“Blatter told TASS: “In 2010 we had a discussion of the World Cup and then we went to a double decision. For the World Cups it was agreed that we go to Russia because it’s never been in Russia, eastern Europe, and for 2022 we go back to America. And so we will have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers.”And everything was good until the moment when (French president Nicolas) Sarkozy came in a meeting with the crown prince of Qatar, who is now the ruler of Qatar. And at a lunch afterwards with Mr Platini he said it would be good to go to Qatar. And this has changed all pattern.
“There was an election by secret ballot. Four votes from Europe went away from the USA and so the result was 14 to eight. If you put the four votes, it would have been 12 to 10. If the USA was given the World Cup, we would only speak about the wonderful World Cup 2018 in Russia and we would not speak about any problems at FIFA.””
Doesn’t this sound like a Scooby Do defense? “If not for these meddling kids”. Basically, what he seems to be saying is that there was an agreement in place before the votes were ever cast, but then the votes changed because of some sort of influence Qatar had with a FIFA official, and if only the US and England weren’t such sore losers, everything would have been fine.
Isn’t that a bit like saying “yeah sure we robbed the bank, but everything would have been fine if people had just not missed the money”?
FIFA is a mess. I’m not sure there’s any hope of it ever not being a mess.
Sepp Blatter: Deal for Russia to host 2018 World Cup in place before vote
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