Adam Wall

FIFA

            Football, (soccer), dominates our world. Everyone watches it, from villages in Africa to a German pub, everyone loves soccer. It brings the world together. There will be war, disagreements, and hatred but football makes people forget all of that and connect the world through some good old competition. It makes the two teams equal, no matter what country they represent, it’s the same rules and regulations, no one team has an advantage. During the world cup last year for example, the United States the most powerful country in the world faced off against Ghana, a small poor country in western Africa. Ghana almost beat the world power as well. Examples like this make me really enjoy the culture of the game and how it brings the world together.

            The world cup is where all of this comes together. Sure there is the premiere league, Lega Calcio, and the MLS but they are nothing compared to the main event, the world cup. Run by FIfA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the world cup takes place ever four years and has been a tradition for the past 80 years. Countries all over the world come to a host countries stadiums and duke it out for the championship, professional players represent there country and everyone in the world spectates and watches. I love the atmosphere of the world cup. The USA normal doesn’t follow soccer that much but when the world cup comes around, there is patriotism all over the country for supporting our team and this is going on all across the world as well, I love the world cup.

            AS much as I love the world cup, there are still some issues I have with FIFA. The host country has been a huge controversy over the past few years. Brazil and South Africa, the last two countries who held the cup have been under some extremely economic stress. This is especially the case with Brazil who has to host the Olympics as well next year. Brazil spent over fifteen billion dollars on the world cup whether it was new stadiums, roads, buildings, and many other things. All this money is something they didn’t have even before the world cup and now they are facing serious problems with there economy and debt. All this debt and all they got out of it was some fancy stadiums in the middle of the jungle and little bit of tourism. Most countries host the cup for building of new infrastructure such as transportation, government offices, and stadiums for large events such as football and tourism. Sometimes this can be a huge boost for a country but this turns out not to be the case.  These world cups can totally cripple a country for over debt and terrible spending. I don’t know why countries keep bidding for these games when they know that it can totally cripple their country.

            FIFA is also being totally scum. Bidding usually takes place years before where a country says what they can provide for the tournament. More developed countries are usually chosen because they can better hold the games with more infrastructure and stadiums. Lately we seem to see some less developed countries taking the role of being the host. Qatar is the latest country that is now struggling but still decided to take the challenge of being host. Speculated for being picked because they bribed FIFA with oil money, they are now stuck with the 2022 world cup and they aren’t even close to being ready. IT doesn’t make any sense, its 120 degrees there so it will be impossible to play, it’s a strict Muslim country and they have little to no infrastructure. So FIFA being the idiots they are gave these guys the right host and now they’re stuck and trying to figure out if the should move the cup somewhere else. FIFA is so money driven and John Oliver did a great and funny thing on them if you want to learn anymore about the diabolical and terrible company of FIFA. They are ruining the greatest sports event in the world. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I)