FIFA's 'good name' has long since disappeared into the toxic sludge of corruption.
The 1000-plus deaths of construction workers on the stadia being built in the tiny mega-rich state should, in their own right, have been enough for football’s governing body to suck it up and cry a halt to this fiasco.
That’s right, over a thousand deaths. For what? To fulfil a ruling elite’s sporting wet dream at the expense of a single tradesman’s life was too high a price to pay.
That this tragic situation has been compounded by an expose of ‘Wikileaks’ proportions to the ‘ST’ proved two things to me this week. One: That there was never any logic in any way, shape or form to awarding the finals to Qatar and Two: That the printed media is far from a busted flush when it comes to weeding out corruption.
The extent to which former Qatari football chief Mohammed bin Hammam ‘swayed’ high-ranking football figures (influencing their voting powers come the designation of World Cup hosting rights) reduces the antics of ‘GUBU’ Ireland to a dodgy local raffle.
And while Bin Hammam may go down (even further) without taking anyone else with him, surely even a body as rotten as FIFA must see the light here, and strip Qatar of a tournament it should never have been awarded in the first place. That really would be “for the good of the game”.
