Qatar was given the 2022 World Cup, England lost out in the 2018 race with only two first-preference votes.

"This England bid campaign was not Premier League, it was relegation and League One," said bid expert Mike Lee.

"I'm not sure it is healthy to blame everyone else, and not reflect on the campaign itself," added the Englishman.

Lee has previously worked on Brazil's winning bid to host the 2016 Olympics as well as the 2012 London Games.

While England's technical bid and its presentation to Fifa last week was widely praised, Lee focused attention on key figures within the bid team and its inability to forge alliances both at home and abroad.

Sunderland-born Lee was particularly damning of the appointment of Football Association chairman Lord Triesman as chairman of the bid.

Triesman resigned from both positions in May in the wake of a newspaper article that claimed he suggested Spain could drop its 2018 bid if rival bidder Russia helped bribe referees at the 2010 World Cup.

Russia ended up winning the right to host the 2018 World Cup following a vote by Fifa's 22 executive members in Zurich on Thursday.

"It was clear to everybody that Lord Triesman was not the right choice," added Lee.

"He was not popular among his fellow colleagues here in English football. He was terribly unpopular in international football and for nearly 60% of the campaign we were hampered.

"As you look back from the choice of the wrong bid leader in the first instance through to alienating the Premier League and a series of PR own goals, it has not been a success.

"A lot was made at the beginning of how it was not going to repeat the mistakes of 2006 but it actually repeated many of those mistakes and even ended up with three fewer votes, and only half as many as Holland and Belgium."

[TrentVilla]

So we agree on something, the bid process and the vote was a sham.

Beyond this it is pointless discussing this topic with you as you have a clear position on England which you've made apparent in this thread as you have others.

Our bid deserved to be judged on its merits, it wasn't, it was dismissed out of hand by a bunch of corrupt and dishonest crooks and as such we have ever right to feel cheated and not to be accused as bad losers.

As I said though, your position is quite clear as is your lack of objectivity in this subject.