REALLY?

A better title than "Are You F-ing Kidding Me?" I guess. When "let's make a ton of money" gets trumped by "let us the voting members personally make a ton of money by picking absurd locations with a lot of filthy rich people willing to pay for it", merit be damned. I should have known when they picked Russia for 2018. England being the obvious choice, easy to get to, convenient, great stadiums, lot's to do when there are no games going on. But no, Russia, the infrastructure capital of Eurasia. One of the drawbacks to the USA bid was that the country was too big, not easy to get from one locale to another. Russia is way bigger and you can't get from one place to another unless you know really important Russian officials and how to bribe. The Russia selection was a real bad omen. And then - Qatar. Really? A place that truly fits the mold - unstable area of the world, you can't get there from here, 120 degrees in the shade, no water, no stadiums, beer sold at the games but nowhere else (what will the English do?). The country with the worst risk assessment of any country bidding on either the 2018 or 2022 event. What, Angola wasn't available? FIFA could have made an enormous amount of money by putting the games in England and the US. Instead they decided to put an enormous amount of money in the pockets of the voting members and to hell with the dignity and the coffers of the organizing body. 2014 in Brazil (a logical choice), 2018 in Russia, 2022 in Qatar, means that 2026 will definitely be in Europe. 2030 would be the earliest that the US could get. America spends a ton of money on sports. Soccer clubs across Europe are in financial difficulty. Getting 300 million Americans to really buy in to the sport would seem imperative as opposed to 1.7 million Qatarans. How many jerseys can they buy? How many games will they go see? Two years ago I saw 80,000 people go to Baltimore to see a friendly between Chelsea and AC Milan. Stupid me, I thought that these decisions would be made based on merit. Apparently bribes are all that matter.