The 2010 World Cup in South Africa is over and now we can turn our attention to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. We will cover everything from the qualifying games to the World Cup Final.
FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has responded to allegations that he was one of the 5 men who betrayed England‘s bid to vote differently after giving both Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince William his word.
Mr. Warner maintained that England had themselves to blame for failing to capture the 2018 bid. According to Mr.Warner, the investigations carried out by the BBC on two FIFA executive committee members for vote trading was the main reason why their bid failed.
A couple of days back we profiled here on STO FIFA’s 22 man executive committee who would be involved in the voting process that would see the rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments given to the most successful country.
As shocking as the results were, Russia won the 2018 bid while Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 tournament. The English media were quick to express their feelings with one article that appeared on BBC Sports titled Anger,Despair and Bewilderment.
With Brazil prepping to host the 2014 World Cup, today would be the big day where FIFA would announce the 2018 and 2022 hosting destinations.
And just minutes ago FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced in Zurich that Russia would be the host of the 2018 event and Qatar will host the World Cup in 2022. And the news comes as a great disappointment to us Yanks who hoped to seal the tournament yet again for the 2022 experience and of course Three Lions fans of England must also feel a bit of disappointment today as well considering they will miss out on hosting the 2018 event.
Russia might have already given up on winning the 2018 World Cup bid if reports emerging from Zurich are anything to go by. When heads of most delegations including figures like heads of governments, royalty, football stars and keen enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting the news. Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin will be sitting pretty in his home where he will be watching the proceedings on television.
Apparently, the former President does not want to travel to Zurich because he does not want to be involved in ‘unfair competition’. Russia will instead send their First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov in his place.
Yesterday we had a look at 11 of the 22 men who will be deciding which nations gets the rights to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Today, we will be continuing with our series profiling the remaining 11 men.
Senes Erzik
Mr Erzik is the honorary president of the Turkish Football Federation.This former marketing executive joined FIFA in 1996. He is a big fan of Dutch legend Johann Cruyff and is expected to vote for the Holland-Belgium 2018 bid.
Chuck Blazer
With only a couple of hours left before we know who the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup hosts will be, we take a look at some of the people who will be charged with the ultimate task of deciding who gets to hosts football’s flagship tournament.
The decision will be made by FIFA’s remaining 22 man executive committee after the suspension of Amos Adamu and FIFA Vice President Reynald Temarii for vote trading.
President Sepp Blatter
The former Swiss Lawyer turned FIFA President, Sepp Blatter has a casting vote in the event of a tie.
December is a big month globally as well as in the realms of the beautiful game. To start off, 1st Dec is the World Aids day and the following day is a day all football lovers will be eagerly awaiting.
Thursday 2nd December, the FIFA 2018 and 2022 hosts will be known. Of course if you have been following this keenly, then you will know that the 2 favourites for both competitions are England and Qatar.
It is becoming very apparent that England will win the bid to host the 2018 tournament, however, Qatar’s 2022 bid is not so certain. The Middle East nation is up against USA, and Australia all considered strong bidders.
FIFA has banned two of its executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii who were involved in a cash for votes scam for a total of 4 years. Adamu received a lengthy 3 year ban while Temarii was banned for 1 year.
The pair will not be involved in any football related activities for the stipulated time. In addition to this, the pair were fined a total of 15,000 Swiss Francs. You would expect both Adamu and Temarii to express remorse for their actions, but instead Adamu expressed disappointment at the way the whole matter was handled.
England have asked FIFA to incorporate their much advocated fair play stance in the upcoming December 2nd executive committee vote casting session to determine the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.
The England bid leaders have personally written letters to all executive committee members in a bid to try and fix the damage caused by the recent English media investigations into vote trading.
Geoff Thompson, England’s chairman for the 2018 bid distanced his country’s bid from the infamous Sunday Times and BBC Panorama investigations. Thompson who is also FIFA and UEFA Vice President requested the world governing football body to ingore the reportrs made by the two media publications saying that the bid had nocontrol over the British media.
World football governing body FIFA has pledged to donate $100,000 to Togo keeper Kodjovi Obilale. Obilale was seriously injured when a group of armed men believed to be rebels attacked the Togolese national football team bus as it made its way to Angola for the AFCON early in January.
Unfortunately, 3 people including the driver, assistant coach and a press officer died in the attack forcing Togo to withdraw from the championships. Obilale was initially also reported to have died in the attack however, it was later confirmed that he had only sustained gun shot wounds to his lower back and abdomen.
