It's a little weird to plan a World Cup 12 years down the line...I mean, what are the odds that I'm still writing this blog in 12 years? What are the odds that anyone's writing a blog in 12 years time? What are the odds that in 12 years the world is overrun with the mutant offspring of Paul the genius/zombie octopus? Yet, FIFA has happily raised the hopes of a tiny Arab nation, if only to laugh cruelly at the millions of dollars and thousands of man hours wasted when the whole world grinds to a skittering halt before any games can actually begin. Why? Because that's just the way Sepp Blatter rolls.
Anyway, the race to host the 2022 games were a relatively innocuous little contest until after the winner was announced and everyone who does not live in Qatar had a conniption about the tournament going to a country whose entire population could fit inside Brooklyn, and whose whole country could squeeze inside a couple of the Rocky Mountains. Qatar, despite myriad issues in terms of heat, health, transportation, infrastructure, ability to play the game and security was judged to be a better candidate than each of the following contenders (in the order they were eliminated): Australia (too big), Japan (too recent), South Korea (too unstable), and The United States (too...stable?)
(Sidebar: the US media went a little nutty when we didn't get the right to host the cup...with many accusations of skull-duggery, bribery and collusion. And it was at that moment that we became as weird as England when it came to futbol. Don't you realize we can still host another world cup in future--and if Qatar falters we would be, shall we say, a reliable understudy in the wings? Honestly, if need be we could host the dang thing tomorrow, so if Qatar turns into a quagmire within the next 12 years, we could get what we want anyway--we're all just a little miffed that Salt Lake City's bribery fiasco seems to have precluded any special sporting occasion from coming to the US ever again. Rant mode disengage)
Anyhooo, Qatar's got 10 years of flex time to make sure it all turns out alright, avoiding those pesky issues of gay rights, football fans enjoying alcohol in a dry nation and the fact that it can reach 122 degrees Farenheit (50 C) in the summer. So if we all start saving now the Qataris might be able to afford fixing those problems and we might just be able to afford a night in one of the posh Qatari resorts.
If you want to see what we thought of the Qatari bid way back in November of 2010, Click Here, and be sure to check back for more updates throughout the following 10 years (...though hopefully, with a little less uncertainty and a little more wisdom--and a lot better writing)
Meanwhile appreciate the 3-D splendor of a few of the stadia that you won't be able to afford to go to (I like the thematic links between all of them...but I wonder if they'll be able to make one that evokes a plate of Threed)
