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^^ cm to Saudi Arabia, lots of little maradonas lurking around here
Football is the only sport Saudis like to play, but dont know why the Saudis underperform at international level
This has more to do with lack of self confidence, they cannot handle pressure, once in a match agaisnt Germany i remember, no one was going towards the germans to tackle the ball Lol, i was like wth, i agree germans are tall and imposing, but atleast play some football ya Saudis.
Lol...
If money could buy everyt thing, then the saudi's will be world champs.
This proves that money can not buy everything
Indeed, good luck for 13 Jan, you'll be needing it
Kuwait seems to be doing quite well recently.
Who knows, maybe Kuwait can make that world cup.
what's with the pic btw? (no offense intended, just curious)
Is the whole emo thing big in Kuwait? I've seen a number of Kuwaitis with the whole emo up do.
Young kids now adays are mad after emo style.........
احلى الزغرودة يا نيشان اللي حطيتها في البداية و ما حد علق عليها على العموم اتمنى ان يكون مونديال 2022 من دون أي (مشاكل خاصة أن السنوات القادمة لا تبشر بالخير في المنطقة من الناحية السياسية.
مع اني لا احب الرياضة لكن بالرغم ذلك أود أن اقدم التهانئ و التبريكات بمناسبة فوز دولة قطر الشقيقة باستضافة الكأس العالم لكرة القدم 2022
و تقبلوا مروري و دمتم سالمين.
اخوكم: البهتي
One of only two Australians to have played professional football in Qatar, Tony Popovic, has no doubts the country has the money to realise its extraordinary ambitions for the 2022 World Cup but warns it will be an ''extremely uncomfortable'' experience for players and fans.
Popovic, who spent a year in the capital, Doha, playing for al-Arabi, says those visiting the edge of the Arabian desert will have to prepare themselves for the most testing conditions. Temperatures in July, when the final will be held, average 46 degrees.
''Every tournament possesses challenges but on the scale of previous World Cups, this is extreme.
''I didn't arrive in Doha until August in 2006, which is at the end of their summer, but even then I'd never experienced heat like that anywhere in the world,'' Popovic told the Herald yesterday. ''Being told to train and play in that heat, even during the evening, is something I didn't think was possible. When you're touching close to 50 degrees during the day, to say it's uncomfortable is an understatement.''
The unforgiving climate is one of the many factors cited by critics of the first Middle Eastern World Cup. There are significant concerns about the experience for the fans and whether the nation, with a population of only 1.7 million, could cope with an expected 400,000 tourists. Popovic played for the Socceroos at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, an event considered the most enjoyable for fans. While Qatari officials claim they will put airconditioning in their stadiums and sites, Popovic says that is only half the story. ''From a fan's perspective, this will be unlike any other World Cup. In Germany, everyone was outside, able to enjoy a few drinks and relax, but this won't be a party like that,'' he said. ''It's so hot outside that you can only stay in your home or in shopping centres.''
Qatar officials have already swung into a full-scale defence of their bid, with the committee chairman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad al-Thani, using his first news conference since the decision to hit back at the critics.
''One of the most important preconceptions was that Qatar couldn't do it because Qatar is too hot,'' he said. ''It was difficult for us to prove ourselves on the world stage.''
While using airconditioning to cool the stadiums and fan areas would appear to cause terrible pollution, those behind the bid say it will be a solar-powered, carbon-neutral tournament. Sheikh Mohammed was also on the front foot in regards to ''preconceptions'' about women. ''This is another perception, another perception that women are oppressed in the Middle East, and this is a wrong, wrong perception,'' he said. ''We hope with the World Cup being awarded to Qatar, we can change that.''
While the country is still subject to aspects of Islamic law, which makes it a crime to show alcohol or be drunk in public, the chief executive of Qatar's bid, Hassan Abdulla al-Thawadi, has moved to quell such concerns. ''Alcohol will be available.''
FIFA's future is called into question after shock winners, writes Dan Silkstone in Zurich.
GLOBAL anger and growing discord greeted FIFA's decision to award hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups yesterday after the governing body's 22 delegates picked Russia and Qatar as hosts.
After a three-year campaign characterised by controversy, corruption and frenzied deal-making, the elderly men of FIFA's executive committee plumped for two bids that were the lowest rated by FIFA's own independent inspectors.
In a further apparent perversion of the process, Qatari state-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera reported the result with astonishing accuracy minutes before FIFA president Sepp Blatter opened his envelope and informed the world. The tiny emirate, home to just 1 million citizens and more 600,000 poorly paid migrant workers, was also the origin of a last-minute betting plunge, and the Qatari contingent entered the auditorium where the news was delivered by Blatter smiling and joking as the other eight bid teams looked nervously on.
Reaction to the twin victories was swift and vituperative. US President Barack Obama told reporters FIFA ''made the wrong decision'', while British Prime Minister David Cameron described the election of Russia to 2018 host nation as ''desperately sad''.
There were rumours, pushed by the British press even before the vote and gathering steam afterwards, of a move to replace FIFA with a new, breakaway body, while a former British sports minister described the world football organisation as ''not fit for purpose''.
FIFA's Swiss base and diverse spheres of influence have long irked a British establishment that still feels a special custodianship of the game it created and formalised more than 100 years ago.
Blatter did little to cool that sense of gathering outrage at the awarding ceremony as his introduction spoke with historical revisionism of ''football, a game invented in China''.
While the circumstances of England's first-round defeat were almost identical to Australia's, and the details of the getaway heist equally frustrating, the responses of the two nations differed considerably. England bid chief Andy Anson said FIFA's voters had ''looked us in the eye and lied'' before delivering just two first-round votes and a surprise early exit. London Mayor Boris Johnson, a key figure in the English bid, stalked around the amphitheatre in a barely concealed rage, seething, ''FIFA cannot last in this current form.''
Asked by the Herald if he had been lied to after walking into the building expecting between four and six first-round votes and feeling confident of victory, Australia's bid chief executive, Ben Buckley, attempted to maintain the diplomatic take that has been his mantra throughout the process. ''I wouldn't put it that way,'' he said. ''But clearly we believed we had more support than we received.''
Pressed further, Buckley would only say: ''There's a lot of speculation, there's going to be a lot of rumours, a lot of allegations. We fought a good contest by the rules.''
Australia, rightly, did not want to appear as sore losers but had a legitimate right to query so many elements of the voting process and the three-year bid race.
The decision to award two World Cup tournaments simultaneously, taken to create more broadcast rights profit for FIFA, made collusion and vote-rigging between some bids virtually inevitable, and the resulting vote patterns published afterwards were highly irregular. In addition, two executive committee members were banned from voting after being caught in an undercover newspaper sting, and Australia's push to have Oceania's vote reinstated was mysteriously defeated after Qatar placed pressure on banned delegate Reynald Temarii not to withdraw the appeal against his ban. That move alone was regarded as treacherous by the Australian camp but it turned out yesterday that the scale of defeat was so immense it would have made little difference.
Less than a week before the vote, three more members of the executive committee were accused of accepting bribes by the BBC's Panorama program and a fourth - Jack Warner - of blackmarket profiteering. FIFA's response was to draw ranks, deny all and then punish the English bid for the temerity of that nation's press in pointing out its crookedness.
FFA chairman Frank Lowy, clearly shattered, did his best to remain dignified but was sorely let down by a process that had reporters notifying him of the solitary-vote early exit while he was in a news conference, having just stated his confidence that the result must have been close and Australia competitive.
''I would think it wouldn't be that way but obviously I misread it,'' Lowy said upon hearing of the margin of defeat. ''I am very disappointed, shattered, and have a lot of misgivings.''
Australia's bid team left the Messe Hall quickly, bound for a confused debrief as they attempted to work out how they had misread their chances so badly. Back home in Australia, there was less diplomacy as FFA board member Ron Walker slammed the 22-man executive committee.
''These people are very corruptible,'' said Walker, who suggested that Australia had been too honest to win. ''I don't think it's part of our DNA to play the corruption game in sport.''
The Qatari delegation was coolly received as it began raucous celebrations at the giant convention centre in downtown Zurich. Few among the press corps numbering in their thousands expressed any view other than that a predictable yet breathtaking travesty had been effected.
Qatar promised a fantasy World Cup, and must now conjure a real one. Meanwhile, Australia's hosting chances look dashed for generations. FIFA's rotation policy means 2042 is the next realistic tournament for which Australia could bid but the emergence of China and India as massive new markets for sport and sponsorship means those countries would be far better positioned to host the next Asian-based World Cup.