Thank goodness that media circus is over.

Two upper class twits and a twerp obviously weren't good enough to swing it. Just as well we don't get to host it as we're flat broke anyway, and will be even deeper in the doo-doo after the Olympics.

Its good to know the Best bribers won the bids. Though thankfully we will not have to subsidise the totally corrupt FIFA.

True.

It was interesting, in the panorama programme, that Holland said they expected a net loss of £150 million, in the event that they hosted the world cup. And I thought Bernie Ecclestone was a villainous, money grubbing tw@t. FIFA make him look like an amateur.

Quite so. The thing that makes me smile, in a kind of sardonic way, is there is no possible explanation for Qatar winning than 'they paid the most money'. It's a country of one city where the air temperature during the tournament will be pushing 40 degrees C. The very idea of holding a sports tournament there is farcical beyond measure.

Jon

I think you're rather overstating the red-tops actual influence (as oppose to the influence which the media proscribe to them). According to the Press Gazette, the circulation figures as of last month were...

Daily Mirror 1,215,081 -6.24
Daily Record 320,736 -5.45
Daily Star 793,487 -5.15
The Sun 2,904,180 -4.04
Daily Express 642,695 -7.92
Daily Mail 2,129,328 -1.29

Basically, the tabloids are read by a small minority of the population - in total they can only muster, what, 10 million readers between them and that's less that a fifth of the population. The fact is their 'influence' is largely a fantasy of their own invention - they're very quick to attribute events that go their way to their actions, but you rarely hear them admitting it when what they predict doesn't happen.

One person might buy a paper, but at least one other might read it. That conservatively gives a readership influence of around 20 million...

Your missing people who will read the online versions as well. Also add in multiple readers of one sale and potentially the amount they "may" influence goes up very quickly.

At least there won't be 3 smug twats coming back from Zurich. That's something.

Now I'm waiting for all the random mud slinging towards the BBC. Several months agao we were lucky if we were 3rd favourites so it's not really surprising and Sepp wants to take it too new * cough * lucrative regions.

Russian TV had it right, they barely mentioned it in any more that a passing comment.

I think the BBC show was perfectly timed - and I hope they can uncover some more details.

It would have been worse if they hadn't shown it. In my eyes that would have made them conspirators.

+1

I'm just waiting for the next one now.

I wonder if Putin decided not to go as he already knew they had won it.

Brown envelopes stuffed with loads of money anyone?

I think the point is still valid. Received wisdom is not necessarily what people actually think. How else would the conservatives be in the running given the perceived opinions of 'the nation'?

Could be but then Sepp all along has wanted to take it to new areas. Actually, why not? Asia, South Africa and now Russia.

It doesn't seem like it's out of character and although FIFA does need sorting out we're just sounding like sore losers.

If you didn’t last night, watch QuestionTime on iPlayer. The first question was on this point.

John Sargeant (who looks more and more like Jo Brand) was saying that if the programme had been broadcast next week, we’d just look like sore losers. He also said that you can’t sit on this kind of thing for too long either.

The point was made that we only got 2 votes out of the 22 - and one of those was us, so ONE other FIFA member decided that we could do the job. There are loads of reasons the bid failed:

• We didn’t bribe anyone enough

• We are a pretty unpopular country at the moment (watch the Eurovision Song Contest to see how our political standing in Europe spills over into other areas)

• The bid may just not have been compelling enough

to name just three.

I think that, as a nation, we need to take a good long hard look at ourselves and ask ourselves - why are we not as popular as we were? We then need to change our outlook. Not being so arsey in Europe, not tagging along after the USA every time they want to bomb a desert. Stuff like that. America failed to see how their foreign policy was affecting the rest of the world, and they ended up with some aeroplanes crashing into some buildings. We should be in a position where FIFA, the IOC etc are knocking at our door asking for us to do the hosting.

For the record - I’m not a sports lover. I really can’t care a less if we did or didn’t get the world cup. Personally, I think the Olympics is more than enough for us to handle.

That's the thing though isn't it, if you have a problem with the outcome you sound like a sore loser.

Personally I think it's a load of garbage. I predicted Russia and Qatar as the winners long before the vote. Russia I can half understand as it's a new territory for the World Cup but Qatar? WTF.

What I cannot understand is us getting 1 vote (2 in total as we voted for ourselves) when there was plenty of talk leading up to this about how we were getting some of the Euro votes, etc etc, leading to a prediction of 4-5 votes in the first round. 1 vote!