Qatar - A costly mistake

The decision to award the World Cup to Qatar could end up being a very costly one indeed for both FIFA, its President Sepp Blatter and Qatar itself.

- Qatar won the bid to stage a summer World Cup. Australia, the United States, South Korea and Japan, the other countries who bid for 2022 could all sue FIFA to recoup the cost of their bids if the tournament is moved. Had they known the tournament dates could have been moved they might have done things differently, or not bid at all.

- If the World Cup is staged at any time outside June and July then European leagues could sue FIfA because of the impact this would have on sponsorship and TV deals (i.e it would reduce the value of those deals for the 2021/22 season).

- A winter World Cup would clash with other big sporting events (notably the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics). So reducing the value of World Cup sponsorship and TV deals.

- Sponsors are considering withdrawing their support of FIFA because of its perceived lack of integrity and transparency, particularly over the Qatari imbroglio.

- If Qatar lose the World Cup (there is a precedent for this, Colombia lost the 1986 tournament four years beforehand) they will have spent all that money and exploited all those South Asian workers for nothing.

- I will be boycotting the Qatari World Cup because of their terrible attitude to human rights and because of the secretive (and possibly corrupt) way in which the bidding process was conducted. I urge other football fans to do the same. FIFA, Sepp Blatter and the Qataris think they can get away with their outrageous actions, I think they are wrong.