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Yid-ol

Just-outside Edinburgh
Jan 16, 2006
31,097
19,276
So what we all know FIFA won’t do anything about it.

Everyone is saying this as we all know how corrupt FIFA have been, with the new president wanting to try and show FIFA is improving it almost forces their hand into having to look into it or be labeled the same as before.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,885
62,564
Everyone is saying this as we all know how corrupt FIFA have been, with the new president wanting to try and show FIFA is improving it almost forces their hand into having to look into it or be labeled the same as before.
Infantino is doing next to nothing to deal with corruption - past or present. All show and no action.

He's lucky the USA/CAN/MEX bid won 2026 in what looks like a fair enough ballot otherwise he'd be in serious trouble. Morocco and the other African nations are to put it mildly not impressed with his conduct and ties with the US federation head.

Phillippe Auclair has been on the Guardian Football Weekly a few times and elaborated on this better than I ever could.

Expect nothing to be done on Qatar either. I'd be surprised if they even get a slap on the wrist.
 

Tucker

Shitehawk
Jul 15, 2013
31,134
146,038
No surprises here and as above, we all know nothing will come from this.
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
7,405
13,785
Everyone is saying this as we all know how corrupt FIFA have been, with the new president wanting to try and show FIFA is improving it almost forces their hand into having to look into it or be labeled the same as before.

Are you joking? Infantino is just another continuation of the same old corrupt nonsense. He's a far cry from some kind of white knight saviour of FIFA.
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
24,010
66,826
DjXWqnsW0AAc35r.jpg


If the above isn't enough to convince Fifa to take the WC away from Qatar then nothing will. As long as Fifa and the confederations get the money they won't give a shit what happens in Qatar, how hosts win their bids, etc. The only way this corruption gets tackled is if Fifa's sponsors decide being linked to such a scandal-riddled organisation is bad for their image and threaten to terminate their sponsorships.
 

KILLA_SIN

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2008
7,813
14,455
BeIn used to be called Al Jazeera Sports, of course. It's part of Al Jazeera, the Qatari version of the Foreign Office, MI6 and all three branches of an armed forces rolled into one.

Al Jazeera had many competitors for sport. There was MBC (Saudi), ABC, OSN (Dubai), Abu Dhabi Sport.

Then it went and purchased the rights to every single sport event anyone would ever want to watch. Exclusive blanket rights the Middle East as a whole, not individual countries.

The list of rights they have is astonishing, including:

Every single Fifa competition, club and international

Every single Uefa competition, club and international

The tournaments for each other confederation, club and international

Every match from all leagues and all cups for Spain, Germany, Italy, England, France and others I can't be bothered to list: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Holland. All BeIn Sport

F1

All Grand Slams

Olympics

Boxing

Snooker

Rugby


And a host of other stuff I'm forgetting. Basically, no one in the Middle East has ever ever said "I wanna watch this but Al Jazeera don't have the rights." And that's not hyperbole.

An Egyptian startup and budding rival tried to outbid them for African Cup of Nations coverage. Their bid was rejected despite being $200m over BeIn's.

Other countries have tried to fight back. The two powerhouse emirates of the UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi each have their own services, as do the Saudis. But it's like running into a brick wall. BeIn have like 30 channels showing live sport all day every day. There's never a time on earth where football isn't being played and BeIn show everything. Also, it's dirt cheap for whay you get. Something like $130 a year ($180 a year for BeIn Sports 1HD-18HD, another 8 sports channels they spun off into another brand, BeIn Box Office 1HD-6HD, BeIn Drama 1HD-4HD, BeIn Kids 1HD-3HD, plus 59 premium branded channels). It's a masterful execution of soft power. That together with the news outfit, a slightly harder instance of soft power.

But it's clearly corrupt to the core. The Cup of Nations deal and now this.

With the neighbourhood financial blockade pinching Qatar up the arse, BeIn charged $150 for access to the World Cup this year, on top of subscription costs.

Was looking into getting a bein sub a little earlier today. You've sold it.
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
I honestly don't understand the outrage at anything that Qatar did to obtain their WC. It was no different to any other WC bid for the last few decades. In fact every WC bidding process since Italy in 1990 has been investigated or implicated in some kind of financial irregularity. And I would guess corruption was rife before that, but was much easier to hide. Germany's successful 2006 bid was allegedly bollocks deep in corruption.

And we can't blame FIFA/Blatter for all of it. FIFA didn't force anyone to bid or act corruptly. Sure, they created an environment in which it could flourish, encouraged and facilitated it's members taking part in it, but the countries themselves were happy to play the game if they got what they wanted.

To be fair to FIFA and Blatter, the one thing he did do was introduce a one nation, one vote system, which at least gave everyone a fair crack at the corruption gravy train, which is far more egalitarian than real politics. Why shouldn't the South Africa's and Qatar's get a fair crack at the corruption lolly?

I sincerely hope the Qatari WC goes ahead and is a complete farce, which serves as some kind seminal event that makes everyone take a long hard look at the system, but I won't hold my breath.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,885
62,564
I honestly don't understand the outrage at anything that Qatar did to obtain their WC. It was no different to any other WC bid for the last few decades. In fact every WC bidding process since Italy in 1990 has been investigated or implicated in some kind of financial irregularity. And I would guess corruption was rife before that, but was much easier to hide. Germany's successful 2006 bid was allegedly bollocks deep in corruption.

And we can't blame FIFA/Blatter for all of it. FIFA didn't force anyone to bid or act corruptly. Sure, they created an environment in which it could flourish, encouraged and facilitated it's members taking part in it, but the countries themselves were happy to play the game if they got what they wanted.

To be fair to FIFA and Blatter, the one thing he did do was introduce a one nation, one vote system, which at least gave everyone a fair crack at the corruption gravy train, which is far more egalitarian than real politics. Why shouldn't the South Africa's and Qatar's get a fair crack at the corruption lolly?

I sincerely hope the Qatari WC goes ahead and is a complete farce, which serves as some kind seminal event that makes everyone take a long hard look at the system, but I won't hold my breath.
It's the workers' conditions and number of deaths that gets my goat far more than how they won it or when it will be played. Slave contracts and so much irresponsibility is what should see them stripped of it. If you have to essentially kill people to host the WC, you shouldn't be allowed to host it.
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
It's the workers' conditions and number of deaths that gets my goat far more than how they won it or when it will be played. Slave contracts and so much irresponsibility is what should see them stripped of it. If you have to essentially kill people to host the WC, you shouldn't be allowed to host it.

Where do we draw our moral cut off point for tournament hosting righteousness though Marty?

A lot of the contractors designing and building the WC infrastructure are UK, American, western companies, happy to profit from that death toll.

Ironic that those companies only started talking about exit strategies when the economic boycott kicked in, not because the cheap labour they were using was dying by the shitload.

Western companies have been profiting from Workers quietly dying in the construction industry for decades in Arabian peninsula/UAE ETC. Contracted by Regimes which were largely created by and exist for western governments (because as we have seen, as soon as they get uppity and start wanting to think for themselves, they get called Pariahs and blown up).

So should we extend our embargo to the UK, US, some of Europe, Australia etc

Do we say England and the US shouldn’t be allowed to host any tournaments because they’ve merrily tortured, killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East so shareholders in oil and arms companies could receive bigger dividends?

I know it sounds like I’m apologising for these despicable regimes, but I’m honestly not. I’m just struggling with the hypocrisy.

If the West really gave a shit about human rights in the Emirates they would stop doing business with them, selling them arms, building their wc stadiums etc etc.

Or at the very least, forgo their own share of the FIFA gravy train and threaten to boycott the wc if human rights aren’t improved?
 

Hakkz

Svensk hetsporre
Jul 6, 2012
8,196
17,270
Or at the very least, forgo their own share of the FIFA gravy train and threaten to boycott the wc if human rights aren’t improved?

I want a boycott from the European FAs and no national teams going there. Personal onion.
 

Saoirse

Well-Known Member
Aug 20, 2013
6,143
15,550
I want a boycott from the European FAs and no national teams going there. Personal onion.
Just host an extra edition of the Euros instead. Not only does it damage it with a boycott, but they can steal the TV views too. Wonder what people will watch - Peru vs Saudi in the World Cup, or Germany vs Poland in the Euros?
 

WorcesterTHFC

Well-Known Member
May 4, 2016
1,779
2,546
I want a boycott from the European FAs and no national teams going there. Personal onion.
Although I gave your comment an 'optimistic' rating, I'd also love to see Europe's national FAs boycott this particular event, for a variety of reasons, but I'd bet my house that they won't.
 

Hakkz

Svensk hetsporre
Jul 6, 2012
8,196
17,270
Although I gave your comment an 'optimistic' rating, I'd also love to see Europe's national FAs boycott this particular event, for a variety of reasons, but I'd bet my house that they won't.

I agree. That's what I want, but no country will do it out of fear. If one country would do start however, maybe more would follow.
 

Amo

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2013
15,795
31,480
I honestly don't understand the outrage at anything that Qatar did to obtain their WC. It was no different to any other WC bid for the last few decades. In fact every WC bidding process since Italy in 1990 has been investigated or implicated in some kind of financial irregularity. And I would guess corruption was rife before that, but was much easier to hide. Germany's successful 2006 bid was allegedly bollocks deep in corruption.

And we can't blame FIFA/Blatter for all of it. FIFA didn't force anyone to bid or act corruptly. Sure, they created an environment in which it could flourish, encouraged and facilitated it's members taking part in it, but the countries themselves were happy to play the game if they got what they wanted.

To be fair to FIFA and Blatter, the one thing he did do was introduce a one nation, one vote system, which at least gave everyone a fair crack at the corruption gravy train, which is far more egalitarian than real politics. Why shouldn't the South Africa's and Qatar's get a fair crack at the corruption lolly?

I sincerely hope the Qatari WC goes ahead and is a complete farce, which serves as some kind seminal event that makes everyone take a long hard look at the system, but I won't hold my breath.

Whataboutist intellectually-masturbatory nonsense.
 

Amo

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2013
15,795
31,480

And here it's false equivalence.

Being free from corruption isn't a state, it's a target. You'll never reach it but you strive to anyway. It's the extent of it in Qatar that is the issue. Corrupt to its very core and corrupt at every layer.

Conflating dodgy land deals in South Africa to slave labour in the richest nation on Earth is ludicrous. And it's not like we can boycott the 2006 World Cup, is it (not that there is conclusive evidence of it being baught off)?

Drawing parallels to Britain and the US because some British and American companies are complicit in some of the Qatari wrongdoing is ridiculous.

Comparing deaths as a direct result of a hosting bid to foreign policy exploits of other countries is outrageous.
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
And here it's false equivalence.

Being free from corruption isn't a state, it's a target. You'll never reach it but you strive to anyway. It's the extent of it in Qatar that is the issue. Corrupt to its very core and corrupt at every layer.

Conflating dodgy land deals in South Africa to slave labour in the richest nation on Earth is ludicrous. And it's not like we can boycott the 2006 World Cup, is it (not that there is conclusive evidence of it being baught off)?

Drawing parallels to Britain and the US because some British and American companies are complicit in some of the Qatari wrongdoing is ridiculous.

Comparing deaths as a direct result of a hosting bid to foreign policy exploits of other countries is outrageous.


Bollocks is it ? Because violating basic human rights, en masse, only counts when it's your own tax payers?

There's as much evidence of 2006 corruption as there is 2022. England/Europe could have boycotted Russia.

Corruption isn't a state it's target? what's that, a an intellectually masturbatory advertising slogan?
 
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