While My Qatar Gently Weeps

As the 2014 World Cup gets underway in Brazil and I watch games with spectacularly jaw-dropping outcomes such as Spain's 5-1 loss to the Netherlands, the same team they defeated for the 2010 Cup (who do those Spaniards think they are, the Iraqi army?), attention turns to little Qatar, that polyp-shaped peninsula of a peninsula along the Persian Gulf.  It seems that Qatar, a country slightly smaller than Connecticut with a population in which its own citizens are a minority (the majority of them are "guest workers" from Pakistan and India), was awarded the 2022 World Cup.  Never mind that it has no infrastructure to support such a big event, it's too hot to play soccer there in early summer, and the Qataris have no soccer heritage to speak of.

So what got Qatar the Cup? A whole lot of dinars, apparently. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) opened an investigation into how leaders of various national federations were bribed into supporting this spit of sand's bid for international sport's biggest event, headed by former American prosecutor Michael Garcia.  The Sunday Times of London has done its own independent investigation, accusing Qatari billionaire Mohamed bin Hammam of paying out the bribes, and numerous documents have revealed that bin Hammam established a slush fund to handle the payments.  Most of the multinational corporations that FIFA's leading sponsors have made it clear that they want the federation to get to the bottom of this because they want no part of anything illegal or unethical.  Imagine if you can a multinational corporation actually ashamed to be associated with corruption.  That's how bad it is.

Anyway, rumors abound that the United States could be asked to host the 2022 Cup in place of the Qataris any time now. Garcia's report isn't out just yet, but the Sunday Times of London has enough damning evidence to justify stripping Qatar of its 2022 World Cup hosting duty, whether the United States takes it over or not.

Hmm, I doubt you'll be hearing about all this on al-Jazeera.