RUSSIA AND QATAR ELATED

The host countries for the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups have been chosen.  The lucky ones are Russia and Qatar.  Some people were puzzled by the FIFA decision, and others view it as a reasonable decision.  During the voting, which was conducted in Zurich, England, the country where football has its origins, failed to pass the first round of voting, winning only 2(!) votes.  And after the second round, it became clear that the 2018 World Cup will be held in Russia, which won the largest number of votes, 13.  The Spain-Portugal tandem won 7 votes and the Netherlands - Belgium tandem won only 2 votes.

Although at first sight, England's defeat and such a small number of votes is surprising, this outcome could have been predicted.  The fact is that accusations of corruption, which had been made by the British press against the FIFA leadership, have angered football's ruling body.  The last straw was the accusation made on the Panorama show aired by the influential British TV channel BBC.  A few days before the voting, the BBC produced a programme in which it was said that three incumbent FIFA Executive Committee members, Ricardo Teixeira, Issa Hayatou and Nicolas Leoz, had received illegal payments for the broadcasting rights during the World Cup in South Africa.

In addition, the names of the Executive Committee officials were mentioned in connection with illegal transfers of tickets to ticket scalpers during the 1998 World Cup.  They were also accused of accepting bribes for their votes for countries to host the world cup.  The FIFA reacted soon enough.  About the 1998 scandal, it was said that the investigation conducted back then did not find any evidence in support of the accusations.  It was also pointed out that no specific facts were mentioned in connection with the South Africa World Cup.  As for the voting bribery, the FIFA leadership promised to conduct an investigation.  At the same time, the named members of the Executive Committee were suspended from voting for the host countries of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup.  However, the British press continued to "expose" the FIFA and, taking advantage of the scandal, staged a whole campaign of denigration of that organization.

This scandal certainly affected other members of the Executive Committee, too.  After all, accusations of bribery against three of their colleagues cast shadows on them.  In response to the campaign against the football ruling body, some FIFA officials even said in advance that they would not support England's candidature in the vote.  In the end they did as they promised.  In Russia, the FIFA decision caused great joy.  After all, not every country hosts the World Cup.  Until now, only 16 countries have had this honour.

Several factors may account for our northern neighbour being granted this right:  in 2014, the Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi and after that it will host the Universiade.  Of course, after organizing important international competitions of this size, organizing the football World Cup will not be so difficult for Russia.  In addition, the Russian leadership made several quite serious proposals to the FIFA:  the country's government will make travel for participants and delegations free of charge, in other words, special transport will be allocated for this purpose, a visa-free travel regime will be introduced for the duration of the World Cup to avoid problems for fans and participants in the important event.  The games will be played in 13 cities:  Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, Moscow, Rostov, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, St Petersburg, Sochi, Saransk and Yaroslavl.  The World Cup will cost Russia $50 billion, of which $3.8 billion will be spent on building new stadiums and repairing old ones.  The government plans to allocate $11 billion for development of the tourism infrastructure, $35 billion on building 7,771 kilometres of motorways and 2,024 kilometres of railways.  New runways will be built at the airports in all the above cities with the exception of Moscow and Sochi.  Building new airport terminals will cost $1.4 billion.

Already it can be said with certainty that Russia will organize the event at a very high level.  "Russia is not even a country, it is a whole continent, one might say, and they have huge plans to expand in football.  And I would say that their presentation was wonderful," said FIFA head Sepp Blatter in early 2010.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who congratulated the FIFA president on the choice in Zurich, discussed two issues.  He said that the event will be organized to the highest possible standards.  And he promised that the stadiums will be completed even before the deadline.  The prime minister also said that the Government was ready to accept all criticism and asked the Russian press to take a close interest in organizational activities.  He noted that everyone in Russia would be happy to create a festive atmosphere during the 2018 World Cup.

The FIFA decision was a nice present for Azerbaijani fans too.  Ordinary Azerbaijanis will not have to go through lengthy procedures at European embassies to get a visa or search for South Africa on the map to go to the World Cup.  Russia is our neighbour, and getting there will be very easy.  That is precisely why already many Azerbaijanis are preparing to spend the summer of 2018 in Russia.

And the 2022 World Cup will be hosted by Qatar, although it was expected that the favourites would be the United States and Japan.  Only the weather can hinder the World Cup in that country.  Summer temperatures can rise above 50 degrees centigrade, which makes the situation difficult for the organizers.  At temperatures like this, it is impossible to walk out onto the street.  Air conditioners can cool the air in offices and at work places only down to 25 degrees.  That is why it is interesting how the weather issue will be addressed.  The Qatari press proposed organising the championship in the winter, in January or February, when the temperature in the country is normal.  Let us also note that Qatar will be the first Muslim country to host the World Cup.  They say that even the ban on alcoholic drinks will be lifted for the duration of the competition.  In the mean time, the next World Cup will take place in four years' time in Brazil.  Not every Azerbaijani fan can go to South America.  But in 8 years, the World Cup will be very close.  So we can start preparing for a trip to Moscow right away...