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USA/Canada/Mexico win FIFA World Cup 2026 bid

Discussion in 'Other Sports' started by Raz, Jun 13, 2018.

  1. Raz

    Raz Member

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    The 'United' application won over Morocco. Makes sense in terms of infrastructure and security. Not so sure about political explosiveness though.

    Anyway, since there's a good chance that matches will be played in Houston - congratulations to you guys. Hope this will boost the fine sport of football in your country.
     
  2. Kam

    Kam Contributing Member

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    Not feeling the 48 team field though.
     
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  3. leroy

    leroy Contributing Member

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    Glad and a little surprised we got it. I was expecting some retribution for our current administration. Aside from sticking his nose in FIFA with the comments he made about the process a while back, I wouldn't have been surprised if some associations voted for Morocco out of spite. I guessed they realized he'll be out of office one way or another long before then.

    Obviously, from a business perspective, this makes sense. If something happened today in Russia, you could move all 32 teams here immediately and play the tournament without much delay.
     
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  4. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    Man, you'd be surprised at the African nations that DIDN'T vote for Morocco out of spite. There was just too much of a divide and some bitterness still being held by several African nations at football and political things that Morocco did over the past decade. Unfortunate.

    Also, Russia switching their vote to the USA (After initially being on board with Morocco....I wonder why they switched hmmm).

    England decided to go with the USA bid ...and it seems are planning for a 2030 bid and think they'll have USA/Concacaf support. (England do deserve a WC by now). Only problem for England is that the USA curried favor with Conmebol and Argentina-Uruguay are planning a bid for 2030 as well. Gonna interesting to see which bid the USA and Concacaf support when it's time for that vote.

    Usual backroom machinations, political calls and favors being made as well....but USA fans who are happy with this win need to give Carlos Cordeiro a ton of credit. I heard Brian Strauss at SI talk about how since he's been elected, Cordeiro has barely been in the country. He and the FA prezzies of Cananda and Mexico have been traveling constantly to other nations in South America, Asia and Europe and meeting with their FA presidents and talking to them constantly. I'm going to say I doubt that the Moroccan FA president was as active as Cordeiro.

    Credit to Cordeiro, he made winning the WC bid his first focus and he achieved that.[/QUOTE]
     
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  5. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    To be fair to Morocco, security hasn't and most likely wouldn't be any more of a problem than it is and will be in the U.S.
    The profit for FIFA was going to be about 3 or 4 billion more than they'd make from a Morocco WC.

    I'd have preferred to go watch the WC in Morocco....but that's me lol. I'm sure others are happy it will be in their backyard.
     
  6. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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  7. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    8 years is a long way away, but I'm happy that the united bid won. Awarding this expanded tournament to Morocco would've been insult to the injury that was 2022 in Qatar. The US, Mexico and Canada have the facilities and infrastructure to move fans around; forcing Morocco to commit so much money to something so fleeting would've been irresponsible.

    I hope I'm able to attend a game or two.
     
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  8. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    I'm not sure how or why it would have been an insult to injury. Morocco and Qatar aren't even on the same level in anything regarding football or hosting sporting events.
    Morocco had put in bids for four prior World Cups and some might say deserved to win finally. Qatar had done nothing of the sort and didn't even deserve a WC out of pity. Morocco has some facilities compared to Qatar. Weather wouldn't have been an issue compared to Qatar. It also wouldn't have forced Morocco to commit money as opposed to Morocco agreeing and wanting to do so(the irresponsibility of it compared to what its citizens might want and need is a different issue). It wouldn't be the first World Cup in the 2000s or even in the 90s or 80s that the host country had to build new stadiums for. Morocco building new stadiums wouldn't be that much different from certain South American or European nations that had to build some new stadia for their world cup hosting duties.

    It was a good victory for the US after the effort put in to win the bid but Morocco was a worthy competitor and would have been a worthy and great host as well imo.
     
  9. ryan_98

    ryan_98 Contributing Member
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    the final will be played in NY, LA, or... dallas :eek:
     
  10. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    The injury I'm referring to is the US losing the 2022 bid to Qatar in what we all know was a corrupt vote. As a biased American fan, I think It would've been an insult to that injury to lose to Morocco after the 2022 farce. I don't see the benefit in awarding events like the World Cup and the Olympics to countries like Morocco considering the current economic realities of hosting. After the economic fallout we saw in Brazil, I think it's irresponsible to argue that countries who struggle to provide for their citizens should be forced to build state-of-the-art stadiums that will start decaying the moment the tournament ends. Brazil couldn't even prevent the Maracanã from falling into disrepair less than three years after the final (and one year after the Olympics).

    I realize we probably disagree on this and I don't doubt that Morocco would be a fine host for the tournament if FIFA's demands weren't so stringent. However, the strength of the united bid was that the US, Mexico and Canada already have World Cup-ready facilities and infrastructure to accommodate a field of 48. The broadcasting rights will be huge for FIFA. If you want to talk confederations, CONCACAF hasn't hosted since 1994 whereas CAF hosted in 2010. The market for soccer, especially in the United States, will have changed dramatically in the intervening 32 years.
     
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  11. Raz

    Raz Member

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    The independent commission that checked both applications gave Morocco specifically bad grades in infrastructure and security. I'm with dumbartonbass here. It's the first 48 nations tournament, so you don't take any risks.
     
  12. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    You probably aren't aware that Morocco previously lost out on a World Cup bid that some might consider corrupt. It's not just the USA that gets to claim a loss due to a corrupt vote.

    Brazil isn't Morocco.

    What do you think will happen to a number of the stadia in Russia or Qatar? That's not FIFA's problem if the country and their FA are fine with building new stadia which might decay from non-use or inattentiveness after the tournament. Brazil being unable to prevent the Maracana from falling into disrepair has zero to do with Morocco or any other nation. Some nations are like Brazil in which corruption and apathy let stadiums and other important buildings fall into disrepair while others pay more attention to such things.

    I mean... if you want to talk confederations then I'll bring up the fact that CONCACAF has hosted three world cups and CAF has hosted only one.
     
  13. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    Morocco wasn't given a bad grade but considered high risk for infrastructure. The USA just received better grades(less high risk scores). Grades-Risk. Not sure where you saw anything regarding security but I believe the main concern was high risk scores regarding infrastructure. Security was fine.
     
  14. Raz

    Raz Member

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    The North-American bid was significantly better in stadiums, hotel and transport. Found nothing about security in terms on fan safety, so I guess the points I had in the back of my mind in this regard covered human rights and labour standards.
     
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  15. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    I am aware of Morocco's previous bids actually! They've bid for most of the recent tournaments and got royally screwed out of the 2010 cup. Corruption is endemic to FIFA and I don't pretend that the US losing the 2022 bid is somehow "special" compared to other shady FIFA bids. But, again, I'm biased and happy that the majority of matches will be in my home country.

    I know Brazil isn't Morocco; the former has an economy that is more than 10x larger than the latter and they still struggled to host the World Cup and Olympics. Furthermore, I don't care what happens to stadiums in Russia and Qatar. Those two countries bought their bids and autocraticies don't care if the people disagree with how the government spends its money. Especially in the case of Qatar, hosting the World Cup is another vanity project as their emirs seek to buy their global prestige.

    Again, I am sure that Morocco would've hosted a fine World Cup. It's a lovely place full of passion for the sport. But should another CAF country, where the government spends money on vanity at the expense of its people, host the tournament considering FIFA's demands? Should fans simply throw up their hands and say "It sucks that limited public funds are being used in this developing country to build stadiums and hotels, but hey we get an entertaining month!"? I'm not so sure that's the responsible thing to do. It's the crux of the issue: FIFA knows they have an inelastic, popular product and we all know we won't stop watching. I believe it will take countries like Morocco, that don't have a bounty of new stadiums, ceasing to bid on future tournaments for FIFA to become a little less corrupt.

    I'm not blaming the CAF and African countries here, either; I think organizations like FIFA and the IOC are leeches who bounce from country to country sucking as much as they can from local governments. Luckily the world is catching up to the scam and almost nobody bid on the 2022 Winter Olympics. If FIFA had stipulated that the US, Mexico and Canada had to build brand new facilities for 2026, I would've been opposed to the idea. But, as it stands, I won't apologize for being happy that the united bid won and doesn't have to spend a lot of money to host a month-long tournament.
     
    #15 mtbrays, Jun 13, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2018
  16. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    Yeah definitely better in terms of stadiums and hotels.
    In terms of transport, I'm not too sure the North American bid was better. Traveling between those 3 countries- visa applications, US Visa policies, crisscrossing the 3 countries by air (cos we know the rail infrastructure isn't great).
    Whereas Morocco would be easier in terms of transport and the rail service is actually good.
    But they definitely were not up to par in terms of human rights and labour standards and after Qatar, I'm not sure that would be palatable.
     
  17. ferrari77

    ferrari77 Contributing Member

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    That's fair. There's zero issue with you being biased.

    The size of their economy has an effect but there are other factors even more significant than economic size that have a bearing on the ability to host a WC or Olympics. Brazil's struggles in hosting the WC and maintaining their stadiums post WC doesn't necessarily mean Morocco would have similar issues. If we were talking about another African country such as Nigeria or Cameroon then I might agree on the relationship.

    If the majority of fans in such countries are fine with it then who am I or you to complain about it? Again, if we were talking about another African country such as Nigeria, Algeria, Guinea, DRC, etc then I'd see more reason to complain.

    For sure you're absolutely right that it will take certain countries to stop bidding in order for FIFA to get right but that's not happening anytime soon. Cities bidding for Olympics have gotten smarter about this but I doubt it will happen for the WC anytime soon.

    And of course there is nothing to apologize for in terms of being happy the USA bid won. Be happy about it. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or apologize for that. Absolutely not. I'm fine with it, I just would've preferred it be Morocco but oh well.

    Regardless, bring on 2030. Hopefully that Houston- Dallas rail line will be up and running by then.
     
  18. Icehouse

    Icehouse Contributing Member

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    Will Houston make the final 10 US cities?
     
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  19. Torn n Frayed

    Torn n Frayed Member

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    Of course.
     
  20. Buck Turgidson

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    This is going to be really fun.
     

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