da bet sport： Monday night’s Panorama investigation into the workings of FIFA pulled no punches. It accused the organisation of doing little to combat deep-rooted corruption within it. Attacked the way FIFA imposes unique and unfair tax breaks for FIFA and their sponsors onto host countries that are subsequently threatened with the effective removal of their World Cup bid if they do not comply. As well as naming three members who will be voting on which bid succeeds in hosting the 2018 World Cup directly of taking bribes and accusing Concacef President, Jack Warner who is responsible for three votes on Thursday of selling tickets acquired through FIFA on the black market. Following on from the programme it is perhaps no surprise then that the English bid along with the joint Netherlands/Belgium bid, which raised the tax issue directly with FIFA, were unsuccessful, finishing fourth and third respectively.
da cassino online： The decision by the BBC was roundly criticised by the England 2018 bid team which labelled the broadcasting corporation “unpatriotic”. Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated “Is it frustrating that Panorama’s doing this programme a few days before? Of course it is.” Whilst other involved in the England bid are keen to distance themselves from the programme with bid President David Dein writing a letter to FIFA’s 22-man Executive committee doing exactly that. Fans could be right to feel aggrieved by a move that could have played a major role in ending England’s hopes of hosting the World Cup. Indeed one of the FIFA members targeted prominently by the investigation, Jack Warner, has claimed it was “deliberately designed to negatively impact on England’s chances.” While other senior FIFA members have said that they feel persecuted by the British Media. In light of the Russian victory, perhaps these FIFA executives found common ground with a Russian government also under media scrutiny for corruption after documents were released by the whistle blowing website wikileaks describing the country as a “mafia state.”
Certainly some will believe it is far from coincidental that the two successful bids were from the two biggest spending. Russia has promised £3.8billion on football infrastructure alone with more guaranteed on developing transport. Where as Qatar has promised £2.5billion on building new stadia and a further £25billion on developing the infrastructure and building fans to ensure the country is cool enough to play football, a typical June day in Qatar averages 41C.With all this money being thrown around maybe serious questions should be asked about if it was all done ethically and above board. Compared to such lavish bids it is no wonder that the environmentally conscious Netherlands/Belgium bids from England and the Spain/Portugal, countries that required little to no work to be ready for a World Cup, were unsuccessful. It is here where the real injustice of the vote lie, whereas Russia can point to the lasting legacy having the World Cup will have on the infrastructure of the country and FIFA can cite opening up remote Russian cities to the world targeting a new market for football to really have an impact and, something England certainly cannot offer. Qatar’s selection is nothing short of ridiculous. A country that has no great sporting, let alone football tradition or heritage, a population of just 1.3million and just 4,000 sq miles of territory and in June possibly has the lease desirable football condition imaginable should not in my opinion be considered to host the World Cup when compared to the rejected bids from Europe.
Yet the allegations levied by the programme against FIFA are only now be talked about by the FA and those surrounding the England bid team. The hypocritical England bid team was more than happy to bend over backwards for FIFA and ignore its corruption before Thursday’s vote. Now in an ironic twist, this same corruption that the BBC spoke of and England went out of their way to ignore and disassociate themselves with has defeated the England bid. And all of a sudden there is moral outrage. Well I’m afraid it’s too little to late, you can’t grow a conscience when it best suits you. But due to the power that FIFA hold the England bid team was tripping over itself to accommodate them and place blame on the BBC. When in reality it should be FIFA who were under scrutiny then for how their business is conducted, as opposed to being acquiesced by the England 2018 bid team and the wider private media. The Daily Mail went as far to report that the Panorama investigation was naïve and served only to anger FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, as if that were some kind of reprehensible sin. It showed how far the England bid team, along with rival bids, were prepared to ignore any wrongdoing for the sake of pursuing the carrot of hosting a World Cup.
Certainly any other approach by the bid team will have resulted in irreversible damage being done to the bid. As the appeasement attempts toward FIFA initiated by the team at first appeared to have averted any knee-jerk anger against the England bid that could have arisen from the investigation. The man at the centre of the scandal, Jack Warner, stated that in his mind the actions of the BBC and the England 2018 bid were completely separate. Whilst Blatter has supposedly been reassured by Beckham and Cameron, resulting in little lasting damage being done to the England World Cup bid. But in the end it was fruitless grovelling by the Prime Minister and the rest of the team at an organisation that is not worth it. Questions remain over the morality of those involved, afraid to do any more than back away drastically from legitimate concerns over the running of football’s top organisation.
Perhaps when our government appears afraid of standing up to corruption, when it means risking something like the opportunity to host the World Cup, we should be proud that we have a public media that is not so easily swayed. And is prepared to investigate and publish claims of wrong doing and corruption by an organisation that is so big and evidently powerful. And maybe when the dust settles on deciding who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups world leaders will feel less required to appease FIFA and could begin to act on the unfair way it bullies host nations over taxation and insist on a thorough investigation from an independent source into the possibility of corruption.
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