So if you follow some of the more popular and knowledgeable soccer folks on twitter (@mfusa, @svertgoalcom, @callitfootball, @TIAS, and others) you most likely have heard the rumors about World Cup bid votes being bought for $10 million each. Well that info is coming from Jonathan Alter, as far as I can tell a fairly well respected journalist who tweeted these two things recently:
and
So here is a respected journalist saying he has a sources confirming what many of us have suspected, and given that in the first and second rounds that Qatar got 11 votes each time, it would seem to me that 11 may have been their magic number. Knowing that eventually they would likely pick up at least one and that if they had 11 in pocket that they could not lose. They got 11, 11, 10 (someone got scared for a minute) and then 14 votes.
So why is a journalist putting this on twitter and not publishing it, clearly his source would be in jeopardy if he did and he really isn't a sports journalist. So it appears to me that he turned to social media to keep the flame alive, it has happened before with stories but this time the only real outrage seems to be coming from the US and UK. Most others seem to have in just over a week lost interest in the story.
So the question is will anything come of it? I would love to see an independent investigation, which would mean it would probably need to be done by an organization with some type of oversight powers. It would probably be best if it wasn't conducted by someone from one of the losing nations, and it should not be conducted by anyone inside of FIFA. I have heard rumors of the IOC being asked to look into it, but given their past, I think that is like asking a fat kid to watch your candy store.
So will this story have legs? Hard to tell but it seems to me that many even here in the US seem much less interested in the story than they did last week. One thing is clear spending $110 million for the rights to host the World Cup, doesn't seem out of the reach of Qatar considering their plans.
OFF MY SOAPBOX