I was always a lover of the World Cup, but as football has become a globalised business and even once obscure African and South American players became highly paid stars in European leagues, the glamour and excitement of it began to wear thin. Even the style of play has become homogenised. Watch Cameroon for a free-flowing attacking style and you get to watch a well-drilled and parsimonious European defence. The Brazilians still retain a race memory of their rhythm, but dress the teams in different strips and drown out the commentary, and how long would it take you to identify which teams were involved?
Now any sport's World Cup simply has to be held in a country with plenty of available money. When it wasn't, as in South Africa's case, the Chinese had to intervene and build everything. Ideally the host has to have a strong supporter base and its own established professional league system, but money was the only consideration in the case of Qatar.
Where would I like to see a World Cup held Mr Blatter? I'd like to see a joint bid from Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland. There are big clubs in the North East of England, Glasgow has two already, Aberdeen could be made into one, a huge new stadium would do Belfast no harm and hey perhaps a spiffy new Stadium built without cheap, exploited labour in Edinburgh would show off a beautiful city when hosting the final, AND REGENERATE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL TOO. How much more exciting would that be than Wembley and tired, bulging old London? Maybe Scandinavia could come together and follow on in Europe and how about the former tiger economies of South East Asia coming together to share their expertise and organisational skills. I'm too old to see it, but we can't just follow the oil money can we - see how it has drained the magic into a slurry of human misery.
The game will only remain beautiful if we treat it with care. If you take it to somewhere that doesn't care, that hardly plays, and doesn't love it what do you expect to happen?
Now any sport's World Cup simply has to be held in a country with plenty of available money. When it wasn't, as in South Africa's case, the Chinese had to intervene and build everything. Ideally the host has to have a strong supporter base and its own established professional league system, but money was the only consideration in the case of Qatar.
Where would I like to see a World Cup held Mr Blatter? I'd like to see a joint bid from Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland. There are big clubs in the North East of England, Glasgow has two already, Aberdeen could be made into one, a huge new stadium would do Belfast no harm and hey perhaps a spiffy new Stadium built without cheap, exploited labour in Edinburgh would show off a beautiful city when hosting the final, AND REGENERATE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL TOO. How much more exciting would that be than Wembley and tired, bulging old London? Maybe Scandinavia could come together and follow on in Europe and how about the former tiger economies of South East Asia coming together to share their expertise and organisational skills. I'm too old to see it, but we can't just follow the oil money can we - see how it has drained the magic into a slurry of human misery.
The game will only remain beautiful if we treat it with care. If you take it to somewhere that doesn't care, that hardly plays, and doesn't love it what do you expect to happen?