As I may have mentioned before the Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar saw the wave of popular uprisings that swept across the middle-east at the end of 2010 as an opportunity to hollow out their neighbours and turn them into vassals for their Monarch's will.
Although they slipped up slightly on Libya Russia has been the main resistance to this global crime wave supporting Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This in turn prompted the US to start a civil war in Ukraine to provide a pre-text for sanctioning and isolating Russia as punishment.
Despite US President Obama howling like a whipped dog this approach does not enjoy popular support. In fact over just this past week there was a strong movement at the Eurovision Song Contest to have the 2016 contest held in Russia in defiance of the sanctions. Then of course there is the 2018 World Cup which was awarded to Russia just 15 days before Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia marking the start of the so-called 'Arab Spring.' Obviously it is unacceptable to Qatar that Russia could be allowed to host an event that would make them the centre of attention for roughly half the entire population of the World.
On the same day that Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup. Although it is widely acknowledged that Russia were awarded the 2018 competition because they simply had the best bid it is equally widely accepted that Qatar only achieved their success by massively bribing all members of the voting committee - particularly the European nations that make up UEFA - and their representative Mohammed bin Hamman has since been banned for life. Since then Qatar have admitted that they are unable to deliver on their 2022 bid and instead demanded that the competition be moved to the winter in what is widely seen as a Salafi Islamist attempt to punish the western infidel by ruining their pagan "Christmas" festival.
To make matters worse Qatar's efforts to build World Cup stadiums has seen it rely on the "Kafala system" which effectively sees workers tithed to employers which elsewhere in the World would be referred to as "Slavery." Obviously Qatar's slave labourers do not have rights to things like safe working conditions and are dying in large numbers. Unless the situation improves dramatically the current estimate is that for every 90 minutes of football played at the 2022 World Cup 63 people will have lost their lives. Even in the dark days of 1980's football hooliganism a rate of 1 death every 84 seconds would be considered unacceptable.
Whilst this has been going on Qatar along with Turkey have been backing the Muslim Brotherhood in their attempts to violently overthrow the Libyan and Egyptian governments. It was this policy that caused the 2014 war between Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood off-shoot Hamas in Gaza that nearly spoilt the 2014 World Cup. Since then it has been suggested that Israel might be tempted to support the existing, legitimate campaign to have Qatar stripped of the 2022 World Cup with a view to - at the very least - disrupt the tournament to the extent that the US disrupted the Sochi Winter Olympics.
This has very much put Qatar on the defensive and in the first instance they have put up Jordan's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein as a candidate of FIFA President. The hope being that if elected Prince Ali will be more likely to protect Qatar from the top then the incumbent Sepp Blatter. Qatar are also behind a Palestinian attempt to have Israel expelled from World football. Blatter is opposed to this move and only last week visited both Israel and Palestine in an effort to resolve the issue. Both of these matters are to be decided by a vote during a FIFA meeting in Switzerland tomorrow (29/5/15).
It should come as no surprise then that yesterday (27/5/15) the US moved to effectively kidnap members of FIFA's executive committee who were expected to vote for Blatter and against Israel's expulsion. This type of petty thuggery is truly the hallmark of a banana republic and is why many democracies have a system of Parliamentary Privilege and international bodies such as the United Nations (UN) operate a system of diplomatically immunity to prevent votes being disrupted in this way. It is though how Qatar's militias in Libya do business.
As such there can be no suggestion that the US can participate in any FIFA affiliated events such as the upcoming Women's World Cup until they resolve the corruption issue. After all the main allegation at hand is that large US corporations such as Nike attempted to corrupt the world of football by paying large bribes to US officials such as Chuck Blazer in order to win sponsorship deals at various US hosted competitions and the sponsorship of the Brazilian national football team.
Clearly buoyed by the US' unwavering support for their cause on Tuesday (26/5/15) evening Qatar's militia's in Libya attempted to assassinate the Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni in Tobruk. As something of a sick little signature to mark their handiwork the failed attempt mimicked the US Special Forces raid to arrest Anas al-Liby. At the time I said that this wasn't worth the risk. I was proved right in January 2015 when al-Liby died of natural causes before he could stand trial in the US.
15:15 on 28/5/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 18:15 on 29/5/15 (UK date) to add;
To the surprise of absolutely no-one who understands the sport Prince Ali's coup attempt has failed and Sepp Blatter has been re-elected as FIFA President.
If you have the misfortune of living in a country whose rulers have looked at Saudi Arabia and said; "That looks like a good idea" you will now be subjected to several years of pet news channels ranting about corruption allegations, demands for boycotts and general frothing at the mouth.
The truth is though that since being elected FIFA President in 1998 Blatter has grown the sport from being essentially being the pass-time of a few lunatic hooligans into a multi-trillion dollar business that is followed by roughly 1 in every 2 people on the planets and one that is closely supported by roughly 1 in every 7. It's influcence continues to grow.
In that time Blatter has been forced to deal with corrupting influences such as the US sports giant Nike who demanded that Brazil's Ronaldo played in the 1998 final despite suffering an epileptic fit during the warm-up. Apparently as with the children that make the replica shirts Ronaldo's health was considered less important to Nike then selling more replica shirts.
A prime example of Blatter's skill and dexterity in this challenging role was provided at this meeting by Palestine - who are considered by FIFA to be a nation state. In preperation for Prince Ali's coup attempt the Palestinians tabled a motion demanding that Israel be banned from international football. Their first complaint was that Israel denies free movement to members of the Palestinian football team between Gaza and the West Bank. It would have been extremely problematic for FIFA to take action on this complaint because they would then be forced to ban all the Arab states who deny the Israeli football team access to their countries.
The Palestinians second main complaint was that Israel allows Jewish teams from the occupied West Bank to play in it's domestic team. Although there are strong legal grounds to prevent that it presents FIFA with some problems. For example England and Wales are considered separate footballing nations but Welsh teams such as Swansea are allowed to play in the English league.
Two weeks ago Blatter travelled to Israel and Palestine and suggested that a FIFA committee be set up to look at the Palestinians complaints and see whether it is possible to find a solution without say kicking all Arab states out of football or kicking all Welsh sides out of English football.
Unfortunately the Palestinians were unable to agree to this compromise because apparently their plight is considered an effective way to rally Muslims behind any cause. Alongside two of their supporters having to be ejected from today's meeting, other supporters attempting to storm the building and them telephoning in a bomb threat a lot of FIFA delegates got the impression that Palestine - and their backers - didn't want the problem solved. Instead they wanted an excuse to rant against Israel. As a result the Palestinian proposal was likely to be utterly humiliated receiving only a handful of the 209 votes on offer.
Fortunately at the last minute Blatter stepped in and talked the Palestinians into accepting the compromise deal which was passed with 90% of the vote. Not only did Blatter save Palestinians blushes their representative Jibril Rajoub was even allowed to give a passionate 15 minute speech railing against Israel to a global audience.
I will leave my American readers to draw their own conclusions as to what the real world has made of Loretta Lynch's rantings and ravings.
18:50 on 29/5/15 (UK date).
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