aintforever

You can guarantee the Israeli supporters will be there in numbers if they do qualify - could be fun.

If you're a football fan going to Qatar for the World Cup for four weeks what exactly is there to do between games? From their website it appears to be just a bunch of expensive hotels and shopping centres in a desert. You can't even sit on the beach with a beer FFS. I suppose you could pop into Saudi Arabia for some duty free, or nip over to Iraq for some sight seeing. You could charter a Yacht, might be fun playing cat n mouse with the local pirates or Iranian navy. There is probably only a handful of countries on the planet less suited to host a major football tournament.

I guess the reason Milton Keynes, Bristol and Plymouth were included was because FIFA obviously like shiny new stadiums and put alot of value on the "legacy". The bid team would have wanted some flash architects plans to show. FIFA also seem to like white elephants - Russia's top league has an average attendance of about 12,500, there no demand there at all for twelve 40,000 seater stadiums. As for Qatar...

The more you read about the Qatar thing the more nuts it sounds, 50 degree heat, can't drink in public - that's gonna be a right laff. One of the venues, Ash Shamal with a population 5,400 is getting a stadium with a capacity of 45,330! Qatar is the most environmentally unfriendly country on the planet with CO2 emissions per head more than 3 x worse than the next worse - and FIFA plan to build twelve 40,000 seater air conditioned stadiums! Crazy

Looking at the winning bids it appears all FIFA care about is how much cash is spent on shiny new stadiums... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-z2jtUS9-Y&feature=related Qatar are supposed to be spending 40billion on transport links alone, what's a few mill in the back pocket of the odd FIFA rep?

To be fair, if a new boss comes in and they are completely ****e they are also very unpopular.

I seriously doubt that was the case, strange tactics if it was. The Panaorama show would have had two effects, the corrupt FIFA people featured would be annoyed but, more importantly, the decent FIFA reps would be even more annoyed at their organisation being branded corrupt.

It's not really that hard to understand, our chances of hosting an event worth millions of pounds rested in the hands of 22 men - best not **** them off. There is no reason why they couldn't have aired the programme next week to give England (the people who pay their wages) the best chance possible.

To be fair, if that was Cortese's response it would be classed as "good business sense" on here.

My point was that the other FIFA reps don't like us because they are jealous of the money and success in our game not that the 12 stadia for the bid were the best.

Because there is no problem in Russia...

I'm talking about within the game, of course USA have excellent stadia in other sports but I don't think the 3rd teir of USA, Spain or Russian football could boast stadia like SMS, Hillsborough or The Valley.

The other countries hate us because we have the best league, best stadia, best support and most money.

Kind of appropriate for FIFA to hand it to one of the most corrupt countries on the planet and some middle eastern **** hole. You don't need a good bid when you have some dodgy oligarch or arab with some brown paper bags.

I think it's more than likely that this info was released on purpose by the US anyway, it's all handy propaganda for their campaign against North Korea and Iran.

Nothing wrong with the truth coming out, even if it annoys a few Yanks.

What park of the leaks justify going to war with Iran?

I think the fact that the last World Cup was rubbish will sway the decision our way, Russia is a bigger risk than England.

I fail to see how a website which exposes corruption can be a bad thing.

The area near me (Bursledon) was used as a camp in preparation for D Day. I only found out because I saw some strange cuttings in the river bank and wondered where they originated from so did some googling. As I thought, they were made by the D Day landing craft. http://www.qe2activitycentre.co.uk/hms%20cricket.htm

I think some incendiery bombs were quite small so I doubt all of them were accounted for.

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that it is the timing that has ****ed people off not the fact that FIFA has been exposed.

Because it would be nice to watch the World Cup in this country?

I couldn't care less how accurate it is, at the moment we need to suck up to those corrupt ****ers to get the World Cup. No one cares about what they broadcast, it's the timing. The BBC have deliberately timed it to maximise ratings/publicity with no care to what the effects might be. If we miss out on the World Cup because of this hopefully Cameron will rip the arse out of their budget, or even privatise them.

I have no problem with them exposing how corrupt FIFA are but the timing is ****ed up. Delldays is right, if all the BBC is concerned with is gaining ratings with this type of sensationalist crap then they shouldn't be funded by the tax payer.