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Showing posts with the label Fifa World Cup

Russia, Qatar get World Cups in 2018 and 2022

(Update 03 Dec 2010 00:02:29 GMT) ZURICH — Picture football fans partying where tanks and missiles paraded on Red Square in the Cold War's darkest days. Imagine high-tech air-conditioned stadiums chilled so players and spectators don't keel over in the sweltering desert heat of the Middle East. For all the allegations of corruption and rigged voting that have been leveled lately against FIFA, the much-maligned governing body of football certainly has a taste for adventure. In taking the World Cup to the uncharted lands of Russia in 2018 and tiny but oil-wealthy Qatar in 2022, FIFA — like the International Olympic Committee — is leading the charge for the argument that sports can reshape history and influence the destinies and the way people and nations are seen by the rest of the world. FIFA could have played it safe by going to the sport's motherland of England or to the ready-built stadiums of the United States. Both promised minimal worry and lots of cash. But the desire