Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, has said
that it was a mistake to award Qatar the football World Cup in 2022 because of
the searing summer climate.
Blatter made the remarks in an interview with
the Swiss television station RTS, which was broadcast on Thursday.
"Sepp Blatter admits
"error" in awarding tournament to country with scorching climate but
denies Qatar bought the event".
When asked if the decision was a mistake due
to the high temperatures, he replied: "Of course, it’s an error",
before adding: "You know, everyone makes mistakes in life."
Blatter added: "The technical report of
Qatar indicated it was quite hot during the summer. However, the executive
committee, with an overwhelming majority, decided that the games would be in
Qatar."
However, he denied that Qatar had bought the
tournament, saying: "No, definitely not. These allegations are driven by
politics."
Qatar was awarded the rights to the tournament, which has always been played in the northern summer months, in 2010.
Critics questioned how a tournament could be
played in the humid Qatari summer, where temperatures can reach 50C and
rarely dip below 40C in the day. Qatar promised air-conditioned stadiums and a
rapid transport system to get fans to the games in comfort.
It is not the first time Blatter has made
such remarks, but they are certainly the most forthright.In September 2013, he
told the Inside World Football website that "it may well be that
we made a mistake" in the awarding the tournament.
In January, a public split emerged within
FIFA after Jerome Valcke, the secretary-general, said the tournament
could not be held in the summer and would
be moved to the winter months.
Other members of the body quickly denied a decision had been taken.
Qatar has also faced an international campaign to improve the dangerous conditions in
which labourers work on World Cup projects, and their lack of rights under the
kefala employment system.
Earlier this week, the government announced
that it was reforming the employment system, but set no time
limit on when it would do so.
In March, Valcke told Al Jazeera that
FIFA was "not a United Nations" and was not responsible for labour
issues in Qatar.
"That's not our role. It's unfair if we
get pressure from the rest of the world saying 'hey FIFA, that's what's
happening in that country and you have to change the way the country
behaves'," he said.
--aljazeera.com
Every four years, soccer fans around the
world revel in what has been called the biggest sporting event on the
planet — the World Cup.
The 32-team, 2014 tournament in Brazil is less than two years away. Russia is next in 2018. In 2022, Qatar, an oil- and natural-gas-rich country with a population of less than 2 million, steps onto the global stage.
Will Qatar be ready? Does it have enough of a soccer pedigree to pull off a World Cup?
A number of factors help Qatar make its case, now and nine years down the road. Teams in Qatar have attracted some big-name
players from around the world, most near the end of their careers,
attracted by one final big payday. The likes of Claudio Caniggia, Ali
Daei, Fernando Hierro, Stefan Effenber, and Pep Guardiola prolonged
their careers and feathered their bank accounts, for sure. In 2011, Qatar hosted the Asian Cup (the region’s equivalent of the European Championships), a well-organized event that went off without any major glitches.
Qatar is also home to the 2011 Asian club champion —
Al-Sadd, which defeated Jeonbuk Motors of South Korea in a penalty kick
shootout. Al-Sadd then won a match at the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup in
Japan before being thrashed by Barcelona, 4-0. But Al-Sadd planted the
Qatari flag, so to speak, among some of the world’s top clubs.
The negatives have been discussed since the
day FIFA awarded the tournament for the first time to a Middle Eastern
country: the oppressive temperatures in the summer, restrictions on the
consumption of alcohol in a strict Muslim country, cultural and
religious rules about the role and place of women in society, not to
mention in the soccer stadiums.
Many issues have yet to be resolved: whether
stadiums can be built and cooled to protect players and fans from the
heat; whether the World Cup should be played in the summer or be moved,
perhaps to January; whether the country can accommodate soccer fans used
to drinking and openly displaying their passion for the game.Do you think FIFA was right or wrong to award
the tournament to Qatar? Was Qatar’s financial footprint pivotal in
landing the World Cup? Will fans go there out of allegiance to their
national teams or because Qatar seems like an interesting destination?
Shuaib B. Ahmed, a native of United Arab Emirates, now lives in New York. You can read his other work on his blog, Footynions and follow him on Twitter.
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
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SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
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