Trouble continues for FIFA for 2018 and 2022 bidding process
First it was allegations of vote selling by FIFA bidding committee members and then it was derogatory remarks by the Russian FIFA bidding team about England’s 2018 bid. Finally, the latest news coming in is that Spain and Portugal are being accused of collusion
with Qatar in an attempt to secure the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively. One of these problems is on its way to being solved and another has already been solved, but how long will the problems in bidding for future World Cup tournaments last and when
will FIFA clamp down on them and get its act together.
The past few weeks have not been good for FIFA, it is currently embroiled in two major PR disasters while a third has just been solved. The first happened a few weeks ago when reporters for The Sunday Times, posed as American lobbyists and approached FIFA
bidding committee members, Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii for talks. During the undercover operation both men were seen to ask the reporters for large payments to sell their votes to the USA for the 2018 bid. This damming report was forwarded to FIFA and the
bosses at football’s biggest and most powerful governing body have assured bidding committee members and countries involved in the process, of a full investigation. This was not the only problem faced FIFA recently in regards to hosting future World Cups.
The way the process works is that each country that wants to host a World Cup in the future will put in a bid seven years before the event is to take place and FIFA’s executive bidding committee will vote on each bid. Each member of the committee gets one
vote and as the recent scandals have shown, the system can be abused. Another incident has recently come to light about possible collusion between the bidding members of the Spain/Portugal bid and the members of the Qatar bid.
Spain and Portugal are looking to host the 2018 World Cup and they are facing stiff competition from both England and Russia for the right. Qatar, on the other hand, is trying to host the 2022 World Cup and has put in a bid for it. The teams from the Spain/Portugal
delegation and the Qatari delegation have been accused of colluding together to try and secure each respective bid. The way it would work is the Spain/Portugal team would vote for Qatar in 2022 if the Qatari team would vote for Spain/Portugal’s 2018 bid. Even
though this is against FIFA’s rules governing the bidding process, it would look like good politics to most people.
With this incident also being investigated, FIFA can breathe a little bit easier knowing that a potentially damming row between the England and Russian bidding teams has been resolved. This interesting issue happened when members of the Russian delegation,
in trying to secure a win for their bid for the 2018 World Cup, stated that England was not the best place to host the tournament because of rampant alcoholism and a degraded society. The remarks, which were made in Russian, greatly angered the English bidding
team.
The situation has been defused though, when Vitaly Mutko, the Chairman of the Russian 2018 World Cup bid approached the English team and apologised for the remarks. He stated that the remarks were not indicative of the way the entire bidding team felt and
were taken out of context. The apology was accepted and peace regained. Russia is trying to secure the 2018 bid in order to help the spread of football on a global scale. They feel that the sport is already very popular in England and in Europe and by having
the event come to Russia, it will be a big boost for the fans of the game and will breathe life into the emergence of football on a large scale in the country.
Hopefully FIFA can sort out the vote selling allegations and the accusations of collusion between Spain/Portugal and Qatar. The process of bidding for one of the world’s most important and lucrative sporting events is in jeopardy and FIFA President Joseph
Blatter and others at the governing body will have to bring in some strict reform measures if they do not want the situation to get out of hand.
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