World Cup Hosting Rights for 2018 and 2022

The hosting rights of the World Cup for 2018 and 2022 were awarded to Qatar and Russia respectively.

England cried foul and felt that they were victimized when they were ejected from the first round during the recent bid to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup Finals. They felt that they had the best case and deserved to host the event. So did the rest of the bidders.


England is, no doubt, a footballing nation.  England has an established billion dollar footballing industry and an excellent league system for all levels with global brand recongnition. The country was home to some of the most famous and state-of-the-art stadiums in the world namely Manuchester United's Theatre of Dreams at Old Trafford, Liverpool's Anfield, Villa Park, home of Aston Villa, Stamford Bridge of Chelsea just to name a few.  The league has produced many talented players and also attracted the best around the world. It was without any doubt on of the the best in class, if not the best. They also have well-established infrstructures, transportation network and hotels to host the biggest footballing event on Earth. In addition, England certainly have the expertises to organize and market such events considering the success of the English Premier League and England has the track records to back the claim.

However, the world most prestigious event has over time became more than just a footballing event. The thirty days had proved to be a spectacle to bring people around the world together either physically or through media broadcast. People from around the world came together to the host country to support their teams or experience the atmosphere. Everyone, whether they were at the stadium, outside or at home, cheered, celebrated and partied together like friends from around the world.

Corporate spent billions of advertisement dollars to leverage on the attention and gain exposure for their brands. The dollars brought about interests, technologies and creativities to outshine each other to seek attention from the world audience. This also provide great opportunities for the host nation to show the world what they were made off and have to offer. 

In addition, travelling fans learnt around the host country and the continent while the local made friends from around the world. Learning each other's culture remove fear and uncertainty and enable the world to become more friendly. Thus, taking this event to new location around the world will spread the joy and comradries of football and, hopefully through football, make the world a more friendly place. This is in addition to having more football fans especially when the sport was popular but not yet at the highest level.

Statistics had shown that productivities around the world declined during these thrity days of competition and yet this event generated billions of dollar for the global enconomy from its preparation to the actual event to it aftermath. Hosting the event at locations where infrastructures and stadiums were not up to the mark provide an opportunity for improvement by the host country, both socially and economically, as upgrading and building new infrastructures will create financial and work opportunities for many people. The infrastructures will also benefit the locals and increase their social welfare. It will be even merrier with the stadiums being modular and dismantled to be given to benefit other third world countries after the event. This will further enhance the values of the sport to mankind. The sport also new new stakeholders.

This article is certainly too simplistic to holistically elaborate the benefits of the game and the influence when making decison to award the hosting rights. I hope this has, nevertheless, brought forard the points that the decision of who to host the World Cup may not neccessary be just based on footballing reasons but the survival of the game and the event for the next many centuries.

The Paradox of Mind

"We always strive after what is forbidden, and desire the things refused us."

Ovid

Paradox of Life

"Everything is relative of something. Eternality is a possibility and not reality."

"When there is a gain, there will be some lost."

Life is such a paradox.

SingTel

I was SingTel mobile service subscriber since I got my first Motorola clamshell phone. It should be around 18 years by now. I have experienced significant improvement in their customer service over the years. I was referring to SingTel and not the Hello Shop. However, ever since I moved to Jurong, the reception there had been disappointing. It was even more with the 3G network. The network was non-existence at times. It can be fustrating at times but what was most fustrating was the responses when fedback. The responses were that they were upgrading their equipment and service will resume to normal soon and they sent their team to check and everything was fine when the user's experience was otherwise. Was that complacency? They should realize that with the other two telcos hot on their heels, creatively upping the game, the once monopolize market share was dwindling and they could soon lose more customers if they fail to continue to invest to improve their service. I meant technically.

I hope I can continue to support this national icon but I also hope they won't take these loyal customers for granted. Let's see what will happen.