No World Cup in South Korea in 2022

"The way things are going, we're not even sure they'll still be there," said FIFA.

Ah, just kidding. But FIFA did take a look at South Korea's bid, with its message that a Korea World Cup in 2022 could reduce regional tensions, and they decided it would be easier to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Qatar got the 2022 games, making it the first time the games will be hosted in the Middle East.

From Bloomberg:

Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup, overcoming concerns about high temperatures and lack of infrastructure to become the first Arab country to hold the most-watched sporting event.

Soccer ruling body FIFA announced the decision in Zurich today. The U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea were the unsuccessful candidates. Russia was chosen to host the 2018 edition. The U.S. estimates that the tournament is worth $5 billion to the hosts.

Qatar, projected by the International Monetary Fund to have the world’s fastest-growing economy this year, plans to more than double the number of hotel rooms, build nine stadiums and refurbish three others and construct a rail and metro network for the tournament.

“It will probably be the fastest-growing economy in the world for a sustained period,” said Akber Khan, a director at Al Rayan Investment in Doha. The World Cup “will significantly accelerate massive infrastructure building in Qatar.”

Well, of course it will. Because a country with 1/30th population of South Korea probably doesn't have all those soccer stadiums in the desert left over from any previous global sporting event. Maybe they'll share with the neighbors, like Korea did with Japan in 2002.

Seriously, though, it will be nice to see the potential for regional cooperation at work in that volatile part of the world.

Will uniting a divided peninsula be the key to South Korea's 2022 World Cup bid?

The head of FIFA seems to be giving that kind of indication.

From CNN:

FIFA president Sepp Blatter praised South Korea's bid to host the 2022 World Cup on Monday and said that the sport had the power to unite the divided northern and southern halves of the country.

The hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be announced by FIFA on 2 December, with Australia, Japan, Qatar and the U.S. also competing to host the 2022 competition.

"There is no doubt that Korea should be ready to organize a good World Cup," Blatter told reporters at a joint press conference with South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak in the capital Seoul, after being awarded the country's Order of Merit for Sports.

"Football is more than a game, as it has a socio-cultural impact and can therefore connect people all over the world."

I realize this is FIFA and not the IOC, but some might warn that weepy appeals to unification don't make for an effective hosting bid.

But I'm not one of them. This is, after all, the same FIFA that awarded Japan and Korea the co-hosting rights, in a groundbreaking effort aimed at building bridges between the two East Asian rivals.

Clearly South Korea has the infrastructure for another World Cup, and Pyongyang already has a stadium or two. What I think is a more interesting discussion is what North Korea might look like in twelve years.

Will KJI still be alive (don't count that out just yet) but barely holding on, his circle of yes-men fulfilling his every demented command (e.g., Wipe out that village, it looks ugly on Google Earth! A rubber chicken in every pot! I don't care if she's my granddaughter)?

Will Kim Jong-un be nominally in charge but controlled behind the scenes? Will KJU have marshaled the same level of support as his Marshal father? Will the regime have collapsed and we're looking at a confederation on the peninsula?

Will North Korea have successfully begun implementing Chinese-style reforms and it's well on its way to being integrated not just with Northeast China but with Northeast Asia as a whole?

Will North Korea be using the threat of pulling out of the World Cup hosting and/or embarrassing South Korea in some other way, in an effort to squeeze the latest concessions out of Seoul?

A World Cup of our own?

Back in the 1990s, the efforts by Japan and South Korea to host the 2002 World Cup became so feverish that FIFA took the unprecedented step of having both of them co-host the games. FIFA head Blatter lost control of the situation, and each side then tried to outdo the other with bigger and better stadiums.

The result is a legacy of nice (but largely underused) facilities that are making for a second round of feverish efforts to host the World Cup, this time in 2022. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan wined and dined the FIFA folks who came by last week, and now we get news that South Korea's bid is also doing well:

The head of FIFA's inspection team has lauded South Korea's "well-structured" bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

Harold Mayne-Nicholls, chief of the five-man delegation, was speaking at the end of a three-day visit to the Asian nation, the second such inspection among the nine bidders for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The team arrived from Japan on Thursday and land in Australia on Monday.

As well as Seoul, the team toured Daegu, Ulsan, Goyang and Incheon and also found time for dinner with president Lee Myung-Bak on Friday evening.

"Despite the short amount of time that we stayed, we could check all we needed - training sites, hotels, convention centres, stadiums, airports, new technology," said Chilean federation president Mayne-Nicholls. "We had a chance to learn a lot about the history and future of Korea and the challenges for the future, the people who have helped and the president Lee Myung-Bak, who gave all his support for the 2022 World Cup and treated us in a very friendly way.

"But mostly we learned that your well-structured bidding campaign is based on the message we all need - peace for everyone."

Wait a minute... "Peace for everyone"? Didn't that message lose us the 2014 Winter Olympics? You know, to that summer resort in Russia?

Um, anyhoo, I'd kinda like to see another joint hosting. It will be cheaper, for starters, but without about the same amount of prestige, and I'm always happy to see Seoul and Tokyo forced to get along (and they tend to, despite Yasukuni visits and reaction to Yasukuni visits, and all that other nastiness).

Barring that, of course, I'd prefer to see Korea hosting the games over Japan, especially if we're somehow looking at a unified Korea by then (it would be a huge boost to national unity at a time I imagine might be difficult for everyone). The only advantage to Japan winning the games is that I could routinely use the following picture and its caption whenever the 2022 games is mentioned.

Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

And yes, I will be blogging in 2022. I've been to the future and seen my own posts.