It's all about control, it always has been. How you consolidate control defines any self-respecting autocrat. For those of you, like me, who need a refresher, an autocracy is a form of government in which one person possesses unlimited power. The good people at Fifa who handed out two World Cup hosting bids last week are less democratic and transparent in their dealings than the selection of Hong Kong's chief executive.
When we take into account the autocratic nature of Fifa president Sepp Blatter and the endless accusations of corruption in his fiefdom, I have to slap myself for being so clueless. How could I not have seen the decision to award Russia the 2018 World Cup and Qatar the 2022 event? I guess I am guilty of sipping the Kool-Aid and believing traditional logic that the two front-runners in the bidding process, England in 2018 and the United States in 2022, would prevail because they apparently had the best and most deserving bids.
It would be business as usual for the World Cup as we watched games in legendary venues like London's Wembley Stadium and Manchester's Old Trafford in 2018 and Cowboy Stadium in Dallas and Soldier Field in Chicago in 2022.
But Fifa has a different version of business as usual and while I find it morally repugnant, at least I am starting to understand it. When the joint Spain-Portugal bid failed to secure the World Cup in 2018, the leader of that group basically told Fifa to go, uhm, you know what to themselves if they couldn't see the benefit of playing in famous football shrines like Nou Camp in Barcelona, the Bernabeu in Madrid and the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon.
But Fifa has no desire to play the World Cup in those stadiums because that is where Barcelona and Real Madrid play. And they obviously have no desire to play at Old Trafford because Manchester United do and they don't care to play in Dallas where the Cowboys play or in Chicago where the Bears play. Those are not primarily World Cup stadiums but every venue built in Russia and Qatar will forever be a World Cup stadium and a lasting legacy to Fifa's quadrennial showpiece.
Well, in the case of Qatar the legacy will last as long as the tournament because all but one of the ridiculously expensive stadiums will be torn down and shipped overseas to needy countries. Custom-made stadiums done to Fifa's exacting and palatial standards, what's not to like here? Remember, in an autocracy it's all about control, baby.