Nothing's wrong with Qatar or its people. I mean, it has the money to do amazing things. Just take a look at their plans for all the stadiums.
The only problem with their bid was that they would have to pack millions of fans within their one major city, Doha, and get them transportation to the stadiums.
But as we all know, FIFA is not really based on logical thinkers. Who knows how many back-room deals were made with Qatar? But whatever the case, you have to say that island stadiums are pretty impressive. Don't believe what old people tell you, it's always brauns before brains, not the other way around!
Anyways, the fact that Qatar has the World Cup to look forward to makes the United States better off. At least on the soccer field.
At this point, soccer really hasn't taken off in the United States like it did before the Great Depression. At this point, the MLS and all subsecuent tiers of professional men's soccer aren't catching up with fan base seen in leagues in Europe and South America. Crowds at these games are getting to the 17,000-per-game mark, but compared to the crowds in Europe, its a pretty small number.
But its growing, not only in quality, but also in revenue. According to the MLS commissioner, the MLS should be a top quality league by 2022. I know, he said this would happen if the World Cup was brought to the U.S. But the MLS is still growing at an amazing speed.
However, its not right to talk only about MLS fans. Its also important to look at all the fans of Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, C.D. Chivas, Santos, and all of the other soccer teams in the world. Altogether, they do make up a big part of the population in the United States. Which was one of the reasons the United States was taken as a serious bid for 2022.
Although it is true that having the World Cup in the United States would make more people crazy about the Beautiful Game, it's also true that many Americans don't care about their local teams or the US national team. As quality builds up in both club teams and the national team, more people will become fans of American soccer. Because of this, you'll start seeing kids on the street playing the street soccer the world knows.
In other words, soccer needs time to develop even more than the level its at right now. The U.S. is still not soccer crazy enough. We still have 8 years until bidding for 2026, so we have a long time to get things right. We still have time to see fans parading down the street after their team won a local rivalry. In eight years, who knows how big of TV contracts can be acquired by domestic leagues? I don't, but what I do know is that we should only bring the World Cup here when we're crazy enough about soccer.
