When Russia and Qatar were named hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on Thursday morning in Zurich, Switerzland, screams of corruption and bribery went up around the world. Considering that two FIFA executive members did note vote because of a suspension handed down for taking bribes, three other executive committee members were accused of taking bribes and Russia and Qatar scored the worst in FIFA's inspection reports about their abilities to host the World Cup from a technical standpoint, the hollers of corruption are to be expected. I mean, Russia, and even more so, Qatar hosting is ludicrous and their hosting instead of the United States, England, Australia, Spain/Portugal and all the other bidders is proof that FIFA is corrupt, right? Wrong. Russia and Qatar likely won because they played a dirty political game filled with bribes and other tactics most would call immoral, but those would have been the same tactics that would have won every other country the bid.
Russia, Qatar World Cups: It’s FIFA, The Winner Was Always Going To Win A Dirty Game
No matter who won the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, it was always going to be with a cloud of corruption and dirty games because that is what FIFA is
Whoever won the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups was going to win because of dirty tactics and that’s just because that is what FIFA is. FIFA plays by their own rules and ones that many would call immoral, but why shouldn’t they? We can argue for days on end about why FIFA should be moral, but the fact is that they have a monopoly on world football, which is a multi-billion dollar business. With that type of money and nobody around to police them, FIFA acts as most people would and that is in their own self-interest.
Now, FIFA is being thrown around here as if it is a huge, homogeneous, single-minded entity, which it is not. Many people have taken to blaming the corruption in FIFA and specifically the awarding of the World Cups to Russia and Qatar on President Sepp Blatter. This further implies that FIFA is a huge, homogeneous, single-minded entity that Blatter controls, but that would be wrong. The World Cup hosts were chosen by a vote of 22 executive committee embers. Blatter did not vote because he does not have a vote. The only way Blatter gets involved in the awarding of the World Cup is if the executive committee voting results in a tie, which he would then break. That was not the case, though.
FIFA, with regards to the awarding of the World Cup, is not a single-minded entity, but an executive committee made up of 22 men, all of whom operate independently. This being FIFA, many of the 22 men were likely deciding their vote based on who could deliver them the most money, favors or gifts in return for their votes. That is how FIFA works and it isn't new to 2010. The rotational policy that landed Brazil the 2014 World Cup and South Africa the 2010 World Cup were decided by similar means. Germany won the right to host the 2006 World Cup in similar fashion. FIFA is what FIFA is and that is corrupt, at least by the moral standard that many like to host groups like FIFA to.
So, if that is how FIFA works, how does Russia and Qatar winning the right to host the World Cup prove corruption? Had the U.S. won the right to host, they would have had to play the same dirty game and the same goes for every other bid. The reality is that all of the other bids probably did play the same dirty game, they just didn’t play it as well.
For people to say that Russia and Qatar’s wins prove FIFA’s corruption they must believe that another bidding would have been fair and chosen solely on merit. That would not have been the case. Whoever won the right to host would have done so by playing FIFA’s game so no, Russia and Qatar’s winning the bid is not proof of corruption any more than any other bid winning is. All Thursday morning’s vote was another piece of FIFA’s history, which is rife with corruption and hardly anything new. The decision isn’t proof of corruption, just proof that FIFA is who they have always been.
