Between England getting the boot in the first round and a glorified oil field/high end shopping complex getting the nod, I'm starting to think England and the US should basically host competeing tournaments and see what happens. You know... a free market for world football tournaments.

England destroyed it's chances with the football riots yesterday. Lol. Australia should have got it over qatar

England, you get the olympic game and you wanted the world cup as well! Haha!

Hey now, Brazil & Germany both got to host the two back to back (1972-74 & 2014-16). If France, Germany, Italy & Brazil get to hosta second Cup, I'm all for England getting a second go around.

Also, add Mexico to that list. That was a different situation, but not by much.

Russia has the 2014 Olympics.

Nah, England doesn't deserve it. They are violent thugs

soo uh... why cant qatar have a world cup? to my knowledge theyve never had one before; that right there gives them priority in my mind

If FIFA wanted to dispel the stink of corruption that surrounds their leadership, I'm not sure that today's decision helps. What is the point of the technical reports into each of the bids if the voting places the countries almost in reverse order of technical merit?

There is no 2014 olympics

@Thucy... Qatar is too small, too hot and has no history of sporting success beyond paying East Africans to run around a track wearing their vest. If never hosting a cup is your primary criteria, you should back Australia, which has a much better pedigree for hosting international sporting events and a better soccer culture (Time zones are crap for the global TV market... but that's about it).

Yes, there are winter Olympics in 2014. They are in Sochi, Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Olympics

Um, yes there is. The Olympics are offset between winter and summer by two years now. So every two years there is an olympics, either summer or winter.

FIFA is corrupt, so I guess Russia deserves it, and Qatar got the worst rating, so no doubt it's all about big business getting money by building facilities where there are none! Bring on terrorism and heat stroke in their games! Serves FIFA right

My God where should the World Cup be, in France or Germany every time?

Asia is a massive continent and only gets 5 world cup teams in any given tournament. Let them have the cup just once. My goodness.

Middle east is not Asia.

South Africa wouldn't have made the cup had they not hosted, and Austria wouldn't have made Euro 2008. Nobody whined then.

It is for FIFA's purposes. They participate in the Asian Cup. Get a clue.

The thing is that there will be 2 World cups back to back in countries that are at least partially in Asia. The border between Europe and Asia is generally recognized to be at the Bosphorus, through the Black and Caspian seas and up the Ural mountains. Thus including all of the Middle East.

middle east is Asia minor.

Middle East is indeed a part of Asia. Just like South America is a part of America. Whether you like it or not.

"Middle east is not Asia."

Someone hasn't played enough RISK!...

My opinion is "YPAAAAAA!!!!"

Europe is a cultural term, not a geographic one. At any rate Israel is part of Europe, for FIFA's purposes (as is Kazakhstan). We're talking about FIFA, after all.

For reference, here's an extract from Table 3.3 in FIFA's Executive Summary of their Evaluation Reports:

Overall operational risk

England Low risk
Holland/Belgium Low risk
Russia Medium risk
Spain/Portugal Low risk

Australia Low risk
Japan Low risk
Korea Republic Low risk
Qatar High risk
USA Low risk

What a farce. They should really dispense with the whole technical report charade and just admit it is done on the basis of money and backroom deals.

Portugal is better than Spain

So the game risk is where you get your geography from? My god! Get an education and look at a real map!

Russia and Qatar are no suprise, not sure why people are so shocked:

1. It is ironic that everyone claims it's about money when all ther reports (and it's common knowledge really) indicated that the most money (in terms of TV rights, merchandising, tourist, etc.) would have come if it was ENG/US that had won it. Not to mention ENG/US have the infrastructure so the costs would have been less. Money is not the issue here, this is a political decision.

2. They cannot always pick the best bids (in terms of stadiums, transportation and accomodation, security, etc.). This will lead to only having the WC in the rich nations. Of course ENG will have the best bit - they can host it tomorrow if needed - Russia can't. Qatar even less so. That's the idea - develop infrastructure where there's non.

Last WC was in South Africa. If annyone thinks SA has better infrastructure or is safer than RUS or Qatar they are wrong. Brazil is not the safest place either - and this is where the next WC will be.

3. Russia has never hosted a World Cup. Biggest country in Europe. ENG has hosted one, so has Spain actually (the second stong candidate). Actually, all major nations in EUR have hosted world cups. Surely RUS deserves one before ENG or SPA getting a second.

4. Qatar represents the arab world. Similar case to RUS. This region has never had a WC before. Korea and japan already had one, not so long ago actually. Australia is... too far away. Their time will come, but it's too early now. Plus, they don't really represent Asia, so they just had no support.

RUS and Qatar were the clear-cut choices from the start. As good as the US and ENG bids were (and they were close to perfect) there was no way they'd win. This is a UN-type organization and noone will let the strong nations host too many tournaments.

Otherwise FIFA are the criteria for corruption. But it's a good decision, for me at least.