Russia, Qatar win their respective World Cup bids

I wish I could say I didn't get it. I wish I could say that I don't understand it. Unfortunately, I get it and completely understand why what went down went down. I will still shake my head at the decision to give Qatar the hosting duties for the 2022 World Cup.

Many Americans – blogger or otherwise – have taken the "why not us?" method of defense after Qatar won the voting for 2022, but I was always of the mind that the USA had no chance in the voting for that one. In my mind it was most likely that Japan would get the 2022 bid out of the group, with Russia or England being the most likely choice for 2018. The logistics of Qatar getting the cup just don't make a lick of sense to me, it's fairly obvious that when the FIFA board typed Qatar on the official ballot inside that envelope they were doing so with dollar signs in their eyes.

Before I get to Qatar, let me first say that I love the Russian win for 2018. I love the country of Russia and if I have the means and wealth in 2018 will do anything I can to get there and witness the Russian cup. Although England only getting two votes spoke of corruption to me, Russia is still a fairly worthy candidate to host their first ever cup. They have a large population, a decent side nationally and plenty of potential for growth. This is part of the problem when Qatar comes in.Qatar has barely over a million people in its population along with having literally no infrastructure for football as it stands today. Obviously they have the oil money necessary to build seven or eight new football stadiums along their capital city and surely they will. Unfortunately, the story can't end there. Along with the obvious stadiums required they will need to build training grounds, several of them at the very least. Where will they fit all of this and how will they be able to use them after the cup has ended? How large can they really justify making these stadiums?

Anything less than 50K seating per stadium will surely be too small to work as a World Cup host, and they'll probably need ones even larger than that for the semis and the eventual final. In South Africa, Soccer City held well over 90K. Will they build the stadiums indoors with air conditioning? The average temperature in July in Qatar is 114 degrees, almost impossible temperatures to deal with for 90 minutes of football especially considering you only get 3 substitutes per game. Surely they can't hold up to their "Carbon Free world cup" claims if they are forced to air condition their entire country.

The topic of the constant warfare Middle East is unfortunately relevant as well. In an area where warfare, battle and hatred between neighbors has ruled since… well, forever, can we even guarantee that Qatar as a nation is still as relevant and viable in 12 years? It's an unfortunate question and frankly shouldn't be one we have to ask, but Qatar getting an event as high profile as a World Cup has to force us to.

And their national team? Quite literally laughable. We will no doubt see the second ever host country to not make it out of the group stage.

A text message at the bar I was at summed it up nicely; "It ju$t doe$n't make $en$e."