After a gap of two years, I have returned to my world of blogging...
I am suffering a serious case of "footballitis" after a gap of four years. It has been a long journey, Sepp Blatter was removed, we have a new FIFA President in the form of Gianni Infantino who has been trying to restore the trust back in FIFA as a competent organisation. There has been a lot of debate about how the hosts of the 2018 World Cup (Russia) and 2022 (Qatar) secured their bids and their human rights record, democracy in their nations. England at one point were preparing to host the 2018 World Cup as there was speculation Russia could be removed. This year's World Cup is going to be one with the most ethical/moral questions - how do we reconcile the fact that there will be a tournament in a country where the President has engaged in nefarious activities at home and around the world (assassinating political appointments, lack of internal democracy, lack of human rights) ?
Despite all that has been going on in the last few years with FIFA, in my opinion Gianni Infantino has brought a breath of fresh air in regards to FIFA Administration (although in the early days, suggestions were made that because Infantino is from Switzerland that Blatter was the 'power behind the throne', however he has come into his own and been doing well). For World Cup fans, I was tracking the progress for the 2026 bids and am happy to announce here that the joint United States-Mexico-Canada bid has been successful (see Mr Trump, you can actually work together with your neighbouring allies rather than writing angry tweets!). USA-Can-Mex was competing with a bid from Morrocco. I am also quite excited with the decision of FIFA to expand the number of participating nations from the current 32 nations to 48 nations! Football is expanding while cricket seems to be contracting - it is truly "joga bonito" (the beautiful game).
Anyone keen to read more about this week's announcement:
1) https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2017/m=1/news=fifa-council-unanimously-decides-on-expansion-of-the-fifa-world-cuptm--2863100.html
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup
3) https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44464913
4) https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44388118 (interesting graphics produced by BBC Sport)
5) https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/voting-results-for-the-2026-fifa-world-cup.pdf?cloudid=vpnl19m2xr8zk50mnor3 (document with voting results for each FIFA member nation)
6) https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/associations/index.html (for those interested to know, here is the latest world rankings)
I am suffering a serious case of "footballitis" after a gap of four years. It has been a long journey, Sepp Blatter was removed, we have a new FIFA President in the form of Gianni Infantino who has been trying to restore the trust back in FIFA as a competent organisation. There has been a lot of debate about how the hosts of the 2018 World Cup (Russia) and 2022 (Qatar) secured their bids and their human rights record, democracy in their nations. England at one point were preparing to host the 2018 World Cup as there was speculation Russia could be removed. This year's World Cup is going to be one with the most ethical/moral questions - how do we reconcile the fact that there will be a tournament in a country where the President has engaged in nefarious activities at home and around the world (assassinating political appointments, lack of internal democracy, lack of human rights) ?
Despite all that has been going on in the last few years with FIFA, in my opinion Gianni Infantino has brought a breath of fresh air in regards to FIFA Administration (although in the early days, suggestions were made that because Infantino is from Switzerland that Blatter was the 'power behind the throne', however he has come into his own and been doing well). For World Cup fans, I was tracking the progress for the 2026 bids and am happy to announce here that the joint United States-Mexico-Canada bid has been successful (see Mr Trump, you can actually work together with your neighbouring allies rather than writing angry tweets!). USA-Can-Mex was competing with a bid from Morrocco. I am also quite excited with the decision of FIFA to expand the number of participating nations from the current 32 nations to 48 nations! Football is expanding while cricket seems to be contracting - it is truly "joga bonito" (the beautiful game).
Anyone keen to read more about this week's announcement:
1) https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2017/m=1/news=fifa-council-unanimously-decides-on-expansion-of-the-fifa-world-cuptm--2863100.html
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup
3) https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44464913
4) https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44388118 (interesting graphics produced by BBC Sport)
5) https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/voting-results-for-the-2026-fifa-world-cup.pdf?cloudid=vpnl19m2xr8zk50mnor3 (document with voting results for each FIFA member nation)
6) https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/associations/index.html (for those interested to know, here is the latest world rankings)
