Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup. They beat out competing bids from Belgium/Netherlands, England, and Portugal/Spain. And that makes sense. Russia's becoming more and more of a player in the game of soccer, it's a massive country, a growing economy, and the World Cup has never been played there.
But Qatar winning the bid to host the 2022 Cup is a bit surprising. Only 1.7 million people live there. And granted, it's a rich country, but it's just so tiny. How many soccer stadiums can they have in the 164th largest country in the world?
Qatar defeated bids from the US, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
I know that expanding the game to new places is important, and 3 out of 4 of those countries have hosted World Cups in recent memory, but Qatar? They don't even follow the "q with a u" rule.
And what about the weather? June and July in Qatar see average daily temperatures surpass 106 degrees. And for night games, enjoy the average LOW temperature of 84.
I'd been hoping that the US would host the 2022 World Cup. And failing that, Australia. But it looks as though if I want to attend a World Cup soccer game, I have to go to kidnap capital of the world Brazil in 2014, or mafia run Russia in 2018, or a country that has a "defense co-operation" agreement with Iran in 2022.
I'm pretty sure the members of FIFA received some A-rab money for all this.
Not surprised Qatar won the bid. Money talks. And they have so freakin much of it. The bitter side of me hopes their air conditioning breaks in the stadiums in the 120 F heat; hate to have to answer for that!
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