I'm sorry, I have to break my promise. You see last year I wasted copious amounts of time counting down to the point in which I could buy tickets to the World Cup in South Africa. On the day of sales opening up for the third round I gleefully spent time checking boxes of three matches I planned on seeing (including the now famous "GOAL GOAL USA!!!" match versus Algeria) After figuring out how far it was from match site to match site, a problem arose to me, South Africa is pretty far from California. How would I get there? Well air travel of course! So I quickly started searching for flights from San Francisco to any location in South Africa. Shocked and gutted, the prices were outrageous! And this was 8 months before the start. Quickly my dream of going to a World Cup was up in flames. I never did make it to South Africa, and I have still never been to a World Cup match. That fateful day changed me, and I quickly made a promise to my fellow co-hosts of the MAD Soccer Show as well as my family, girlfriend and anyone else that would listen. My promise was this, that I would never in my life miss another opportunity to go to a World Cup, starting with Brazil 2014. I would plan ahead, I would save, I would beg, borrow, and steal to get there. There was no stopping me now. And then yesterday a great hope appeared in the distance, the idea that I could get to a World Cup match by driving 5 hours south. I would have a place to stay, It would be easy as can be. The United States was bidding for the World Cup in 2022. I was hopeful, I was ready, my soccer enthusiasm that wasn't at current level in 1994 was aligning with the perfect timing of another World Cup in the United States. But then a small Middle Eastern country, no bigger then the state of Conneticut, came from nowhere with copious amounts of oil money, no stadiums to speak of, and fancy drawings of gorgeous air conditioned, open air stadiums. FIFA jumped at the chance to host a World Cup in the Middle East, and my dream was dead, there would be no World Cup in the USA in 2022, and after my anger subsided over this lost opportunity to celebrate with the World in my country I realized that I would have to break my promise.

I will go to Brazil in 2014, but probably won't go to Russia in 2018, and I will not go to Qatar in 2022, I will not, ever, set foot in the country of Qatar for the World Cup. I'm sorry ESPN but I will not even turn on the TV to watch a single match that you broadcast from the country. I will find streams online for every match so that I can support my Yanks (and my now second favorite team in 2022 Israel). While I am angry about the decision to not give the bid to the United States, this article is not about the failure of the USA to secure the bid, or how FIFA's Executive Committee managed to turn away from the World Cup location that would have broken records again for attendance and profit. I would have gladly turned up on the shores of South Korea, Japan, and especially Australia with my USA jersey on and a flag over my shoulder. I would have loved to go to England, Spain/Portugal, or Netherlands/Belgium in 2018. But alas I am unable to do any of those things because instead I will be at home rooting on the Red, White, and Blue through a probably shitty feed on my tiny MacBook screen. And I will happily do it because the way in which the United States, and even more so England and Australia were treated by FIFA is downright sickening to me.

The United States, England, and Australia all already hade the stadia necessary to host a World Cup. They have the transportation networks, the hotels, the training facilities and infrastructure to support an event the size of the World Cup. Qatar and Russia have none of these. Currently Doha International Airport is barely able to handle the amount of people that would show up for the month of the World Cup in an entire year. Russia is even larger then the United States (one of FIFA's detractions on the USA was it's size). Russia and Qatar have a combined three necessary stadiums of the twenty four that will be needed between the two events. Not that it will shock me if they can easily build them, seeing as both Russia and Qatar have a glorious amount of money from Oil Billionaires waiting to be put to use.

(Side note, Russia recently stopped the export of grain due to fears of starvation during the winter. Are they planning on having their people eat the concrete stadiums they are building afterwards?)

While Russia has it's problems, it is Qatar that is the most shocking to everyone who doesn't know the way FIFA's bread is buttered. The average temperature in Qatar during the months of June & July is just slightly less then that of the Sun. And while I have no doubt that they will be able to air condition the stadiums to a reasonable, tolerable level, what happens afterwards? People will file directly back to their hotel rooms because they won't be able to handle the extreme heat. Remember the scenes of people dancing and enjoying the celebration of sport and life in South Africa? Say goodbye, because people will be indoors all day long in 2022. That's probably the way our hosts will like it though, that way they won't have any public displays of affection or drinking in public (both of which are outlawed in by Qatari law). Oh and hopefully they won't have to see any of their women guests out and about since they are pretty much looked down on in every single area of the country. Heaven forbid a woman gets caught drinking, because it has already stated she will be persecuted to the full extent of Qatari law (the finality of that statement frightens me). Back to a previous point about the Israeli national team being my second team: this is because Qatar does not recognize the state of Israel and consistently discriminates against Jews. This is to say nothing of gays or to mention the human slave trafficking that exists under the noses of Qatari rulers.

All of these seem to make for a perfect World Cup don't they? It would be a shock to get the bid given to a country whose population is only slightly more then half of the entire amount of people that made it into games at South Africa 2010. I can't wait to see stadiums with a potential attendance of 45,000 being built in towns of 4,500 people. Luckily for everyone though, Qatar has money, and if there is one thing that FIFA knows and loves, it's money.

The bidding process held in Zurich over the past week is a complete sham. It's a disgrace to the beautiful game and all of sports that I'm sick. I knew from previous stories (many put out by the British) that FIFA was corrupt. I knew of the potential to have corrupt rampant in the bidding process. I was steeled for such events, however I'm still appalled by the nature of the outcome. In case you haven't seen yet, England was able to secure two votes in the first round of the exhaustive ballot, being eliminated. Although considered to be one of the three favorites they were only able to garner the vote of their own Geoff Thompson, and one other FIFA member. Who could that be, we all wondered, considering two different members, from Japan and Cameroon came out stating they had voted for England. Oops. Sadly the same issues would arise for 2022, Australia, long considered to be punching the same weight class as the USA and Qatar managed to secure one measly vote, and again three members of FIFA came out and said they had voted for the Socceroos to win. Oops x2. I guess the Executive Committee didn't know that the actual numbers would be released to the public.

It's pretty terrible that England and Australia were treated this way, but after that there was still a chance for the USA! (Although we had only gotten three votes 'probably the three CONCACAF members' in the first round) It was odd to see then when Qatar was pulled out of the envelope to see the members of the Qatari bid team celebrating. Remember finding a present before Christmas and having to act like you were surprised opening it on Christmas day? It was exactly the same thing, and let me tell you, Qatar will not be winning any awards for acting. It shouldn't really be shocking to them that they won, since Qatar owned news company Al Jazeera had already reported that the 2022 World Cup would be coming to the Middle East for the first time.

At this point I would like to place a quote from twitter I saw on Thursday (sorry I can't remember from who) "If you paid a grocer for a loaf of bread, would you be surprised when he handed it to you?"

Qatar didn't need to be surprised (nor did Russia) because they had already lined the pockets of FIFA's members with enough money to secure them the votes necessary. On the final night before voting, you could see Bill Clinton, Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Prince William and Elle McPherson all shaking hands and talking to FIFA members. Shockingly the members from Russia and Qatar weren't in attendance. Maybe this is because they already knew they had won the votes, but I like to think it's because they were upstairs placing suitcases full of money into hotel rooms (probably slapping hands with each other on the way). This whole process was a ridiculous affair and hopefully has enlightened the world to the corruption of FIFA as an organization.

Now for my first declaration to the world: Boycott. Although FIFA has already made enough money by having it passed to them in manila envelopes, hopefully a genuine boycott of going to the World Cup in 2018/2022 can take steam and find the same following that protests for the 2008 Olympics in China did.

My second declaration: To the American, English, and Australian federations, do not bid for 2026, or 2030, or 2034. Never bid for a World Cup again until the countries with the best bids win. Let FIFA take their greasy palms and hold them out to the corrupt countries of the world. Stand back, cross your arms and say no more. The way that you were treated for trying to run a legitimate and genuine campaign to bring the World Cup to your countries didn't work against the low level crime that countries and FIFA sunk to. Never fall into that group. Send your teams, do well, and play for the love of the game, but do not fall into the trappings of FIFA and their money grubbing schemes. Thank you for trying your best and I appreciate the time and effort you put into your bid books and presentations, I appreciate the fact that you had to talk and deal with those assholes in FIFA for months to try and win a bid.

As a final note, I don't see a solution to the issues of FIFA, "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and FIFA is the only power in the world of soccer. So from me and from the MAD Soccer Show: "Good on you United States, England and Australia, thank you for running your bids with integrity and respect to the game. Fuck You Qatar, Fuck You Russia, Fuck You Sepp Blatter, Fuck You Executive Committee, and FUCK YOU VERY MUCH FIFA, I'm out!"

Until next time, to quote Kanye West "Middle Finger in the air, if you don't really care. It's like that sometimes, I mean ridiculous, It's like that sometimes, this shit's ridiculous"