I saw a story today about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and like most stories I have heard about and read about pertaining to that event, it contained a lot more questions than answers. In my opinion, the World Cup is the best sporting event we have. It is a month long celebration of a sport that literally unifies the entire world unlike anything else can. Iran, Russia, Iceland, and Mexico may have differing views on a whole lot of things, but for a month this past summer, they all agreed on soccer.
I had multiple problems with the World Cup being awarded to Qatar in 2022, the least of which was that they won right to host the tournament at the hands of a joint bid between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Those three countries did recently win the right to host the 2026 World Cup though, so the sting of losing out on the 2022 tournament really isn't as bad now.
FIFA is an organization that has always been known to be corrupt. It has a history filled with bribes and scandals, and I think that some sort of combination of those things did at least play some part in the tournament being awarded to Qatar. It will be the smallest nation in terms of both size and population to host a World Cup. Qatar has also never qualified for a World Cup. The only other time that a nation hosted the tournament and had never qualified before was in 1930, when Uruguay was the host, and that was because it was the first World Cup ever played, so no one had ever qualified for the tournament before.
It isn't like Qatar has been on the brink of contention either. In the final round of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, Qatar finished 11th out of 12 countries in its region, finishing with a record of 2-7-1 in 10 games, and a goal differential of -7. In 2014 qualifying, they finished the final round with a record of 2-5-1 and a goal differential of -8, which was good for 8th place out of 10 teams. That is not exactly what anyone would consider anything close to a soccer powerhouse of a nation. So, my biggest problem with Qatar being awarded the tournament actually was the fact that they were clearly a nation who in all likelihood would not have qualified in 2022 if they were not the host.
After doing a little research though, I found out that Qatar's actual soccer team was probably not even the biggest problem. Because of the location of the country, the 2022 tournament will be the first one held during the winter, because the temperatures in the summers in Qatar, which is usually when the tournament is played, can routinely reach triple digits.
There have already been reports of workers dying during the construction of stadiums in the summer in Qatar, so FIFA moved the tournament to try to avoid that happening to any players or fans. A red flag should be raised in the eyes of soccer fans around the world when a tournament has to be moved in order to lessen the likelihood of death at one of its games.
The cities, or what you could really refer to as, "cities" due to host games are still in many cases being built. The final game is due to be played in a city called Lusail, and when you look up information on Lusail, it is referred to as a "planned city" and all you can find are population estimates because it doesn't even exist yet. It just continues to get more laughable/unbelievable/disgraceful (depending on your point of view) when you look more into what the plans are for the 2022 tournament. Roads are still being constructed to connect the sites, and grass and trees are being grown outside the country and then shipped into Qatar to be artificially installed because the region is so hot and arid that greenery cannot actually exist there naturally.
Qatar sent officials to Russia this past summer to observe what sort of infrastructure will be needed when the tournament actually occurs, and more questions arose about Qatar's ability to host the tournament. Mass transportation will have to be vastly expanded, and as simple as it may sound, the country is going to need to significantly enhance its ability to even have enough bars and chairs and beer to host the event.
FIFA requires host countries to have 125,000 hotel rooms available for a World Cup. Right now, Qatar has less than half that amount of rooms available. It is really stunning how unprepared the country seems at this moment to host the tournament in 2022. I do understand though, that deadlines spur actions. We are still just under four full years away from the opening game of the tournament, so there is time for Qatar to undergo the significant transformation that it will need.
With all of this said though, that is why I was very surprised to hear Gianni Infantino, the current president of FIFA, say at a recent conference in the United Arab Emirates that the organization is considering expansion to the tournament for 2022. Under its current format, 32 teams qualify for the World Cup. That expansion occurred in 1998. A plan for another expansion, this time to 48 teams, was supposed to occur in time for the 2026 World Cup, but Infantino mentioned in this conference that FIFA was considering installing that into the 2022 tournament, with the possibility of surrounding nations hosting some games. Could that be feasible? Possibly, except for one somewhat troubling piece of information.
Just over a year ago, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates made a joint decision to boycott any type of political and economic relationships with Qatar, and some of those nations cited the possibility of Qatar supporting terrorism as one of the reasons for doing so. How then would Qatar and any of these neighboring countries unite on plans to co-host soccer games when they cannot co-exist in all of these other ways? It seems like that would not be possible.
When FIFA first awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, millions of people across the globe objected to the decision. They say that time heals all wounds, and maybe some of that ill will towards FIFA has at least died down a bit. With qualifying draws set for this coming March though, the 2022 tournament will slowly begin to creep back into the news cycle. It will take a while, especially here in the United States, where soccer is far from our most popular sport. However, it will happen eventually. We will start hearing about the tournament being played in the winter because of oppressively hot temperatures in the summer in Qatar. We will start to hear about Qatar's lack of preparedness for the tournament.
For FIFA to even consider expanding the tournament in 2022 seems like a horrible idea in my eyes. The original plan to wait until 2026, when the tournament will be jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, is a much better one. The combination of those three countries are much more suited to be the first hosts of an expanded tournament. It seems like Qatar already has enough on its plate in terms of preparing for a tournament that it really should not have been granted the ability to host in the first place. Adding another 16 countries into all of those cities that aren't actually cities and hotels that don't exist is not something that Qatar should be required to facilitate.
There have been World Cups and Olympics contested before in cities and countries that seemed unable to host such large events. There were serious concerns about water and air conditions in Rio de Janeiro prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics, but once the games began, we didn't hear too much about that. It is likely that by the winter of 2022, the games will take center stage in Qatar. Maybe fans who travel to the country to attend the event will encounter problems that we don't see on television, but the majority of the world only watches the event on television, so those things won't affect them at all.
However, if there were ever a time and place for a host nation to completely fail in front of the entire world, it seems like the 2022 World Cup in Qatar would be a good candidate for that to happen. I'm not saying that it will, because the World Cup is as good as it gets, and I want the upcoming tournament to be just as good as the one we just watched, and all of the ones before that.
We still have a few more Super Bowls and plenty of March Madness before that happens to keep us occupied, but that 2,022 pound elephant in the room is there, and it will eventually make its presence felt. I just hope that on November 21, 2022, we will be able to deal with it and allow the best sporting event in the world to go on without having to worry about whether or not there is enough useable grass and seating in the country to prevent us from enjoying it.
Daily Rangers Update: I haven't missed many games this season, but I am glad one of the ones I did miss was last night, because the Rangers were embarrassed by the Penguins in a 7-2 defeat. Bad games happen, so hopefully the team can just move on to the next game, which will be on Saturday in Colorado.
Daily Giants Update: Dave Gettleman did not give any clear indication of the answer to what is probably the biggest question surrounding this team going into the offseason, and that is what the plan is going to be at quarterback next year. I do think Eli Manning will be back and starting Week 1, but I'm not sure if he is going to have an heir apparent on the roster waiting in the wings behind him, or if he will be given one more full year as the starter. We probably won't have a definitive answer to that until about 10:30 PM on April 25th. Until then, all anyone can do is guess.
Daily NBA Update: Gordon Hayward and Joel Embiid both had big games last night in wins. Russell Westbrook had another triple-double, but was absolutely atrocious shooting the ball. I will have to write about him some day in the future, because he is very unique for a whole lot of reasons that I believe can be both good and bad.
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