Russia & Qatar will host the 2018/2022 World Cups

[Tsim Sha Tsui]

Like the headline says, Russia & Qatar will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. What do you think?

My view: Russia is a bit of an odd choice but okay, I get it. Qatar, though, is the land of sharia law and 50C degree days!

Also, I agree with former Belgian star Marc Wilmots said on the BBC: "Russia is a political choice and Qatar is an economic choice. You can say that to some extent the sport has been the loser with the decision for these two World Cups."

[Takaram]

Yeah, I was pretty surprised to hear that they chose those two countries to host the World Cup.

[Anime Daisuki]

The goal of the world cup is to popularize the sport in new regions. To bring it to never-before-hosts like Russia and Qatar makes sense.

[Guy]

Biggest f**king shrubbery. The Qatar bid was the WEAKEST out of the five, and of course much weaker than the four 2018 European bids. Technically, it sucked. Risks are high. Profits are low. Football in the Middle East will not grow anymore -- it can't!

But f**k football when we give you a million dollars!

[Bad Infinitum]

Soccer is actually extremely popular in the Middle East, just not on a professional level. What's that? Iraqi kid is asking you for valium? Give him a soccer ball. He's grins from ear to ear, yells at all his friends, and they're not shooting at you for weeks. Beautiful.

As far as the Wilmots quote goes... they're both political and both economical. Having been to both countries, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the cost of living is cheap as f**k. Doha is actually a remarkably clean city, especially for the price. And Russia... there's nothing expensive in Russia. Even the top shelf booze is cheap.

[Guy]

How much on Wikileaks having something on this?

Newspaper headlines:

The Sun: "FIFA bungs Russia the World Cup"
Daily Mirror: "Sold"
The Guardian: "Cheer up Becks, at least England didn't go out on penalties
The Times: "Frozen Out"
...Daily Mail: "World Cup: Was it a stitch-up?"
Daily Express: "World Cup? England never had a chance. It was a stitch up"
Daily Star: "Cup bid is Vladi stitch-up"

[Iteinia]

I'm happy for Qatar and I hope that nothing happens to disrupt the games, but I am a little sad that Houston didn't get the cup.

[Tsim Sha Tsui]

The English took their loss (only two votes! out in the first round!) far harder than us here in America. (I don't think it made the front page anywhere.)

Seattle (where I live) is more soccer/football crazy than most of the country and most people still have no idea we were even bidding for the Cup. I DO think that hosting the Cup would have done wonders to further popularize the sport, but there is always 2026...

[granyys]

I think this was a legacy issue. From what I've read Sepp Blatter views this as a legacy issue, much as the selection of South Africa for the 2010 cup was a legacy issue. Blatter pushed hard and got what he wanted. I think the massive shortcomings of the Qatari bid are already coming to light - there is already talk of this becoming the 'Arab' World Cup instead of the Qatari cup, with games possibly being farmed out to nearby countries - probably because it's sort of insane to build no fewer than NINE new stadiums with capacaties around 50,000 in a country the size of Qatar. We shall see how this plays out. I suspect the Qatari's have the money to make this thing happen, but I would expect some definite issues to arise over the next 11 1/2 years.

[Soviet Wong]

I'm a bit bugged out with the Qatar one though, cos they now are suddenly saying that their gonna rearrange the time of the World Cup for the Winter or something. Right when the EPL and SPL are still in the middle of running and i'm sure there are other leagues that are also affected. So they'll ruin the world football to get 1 world cup out of it.

[Guy]

Has anyone actually read the FIFA technical report on Qatar! It's rediculous! They themselves agree it's the weakest bid, with the highest risks!

Sorry, still pissed off about it.

[Tsim Sha Tsui]

I'm still pissed about it, and I'm an American.

Russia may or may not do a good job, but I remain convinced Qatar will be a mess. (Although if they move it to Winter, it'll be less of one.)