World Cups in football, just like other big sport events, are always surrounded by scandals, gossips and rumors. The talks about a championship being moved or a country not being prepared to host such big event accompanied the preparations for the Cup in South Africa in 2010 and Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland. The rumors spread fast and were saying that the countries were extremely late, the stadiums were far from being ready, everything was falling apart and the whole championship was going to fail. In spite of all the panic, the stadiums were fine and the competitions happened as planned without a delay. The approaching World Cup 2022 is surrounded by an unusual amount of scandals. This time the problems promise to be serious. Qatar, the country that was assigned as the host of World Cup 2022 four years ago, is now facing a risk of being stripped of the responsibility of accepting the championship.
It turns out that after some rational analysis and data collection Qatar is considered as a highly unsuitable place for an event like World Cup in football. There are multiple reasons for this statement. First of all, climate in Qatar is extremely hot. This will make the Cup that is traditionally held in summer a very dangerous event. The temperatures on the territory of Qatar will endanger the health of the audience on the stadium and create a deadly threat for the players. Secondly, Qatar does not even have an own football league, which means that there is no infrastructure for any big football event on the territory of the country. An independent investigation also revealed severe human rights violations in Qatar. Moreover, the investigation showed massive bribes that created the basis for the initial nomination of Qatar.
The world’s society is shocked by the news even though the decision of FIFA to assign Qatar as the host country for the championship was publically judged from the very beginning. Right now the bad news hit the reputation of FIFA and its leaders. The investigation showed that the corruption has found its way to the jury officials. This makes a significant impact on the society of the world, as it supports the idea of an unlimited power of corruption that is so concerning nowadays.
The mass media started to scream about this news right after the well known tweet posted by Jorge Ramos. Mass media presentation of the event emphasises the precedent of bribing and explains that this information is based on multiple proofs such as documents, papers and electronic mails. The other reasons of the possible cancellation or relocation of the World Cup of 2022 such as climate, lack of infrastructure and instability in the Middle East are also mentioned. Yet, the mass media makes the emphasis on the facts about corruption in order to catch more public attention because they are aware that this is the aspect everyone is most likely to discuss. To my mind, this time the Cup is really going to be moved.