A world cup in the twilight zone

Earlier this month, as lamented here, the corrupt world soccer bureaucracy awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Now, Lee Smith, in the Weekly Standard, reports that “details of improprieties in the decision-making process of international soccer’s governing board, FIFA, are starting to trickle out.” Indeed, “there are rumors that the small emirate in the Persian Gulf with the world’s third largest reserves of natural gas paid more than $6 billion just to win the bid, some of it over the table and much of it not.”
I doubt that anyone is surprised. Why, other than corrupt motive, would FIFA award its marquee event to a nation of only around 1.5 million people, and no meaningful soccer tradition, where (according to Smith) the temperature reaches 130 degrees during the time of year when the Cup will be played?
Apart from these issues, Smith finds that “there’s something a little off about Qatar,” and he proceeds to demonstrate this thesis. But perhaps the best demonstration comes from Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA. Blatter recently declared that homosexuals who attend the World Cup in Qatar should “refrain from any sexual activities.”
It appears that Blatter was joking (there’s “something a little off” about Blatter). But there are obvious problems with having a nation as fanatically intolerant as Qatar host an event that will bring swarms of freedom-loving Westerners into its jurisdiction. For example, current law in Qatar prohibits drinking alcohol in public. Let’s hope England and Ireland don’t qualify.
My suggestion is that Westerners of all sexual orientations refrain from coming to Qatar for the World Cup. That way, they can beat the heat, drink as much as they want, and have sex anyway they like.

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