Center Line Soccer

The selection of tiny Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup has left a lot of people shaking their heads. Why would the FIFA executive committee choose Qatar — a peninsula in the Middle East 60 times smaller than the state of Texas — over experienced hosts like the U.S., South Korea, or Japan, or an up-and-coming soccer nation like Australia?

On the surface, it’s an odd choice. The average July high temperature in Doha, the nation’s capital and largest city at just under 1,000,000 people, is a hellish 104 degrees, hardly a hospitable setting for a sport that demands feats of endurance as well as skill. FIFA’s own bid review notes that there are a number of logistical challenges and that significant upgrades to the transportation infrastructure will be required. The nation has only three stadiums which are suitable for expansion and remodeling to FIFA standards, leaving nine to be built from the ground up; the budget for the venue package is estimated at over $3 billion, nearly double the investment required for the recent tourney in South Africa. New team base camps will be required as well — Qatar’s bid committee has promised new practice fields of high-quality turf, all of which will be under sun shades.

Essentially, almost everything required to host the tournament will have to be constructed. It’s like the Burning Man playa being chosen to host a Super Bowl.

So why Qatar? The nation’s bid is not without merit — the idea of building modular stadiums which can be disassembled and re-constructed in developing nations is an ingenious way of solving the white elephant stadium problem that has plagued other recent hosts — but the obvious answer is money. Qatar boasts a per capita income that is variously ranked as first or second on Earth, thanks largely to the third largest reserves of natural gas and over 15 billion barrels of oil yet to be tapped. In light of FIFA’s recent “pay for votes” scandal, which saw the suspension of two members of its Executive Committee, it’s easy to speculate that plenty of the remaining 22 voters were selling their votes, too, but simply weren’t caught.

There’s more to the situation, though: politics. FIFA president Sepp Blatter was first voted to that position in 1998, beating UEFA chief Lennart Johansson, who was running on an anti-corruption platform. Johansson was counting on support from the African federations but a stunning last-minute switch cost him the votes he needed to win. An explanation for the sudden turnabout was finally offered in 2002, when Farah Addo, then vice president of the Confederation Africaine de Football, or CAF, and head of the Somalia FA, told London’s Daily Mail newspaper that he had been offered $100,000 to change his vote. He stated that, although he had refused the money, “eighteen African voters accepted bribes to vote for Blatter,” which would have been enough to swing the election.

What does this have to do with Qatar’s World Cup bid? Addo offered some details with his allegations. “We at CAF had decided to commit all 51 of our votes to Lennart Johansson from UEFA. Then I received a phone call from Somalia’s ambassador to one of the Gulf states,” Addo told the Daily Mail. “He said, ‘I have a friend who you know who wants to offer you $100,000 to switch your vote. Half in cash and the rest in sports equipment.’ They would send the cash to me or I could go to the Gulf to collect it.”

Addo later claimed that the man from the Gulf who distributed the cash to win votes for Blatter was Mohamed bin Hammam, a FIFA Executive Committee member from Qatar who, in 2002, became the president of the Asian Football Confederation. If, as Addo alleged, Blatter owes his presidency to bin Hammam, then the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to bin Hammam’s home country could be seen as a political payback.

Naturally, there’s no hard proof of any of this, but there’s more than enough material for an entertaining game of connect-the-dots. Addo refused to keep quiet and eventually received a 10-year ban from FIFA in 2004 for alleged misuse of funds, a draconian penalty when compared with the fine issued to FIFA vice president Jack Warner after it was discovered he had set up black market deals for tickets to the 2006 World Cup. (Addo’s ban was lifted by Blatter in 2008.) Similarly, one wonders if FIFA’s unusual move to award two World Cups this year instead of one was motivated by both Blatter’s advancing age — he turns 75 in March — and next year’s FIFA presidential elections. Blatter may not be around in 2014, when the 2022 World Cup typically would have been awarded.

Politics aside, Qatar provides unique money-making opportunities for Blatter and his cohorts, particularly with regard to lodging and travel. For the recent tournament in South Africa, FIFA awarded an exclusive contract for VIP ticket and amenities packages, in addition to other items, to Match Services AG, a company which is owned in part by Blatter’s nephew, Philippe. Match reserved much of the lodging and international airfare capacity for the entire nation during World Cup 2010, in hopes of charging a premium to desperate fans. The plan backfired in South Africa, due in part to the large size of the country and the wide range of available lodging options, from guest houses to hotels. Imagine how much easier it will be to control the travel environment in a country like Qatar, which has only one international airport? An additional $100 in airfare from 350,000 travelers equals $35 million. Assuming each of those visitors stays a week and Match boosts hotel prices by just $50 per night over the regular rates, add another $60+ million to the haul. And those estimates are conservative, a shadow of some of the gouging seen in South Africa. If premium prices prevail, Qatar 2022 could be an event exclusively for the elites.

Despite all this, if the Qataris can deliver on their promises, they have the opportunity to deliver a remarkable, ground-breaking tournament. As the first country that is predominantly Muslim to host, the World Cup provides an unprecedented chance to introduce and demystify that culture to the rest of the world. Their stated environmental goal of a carbon-neutral event is ambitious and admirable, especially in light of the promise to provide climate-controlled stadiums and practice facilities. They’ve got the money to pull these things off, and I join soccer fans everywhere in hoping that they can live up to their promises, for the sake of the game.

It’s too bad that the process through which Qatar has come to its great day has been so flawed, however, and that is something that needs to change.

Jay Hipps is managing editor of Center Line Soccer. You can find him on Twitter at jayhipps.