Being Aussie, I'm obviously disappointed but I can understand their reasoning. The Middle East has seen a huge explosion in the interest of football lately and it's seen as a great chance to develop the game over there. My major qualms are (in order): the potential that we will not see half-naked South American ladies, the manner in which Qatar was selected (doesn't seem 100% kosher, does it?) and the pedigree of football history from the host nation.
Trying to look at this from an objective view, the Australian bid surely had to be more appealing than the votes had us lead on. It does however present us with a very different climate (no not literally, well yes actually also literally) to what we're used to. I enjoyed the experience of SA2010, it gave me a chance to see the world of football "through South Africa's eyes" and I look forward to doing the same come Qatar 2022.
Best of luck to the Qataris in hosting the tournament and I hope most people's initial concerns are horrendously misguided and we look forward to a brilliant tournament in spite of how we got there. It's like your parents forcing you to go on holidays when you were little, there's not a whole lot you can do about once you're there, so just try and make the best of it.
As far as the Russian bid goes, I think it was a good choice personally.
edit: I'm not going to lie though, Brazil 2014 is the one I've been looking forward to the most for quite some time now. Been planning it for some years now and there is a slight possibility I might not come back from that one in one piece, it's going to be legen... WAIT FOR IT
« Last Edit: Dec 03, 2010 03:37:28 am by vitez »
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