Earlier this year -- for reasons irrelevant to this article -- I briefly considered moving to Qatar. During that time, I did quite a bit of research on the place and found that, for the most part, it's full of two things: stultifying heat, and unfathomable quantities of cash.
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I didn't, during my sniffing, find anything resembling a footballing culture. Or soccer history. Or a climate even suited to playing the game. Or a population greater than two million. Or a surface area above 11,500 square kilometres. (For comparison's sake, Qatar is about a fifth the size of Nova Scotia, and only about twice as big as P.E.I.)
Hell, the most notable bit of Qatari footballing lore may have happened last week at the 2010 Asian Games, when one of their players became Net-famous for one of the most glaring sitter-scuffs of all time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQLylizGmDs
So it's galling to realize that the tiny Gulf nation is the prohibitive favourite to host World Cup 2022, after receiving high-profile endorsements from the likes of Zinedine Zidane.
Sure, the ol' French head-butter may still have some name value, but is his thumbs-up really enough to make the members of FIFA's executive committee ignore the "high overall operational risk rating" given to Qatar by FIFA itself?
Plus -- speaking of the stultifying heat -- a report released by FIFA today suggests that the conditions could pose a health hazard, despite the Qataris' grandiose claims about air-conditioned stadia (none of which have yet been built, of course).
With all of these factors working against it, you'd wonder why Qatar is in the discussion at all, never mind the country to beat. Well, remember those "unfathomable quantities of cash" I mentioned? Yeah, FIFA folk tend to like their cash. A lot. In large quantities. And the oil barons out in Doha will surely spare no expense in helping attract the sport's showcase event to their tiny nation.
Plus, there's the legacy aspect of it for FIFA. Sepp Blatter takes great pride in having brought the World Cup to Africa for the first time, and has said in the past that he'd like to see the big tournament staged in the Middle East at some point. We saw it with the desire of the International Olympic Committee (particularly, former president Juan Antonio Samaranch) to stage the Games in China despite all concerns about pollution, human rights abuses, et cetera... global sporting autocrats can very easily shrug off criticism when there's cash to be made and/or legacies to be built.
But I don't care about Blatter's legacy, nor do I care about whether the Middle East gets a World Cup at some point (granted, Qatar's proposed stadia do look ridiculously awesome).
The United States' bid, in almost every way conceivable, is superior to Qatar's bid. Transportation and infrastructure, there. Soccer facilities, there. Advertising and television revenue, there. Ticket buyers, there.
So we've got eight days to go to truly see the face of FIFA. We'll be bringing you some updates as we count down to decision day next Thursday, December 2. That's when we find out whether the bigwigs at FIFA have the brains to go with the sure thing -- our southern neighbours -- or if decide that the thrill of legacy-building (and the clarion call of petrodollars) clouds their judgment long enough that select Qatar.
Or, hell, maybe they'll split the difference and go to Australia. We'll soon find out. Stay tuned.