HexagonalBlog

USA outhustled and outmaneuvered by Qatar

There is so much to say and write about the selection for the 2022 World Cup, and a lot of it has been written already at the sites that we all read.  One of the benefits of not being able to give a rapid response is that I can read everyone else's response and formulate (one would hope!) a more detailed statement of my own.  So here it goes.

The World Cup selection was a brutal lesson in power politics in international sport.  The USA bid committee was outhustled and outmaneuvered by a Qatari bid that was a much higher risk to FIFA but hit all of FIFA's erogenous zones, especially those marked "Legacy" and "Historic".  What FIFA demonstrated by this vote was that the technical merits of the presentation mean nothing -- the political maneuvering means everything.  And if that's how the game will be played, the USA will always lose.

The Americans had an excellent bid for the 2022 World Cup, and they emphasized some of the aspects that I felt would give them an advantage -- its already existing stadia, its infrastructure, its cultural and ethnic diversity, its experience with conducting large-scale international sporting events.  Yet they did not as good a job on the "soft" aspects of the World Cup bid -- What would make this World Cup special?  What was "the legacy thing"?  I don't think they had a good answer for either question.  To offer to fund infrastructure for clean water in developing countries is a noble legacy -- one that would have a much more positive legacy for a lot more people than transporting newly-built stadiums in developing countries -- but that's not big enough in FIFA's eyes.  (Even so, would ExCo members from the AFC and CAF be more inclined to vote for the USA?  Doubtful.)  A domestic league?  Well, that was already done in 1994, and if Major League Soccer needs the World Cup to give new life to its league in 2022, then it has even more serious structural problems.  And if the World Cup legacy is going to be a well-run, secure, and profitable tournament with very little public debt added, FIFA definitely does not care about that. 

What FIFA -- and Sepp Blatter especially -- care about is being world-historical.  They want their Nobel Peace Prize.  They want to be able to say that they brought the top international sport competition into all corners of the world, in the process uniting internal divisions within countries and correcting misconceptions of said country from abroad.  Of all the bids on the table, Russia and Qatar gave them a chance to do just that.  Indonesia would have given them a chance as well, but Indonesia didn't have billions of petrodollars behind their bid.  That Russia and Qatar are fairly autocratic states is a plus for FIFA; as long as they have the ear of the leader, they will always have access to the treasury.  Would electorates in Australia, England, and the USA put up with the funding demands by an international sport organization that is unaccountable and composed largely of members that don't like the country anyway?  The question answers itself.

Qatar made the most of the huge sums of money that they committed to the bid.  They established alliances throughout Africa and Asia.  They invited Argentina and Brazil to play a match in Doha.  They put together a package composed of the ultimate set of stretch goals, and they constructed a coherent narrative that invited the members of the Executive Committee to make history.  They outhustled the USA and all of the other bid competitors during the bid process, and for that reason they will host the World Cup in 2022.

I will write one or two more posts about the implications of the bid announcement later.

Yes, I do know what happened

As just about everyone knows, I have a day job.  My employer prohibits me from using my cellphone at work (can't even bring it into the building), so Tweeting is out of the question until I leave for the day.  I am able to read news sites, though, so I was able to find out the results of the World Cup 2022 selection.  And yes, I am just as shocked as you are.  I think most American soccer fans could have understood the selection of Japan, Korea, or even Australia over the USA.  Australia has its own series of challenges, similar to those of the USA in 1994, but they have a track record of well-organized international events.  The selection of Qatar is much more difficult to accept, and will require some explanation, with plenty of speculation mixed in.

I'll write some additional posts later tonight, but I wanted to confirm to my Twitter followers that yes, I do know what happened today.

FIFA's inspectors land State-side

FIFA's World Cup bid inspectors have arrived in the USA to evaluate a sample of the sites that are part of the USSF's bid package for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.  The inspection team is composed of Harold Mayne-Nicholls (Chilean football association president), Danny Jordaan (head of the organizing committee for the 2010 World Cup), and a number of representatives from FIFA's event, marketing, and competition committees.

The delegation will visit sites in the New York metropolitan area, Washington DC, Miami, Dallas, and Houston, and will inspect venues for matches, preliminary and final draw events, fan viewing parties, and an international broadcast center.  I would have thought that there would have been a reception with President Obama, but the AP report doesn't make any mention of it.

UPDATE:  Looks like there will be.

USA the great non-European hope for 2018

With the news that Australia will now focus its efforts on the bid for the 2022 World Cup, the USA is now the only prospective host for the 2018 World Cup this is not from Europe.  Sepp Blatter has gently hinted and nudged at the FIFA Congress by saying that he would like to see the World Cup return to Europe in 2018.  With few exceptions (Mr. Dempsey in 2000), FIFA members do what they're told.  So the hint is there for the USSF to pick up, if they're listening.

Here's is the list of candidates for 2018:

England
Russia
Belgium/Netherlands
Portugal/Spain
USA

And the candidates for 2022:

Australia
Japan
Qatar
South Korea

The candidates for 2018 could be considered for 2022 if Europe doesn't get the bid, which I think is unlikely (Twelve years without a World Cup in Europe is a very long time, 16 years would be unthinkable from the perspective of the Euro TV companies).

Next month is the start of on-site inspections of the bidding countries, so expect a decision on the European candidature soon, perhaps by the end of the World Cup. 

USSF selects its proposal cities

The USSF selected the 18 cities that will be listed in its official proposal to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup finals.  There are a total of 24 stadiums in these 18 cities, from which 12 will be selected if the USA wins one of the two bids.  Here's the list of cities:

Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Dallas (2)
Denver
Houston
Indianapolis
Kansas City (MO)
Los Angeles (2)
Miami
Nashville
New York
Philadelphia
Phoenix
San Diego
Seattle (2)
Tampa
Washington DC

San Francisco and Chicago did not make the final cut.  Stanford Stadium has since been downsized, Candlestick Park is badly outdated, and no new stadium is happening anytime soon in the San Francisco area.  Soldier Field, at 61,500 seats, is too small for a World Cup venue in the USA, which is too bad because it is a great stadium for watching a soccer match.  I am more than a little surprised that Chicago has been left off the list, for some quite obvious reasons. 

By the way, all of the proposed stadiums on the list have capacities of 65,000 or larger.

I need to prepare a post that summarizes the other competing bids and how they are situated at this point.  And it would be a good time to take a detailed look at the list of stadiums in the 18 cities, with some help from the readers.  I've already taken a VIP tour of the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale; perhaps my readers have taken tours of the other stadiums on the USSF's bid list.

USA and World Cup 2018 - Why not?

Now that I've discussed some of the reasons the USA might host the World Cup finals, it's time to give some reasons why they might not get a bid. 

One significant reason is the sheer logistical nightmare of scheduling matches in order to satisfy the demands of the European audiences.  I felt the 1994 World Cup could have been one of the best tournaments ever if a majority of the matches had been played at night.  The heat and humidity at many of the matches, some of which were played at 12 noon, had a debilitating effect on the play.  (I had the misfortune a couple of years ago of attending an outdoor wedding in Orlando at high noon in mid-June.  I can only imagine how football players could run at normal speed in that environment for 90 minutes.)  Now, when the European audience is the largest and wealthiest soccer audience in the world, one has to dance to their tune, so to speak.  If rescheduling the matches to a nighttime kickoff is a non-starter, then FIFA may insist on the matches taking place in stadiums with an overhead roof.  However, a minority of stadiums in the USA have overhead roofs, so if FIFA sticks to that point it could negate an advantage of the American bid -- the abundance of stadiums that seat 60,000 or more. 

The other factor that works against an American bid is the sporting culture of the USA.  In my opinion, this factor could be significant enough to not give the USA a bid.  The argument goes roughly like this: an American World Cup final tournament would be hugely profitable at the gate and the merchandising booth, but no one really cares about "soccer" in the USA -- the country is so darned big that the finals won't be noticed in most of the country, and the passion that you see for the game in other parts of the world is nonexistent in the USA, in short, the tournament would be missing its je ne sais quoi that one could find anywhere else.  I can recall two statements that illustrate that point.  The first was a video interview that Argentina's La Nación conducted in 2002 with Víctor Hugo Morales, who is perhaps the most famous radio football commentator in Argentina over the past quarter-century.  He was giving his opinion of the various World Cups he had witnessed, and he felt that USA '94 were the worst he had ever seen.  Not really for the quality of play, but more because the atmospherics were too sterile to be a true World Cup. Another comment that I remember after the World Cup came from Michel Platini, who said that he wanted France '98 to be a cultural event -- something he felt was lacking in USA '94.

"It was only a World Cup in the stadiums."

I think that statement goes to the heart of American sporting culture.  The foreign media got a lot of enjoyment from the factoid that only 30% of the US public knew that the World Cup finals were going on in their country.  The man-on-the-street interviews that probed knowledge on the game or the major stars were painful to watch. (My personal favorite was the woman who, when asked if she had heard of Diego Maradona, replied, "I don't let my kids listen to that kind of music.")  While all of these anecdotes are amusing, frustrating, or infuriating (depending on your point of view), the fact is that it is very difficult for any sporting event -- outside of the Super Bowl and a US-hosted Summer Olympics -- to achieve complete penetration in the sporting public.   It is very easy to attend a major sporting event, walk up to 10 blocks from the sporting arena, and have no idea that said event is going on. 

I don't think it is good enough, to foreign eyes, to have the World Cup be felt in the stadiums and the immediate surrounding area. Rather, it must be felt to envelop the entire country, to dominate the national landscape and culture for 30-odd days.  If anything, American culture is large enough and complex enough to envelop any event, even something as big as the soccer World Cup.  It is impossible for any event to achieve 100% awareness, attention, or involvement from the American public.  But it's possible to attract a sizable percentage of the population and still be wildly successful, even if one never reaches 100%.  Forty percent of 300 million people is still a very large number, bigger than any European or South American country except Russia and Brazil.  Perhaps the best way to involve as much of the population as possible is to borrow the idea of the "Fan Mile" that worked so well in Germany 2006, and replicate them across the country.  It would also be good to involve MLS and host viewing parties in their stadiums before a league match -- since they probably won't suspend the league during the World Cup, even though they should.

The USSF is going to start the process of putting together a bid for the 2018 World Cup this year.  They have enough resources and experience to put together a very strong bid, such as the abundance of large stadiums, an excellent transportation and hotel infrastructure, a large audience of soccer supporters and observers, and the expertise of putting on big events.  However, they have to be aware of the potential pitfalls, such as the scheduling logistics that might force redevelopment of the stadiums, and the sheer size and complexity of the country that can swallow up any international event.  If the Federation put together a package that plays to their strengths yet recognizes their weaknesses and presents ideas to mitigate them, they will have a strong bid indeed.  Given the competition that they will face for WC 2018, they'll have a challenging task ahead.

USA and World Cup 2018 - Why?

This post is a long time coming, but has fortunately not been outdated by events.  As a matter of fact, FIFA's decision to open the bidding for the 2018 World Cup beyond CONCACAF, the resulting increased competition from European and Asian countries, and the recent and ongoing  controversies involving Jack Warner and the British federations might serve to bolster some of the arguments that I want to make.  IMO, another World Cup final in the USA would be fantastic, and it would be even more of a financial success than 1994.  However I think it would be very difficult for the USA to be selected for the 2018 finals, for reasons that seem to have nothing to do with football but in a way have everything to do with football.

This post is extremely long (even for me!), so I decided to split it into two parts.  The first part will give, in my opinion, the factors that are in the USA's favor as it prepares a bid for WC 2018.  In general  the climate for soccer in the United States is very different, and in many ways more hospitable, today than it was in 1994.  One example is the number of stadiums, in various parts of the country, that could accommodate such an event.  Last year I gave my list of stadiums that I thought might be suitable for a World Cup in the United States.  Almost all of them are NFL stadiums that have been built or redeveloped since 1994, and all of them were constructed to accommodate soccer pitches.   The only two stadiums on that list that haven't been renovated are Dolphin Stadium, which was built with soccer in mind, and the Rose Bowl, which is the only stadium of suitable size/location in the Los Angeles area.  I don't know how many stadiums from that proposed list would meet the UEFA 5-star criteria, but I would have to believe that it would be a higher percentage than the 1994 stadiums.  A World Cup match indoors is no longer as novel a concept as it was in 1994, which is the only way one could ever host a summer match in places like Phoenix and Houston.  The redevelopment wave of NFL stadiums brings into the picture cities that would make fantastic World Cup venues, such as Seattle and Philadelphia. 

Another set of stadiums that should not be neglected is the collection of soccer-specific arenas in the various MLS cities.  Even though these stadiums are too small to host a World Cup match, they could serve as training sites for the finalists and venues for warm-up matches.   There are also some smaller facilities in the lower divisions that could host some finalists, such as Atlanta, Charleston, and Rochester, but those cities (with the obvious exception of Atlanta) would pose some challenges for travel to the World Cup venues.

In addition to stadiums, the soccer audience in the United States is larger and much more sophisticated than it was in 1994.  Back then it was difficult to get matches on a regular basis from the European leagues, unless one bought pay-per-view packages or owned a satellite dish (not the miniature ones, a really big satellite dish).   Now, as Oliver Tse illustrated in his note on Soccer America, the American sporting public has access to a wider array of international matches than could have been imagined 14 years ago.  Moreover, the US national team has gone through three  World Cup qualifying cycles, and those matches receive enough attention that the general public is more  aware of the road that has to be traveled to make it to the World Cup finals.  What these changes mean is that a future World Cup in the USA would happen in a country where a sizable portion of the public is aware of the major players and the national teams that they represent.  (We can debate 'sizable' - is it 10%, 20%, or something else?)  Whether the Stateside broadcasters will recognize this sophistication and deliver an improved product to their viewers remains to be seen. 

Perhaps the most significant factor in favor of a bid is the Americans' experience in organizing and  attending major domestic and international events in their country.  People have said that the American public will come out for the big events like no one else in the world -- from active supporters and followers of the sport, to casual observers, to those who might not know anything about the sport yet attend out of curiosity and the desire to be part of a big event.  There is a significant track record and knowledge base in this country that has been attained from organizing major events (such as the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the major college championships in football/basketball), and that experience can be applied to ticketing, advertising, and volunteering.  The World Cup is a different event because of the national scope, so the challenge will be to run the local venues well while minimizing the isolation between geographic sites (easier said than done).  There has been some lessons learned on that count as well, thanks to hosting not just World Cup 1994, but also the 1999 and 2003 Women's World Cups.   Security will be a big concern, but for different reasons in a post-9/11 world.  I would like to think that in the last 14 years, we have a more sophisticated view of who soccer fans really are and what the level of precaution should be.  (The irresponsible US media caricatures of soccer fans seriously misallocated resources that might have been better applied elsewhere.)  Lastly, the ethnic diversity of the country will bring out the expatriates who will come to the stadiums to support their native national team. 

So I've discussed some of the reasons why the USA would be a good host for World Cup 2018.  In the next post I'll discuss some of the reasons why they may not receive that bid.