Today FIFA made it's announcements of where the 2022 and 2018 World Cup will be held. America and Australia as you likely know were beat out by Qatar for the 2022 Cup.  Over here there's a ton of really bad press regarding FIFA and Qatar and how this was corrupt and yet another black mark on FIFA's name. Yahoo, ESPN, and a many other sites I visit throughout the day all have opinion pieces on why this was fixed and that the US never had a shot, etc. etc.

My question is, is this just sour-grapes from US soccer fans or is there some degree of truth to it? Is FIFA as bad as they say, and did Qatar in all likelihood just buy the Cup rather than make a legit case why they deserved to host it?

The only thing Qatar has is money.  Australia would have been a great place to have it, we do events well down here.  Easier for Europe for it to be in Qatar though.

I think the 1018 world cup was probably in China.

Qatar basically bribed them. Their pitch was that all the stadiums they built would then be dismantled and shipped overseas to poorer countries and re-erected there.

FIFA is as corrupt as shit though, they screwed over Englands bid because the BBC and a broadsheet newspaper outed their bribe ridden voting process and members to the world, a couple of days before the vote. Suddenly the 12 votes people had promised England dropped to 2 and one of those votes was by englands own Fifa member. We had the best technical bid as we have the Olympics here in 2012 we can just re-use the stadiums and facilities.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/02122010/58/world-cup-humiliation-england-post-mortem-begins.html:

England's bid to stage the World Cup for the first time in more than half a century ended in a humiliating first-round defeat when they collected just two votes from the 22-man FIFA executive committee.


          One of those votes was from their own representative Geoff Thompson meaning England's £15 million, two-year campaign to stage the 2018 tournament, 52 years after they last staged it in 1966, gained just one additional vote.


          That vote was likely to have been cast by declared supporter Junji Ogura of Japan, while other votes promised to England clearly went elsewhere with Russia emerging triumphant.


          Thompson, trying to explain the huge snub, struggled to contain his shock.


          "I cannot believe what has happened, and I am naturally very, very disappointed," he said.


          "The votes that were promised clearly didn't materialise. I never imagined we would go out in the first round."


          David Dein, the bid's international president, who has flown around the world several times seeking support from executive committee members, was equally staggered.


          "I am utterly stunned," he said.


          "I knew we had obstacles to overcome, and it was always going to be a tough task -- we knew that. But we did not expect to lose like this -- never in our wildest dreams.


          "I thought we would go two or three rounds at the very least, but it was not to be. As in football, on the pitch, sometimes the best team does not win.


          "We will have to see what went wrong, but certain elements did not help us."


          The bid was rated as the strongest by FIFA's technical inspection team and also finished ahead of competitors Russia, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium in an independent economic report on projected revenue.


          But those points were ignored by FIFA's top table which means the motherland of the game cannot hope to stage the finals again until 2026 at the earliest.


          The wounds from this setback may just have healed by then.


          After FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced Russia would stage the finals, and the full story of England's defeat began to emerge, there was little doubt about what undermined it.


          An investigation by the Sunday Times that led to two FIFA executive committee members being suspended after allegations they offered to sell their votes for cash was compounded by a BBC documentary which made further allegations of corruption.


          As if those were not big enough obstacles for the bid to overcome, crowd trouble at a League Cup tie in Birmingham on Wednesday night between local rivals Birmingham City and Aston Villa further damaged the bid's credibility.


          David Beckham, who gave a polished performance in England's final bid presentation, looked completely stunned by the result.


          Asked if the corruption allegations had harmed the bid, the former England captain replied: "I don't know, perhaps you should ask the delegates that.


          "The odd member mentioned the allegations, and what had been said, but it had been smoothed out and everything was looking positive."


          The bid endured something of a roller-coaster ride but looked to be gaining in momentum until the Sunday Times published its allegations about corruption within FIFA.


          So despite promising FIFA record profits, and having the stadiums and infrastructure to host a dazzling finals, England's bid was left in tatters.


          The national team have struggled to make an impact on the World Cup since they lifted the trophy on home soil.


          The country's administrators have now suffered a similar unpalatable setback confirming England's place among the also-rans in the game it gave to the world.

Thanks for shedding a little extra light on all of it. I suspected that FIFA was probably not the cleanest organization out there, and I recall a few things about that during the World Cup.  But as I said, the last week or so the bidding for the next cups was getting some fairly strong coverage here and once the announcements were made it was just.... BOOOOOM - nasty blogs and opinion pieces everywhere about FIFA. Thanks for the additional info and perspective guys.

For whatever it's worth I'm a bit sad the Spain/Portugal bid didn't go through as well. A friend of mine has attended all of the Summer Olympics for over 20 years, and to this day he still raves about how good the Barcelona Olympics were.  Sounds like they could have done a fine Cup.... not that I'd watch or anything.