FIFA are rotten to the core! I feel like a shower after this crawling, venal game... we're better off out of it



By Martin Samuel - Sport for the Daily Mail

The World Cup is a competition that is, essentially, forged in corruption, which is why it goes to countries that are essentially corrupt. Countries that will over-ride their tax system, their money-laundering laws and, in the case of South Africa, even ride roughshod over their constitution.



It is almost amusing that the lickspittle leader of England's bid, Andy Anson, now rails at the duplicity of FIFA executive committee members, having spent the last year selling reality down the river by by calling any criticism of football's governing body unpatriotic.



Now, reading between the lines, the England 2018 message is that the FIFA ExCo is populated by chisellers, liars and, quite possibly, crooks. We know, thanks. This is what we have been trying to tell you.



Monkey business: an England fan leaves Wembley after the farcical vote

The first thing that should happen after football's black Thursday is that FIFA's technical committee should be disbanded. No more whizzing around cities like The Jetsons, all traffic lights switched to green. No more five-star hotels and lavish receptions. The technical assessment is irrelevant. What works is unimportant. The two worst, most problematic technical bids will host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022. Poor infrastructure, fabulous expense, potentially fatal heat, crazy overcrowding, the two World Cups after next promise them all.



We now know what matters to FIFA's decision-makers, and what clearly does not matter is you, the supporter, your ease, your experience. Qatar can air-condition its stadiums as much as it likes. It can chill them like a cool box for a summer picnic by the sea. The moment you step outside that artificial atmosphere, the sun will be beating down at an average daily temperature of 106 degrees. There is so much that is wrong about Qatari success it is hard to know where to start.



So forget England's humiliation for a moment and consider this: up against Qatar for 2022, Australia got one vote. They were the only country that proved less popular than England, eliminated at the first stage in their bidding process. The country that hosted the greatest Olympics ever, in Sydney in 2000; a country that is defined by its love for sport and its prowess against all odds. This is the country that has missed out, so that the World Cup can be played in a state with a population of 1.7million that has never qualified for the tournament.



Aussies don't rule: Devastated Australian fans look on as they gain just one vote in Zurich

There are 38 cities in Qatar but roughly two-thirds of the population live in just one, Doha, the capital. The bid reflects this. There are stadiums to be upgraded in Al-Khor, Doha, Al Wakrah, Al Rayyan and Doha, plus stadiums to be built in Lusail, Doha, Ash Shamal, Doha, Umm Salal, Doha and Doha. Basically, Qatar is one big suburb of Doha. Lusail, where an 86,000-capacity stadium will be built, is 10 miles away, as is Umm Salal. Al Khor, Al Wakrah and Umm Salal all have populations of approximately 31,000, making them the same size as Ecclesfield in Sheffield. The official population of Ash Shamal is given as 5,400, less than half the size of Wombourne, Staffordshire. Ash Shamal is getting a stadium with a capacity of 45,330.

This is what the members of FIFA's ExCo voted for, with some specious context of legacy. In fact, the most telling figures are nothing to do with football at all, but can be found in something called the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Its purpose is self-explanatory.



The United Kingdom's PFI ranking is 19, Australia is 18, Holland's journalists were the most free of any bidding country, ranked third. Qatar are 120th, Russia 20 places behind. FIFA have given their two World Cups to the countries in which the press is most muzzled, most powerless, most murdered - certainly in Russia - and least able to question their masters.

From afar, Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, sent a short message in which he criticised media scrutiny of FIFA activity, so the ExCo boys know they are safe in Moscow. Carry on diddling. Move along, folks, there is nothing to see here. If this is what had to happen to bring the World Cup to England, then we should want no part of i t, ever.

If having outstanding facilities and passion for the game is not enough, so be it. This country has given too much to football - the rules for a start - to have to suffer humiliation at the hands of a cabal of charlatans. I am not a natural patriot, but get one thing straight: England could stop playing football for 1,000 years starting tomorrow and at the end of that time would still have contributed more to the game than Qatar. And the jury's out on Russia.



What sticks in the throat is that we knew all this, and still allowed ourselves to get sucked in. The correct response when meeting Jack Warner, the duplicitous, odious FIFA vice-president who has been allowed to rule the world from Trinidad and Tobago, is to summon the fraud squad, not shake him by the hand.



Jack's not the lad: England wasted their time courting the odious vice-president Warner (left)

All you need to know about the men who made this decision is that FIFA requested, as a condition if England had mounted a successful bid, exclusion from a range of UK laws including one governing Banks and Foreign Exchange Operations. FIFA had asked for 'the unrestricted import and export of all foreign currencies to and from the UK' and, worse, they got it.



So, had England hosted the World Cup, FIFA executives were free to move around with sacks of unexplained cash, exempt from the inquisition of customs officers. Is it only me that is beginning to feel the need for a shower?



These are the men we have spent several years trying to impress. We creep, we crawl, we kow-tow, prostrating ourselves at the feet of crummy, puffed-up overlords. Our friends from FIFA ExCo, or the brotherhood as the utterly discredited Anson called them, in one of his many attempts to offer up press freedom as if it were just another two-bob friendly in Thailand.

Ultimately, good stadiums do not matter, good supporters do not matter, cost-effectiveness in a global recession does not matter, racism does not matter, history does not matter, the fans do not matter. And legacy doesn't matter. Not really. Don't kid yourselves on that one, please, the fig-leaf of altruism FIFA ExCo members always use to hide their naked greed. What legacy is there for South Africa when after one month of football costing billions, 50 per cent of the population remains below the poverty line?



End of the world: Beckham grimaces as the result is announced

Eastern Europe is yet to host a World Cup and that imbalance has been redressed: but think of the timing. Russia, a country that had to ban wheat exports for fear of famine this winter, is now to build nine football stadiums and a surrounding infrastructure from scratch. What are the locals to do with a new concrete bowl in Yekaterinburg? Eat it?



We sent the Three Lions - David Beckham, David Cameron and Prince William - to Zurich but we may as well have sent the Three Stooges. The bid was doomed from the start because FIFA does not like the power and wealth of the English club game, and hates being questioned or criticised when it makes another self-serving or toothless decision.



The shame for English football is not that the bid was lost but that it was lost as we tried to compete on their terms. We played FIFA's game; that horrible, schmoozing, lobbying, crawling, venal game, that we thought would grease us through the door. And it still wasn't enough.



So while we might feel deflated this morning, we'll get over it. And we are wiser and we know things now. So we'll continue to say exactly what we think about FIFA in the knowledge that we are getting under their skin. They hate it so much that they have fled to Nizhny Novograd and Ash Shamal to avoid us. So, for that at least, be proud.



