Qatar Claims It Did Not Buy World Cup

It’s been a few days now since we rambled on about the corrupt state of world football and, in particular, FIFA.  That break has now come to an end with this morning’s news that Qatar apparently did not buy the 2022 World Cup.

In a conversation with the BBC in which the statements were believed by absolutely no-one, General Secretary of the bid committee Hassan al Thawadi said that “the Qatar bid did not do anything wrong.”  That may be true of course, if you’re judging their actions by FIFA’s standards.

Among a number of ludicrous statements, al Thawadi also asked “why is everyone focusing on Qatar?” Really Hassan?  How about these for a start:

Why did clearly the most inferior bid win in the face of excellent bids, especially from Australia and the U.S.

How did the World Cup get awarded to an homophobic country?

How did the World Cup get awarded to a country with ridiculously high summer temperatures?

Why award it to a country with no heritage or hint of football culture and which will offer nothing in the way of legacy for football.  They can claim it but a population if just 1.7m people reveals the truth behind the lie.

Taking all the above into account, can it really be a coincidence that Qatar is also a hugely wealthy, oil rich state?  Make you own mind up.

One More Tour de France Accident

This is one you don’t see very often and a good job too.  We expect the convoy, which includes support vehicles, television cars and motorbikes, to be well-trained and prepared for negotiating the roads alongside the drivers.  They are safe inside the cars, while the riders are extremely vulnerable, especially on narrow roads.  So what was going on here just boggles the mind:

On closer inspection it seems the driver swerved to avoid the tree, however putting the riders in danger by doing so is the wrong thing to do.  Johnny Hoogerland is actually flung into a barbed wire fence but both riders – the other was Juan Antonio Flecha – avoided serious injury.  The driver will not be reappearing in this tour and may yet face legal action.