After digesting all the stories of what happened with England and the USA’s bids for their respective World Cups, it was time to bring out my opinion on what the hell happened on Thursday, December 2. I had a bad feeling that the FIFA executive committee failed football fans around the world and us here in the United States. After going through so much with the 1994 World Cup that jumpstarted MLS and brought back the passion from those who grew up with the original North American Soccer League, the 2022 World Cup was going to be the stamp that we in the United States deserved a second helping of for the greatest tournament on the planet.

Sadly fourteen of the twenty-two members of that so called executive committee did a complete disservice to the American supporter and decided to take a drink of Qatar’s kool-aid and at the same time got their pockets greased just a little bit more of a fantasy from that major oil producing country. I find it very interesting that the two hottest months on Qatar’s calendar will be over 115 degrees Fahrenheit and while this scam of a bid process was going on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is having their Asian Cup tournament in January instead of June in Qatar for that reason I just typed. It’s too damn hot.

While we are licking our wounds failing to earn this second attempt of hosting the World Cup, there is another part of why it was lost and I’m not talking about a better dream than the one the Qatar committee had. I was able to watch that presentation from US Soccer and they had a star studded line up. Our great president of US Soccer Sunil Gulati, a former President of the United States in Bill Jefferson Clinton, an academy award winning actor in Morgan Freeman and of course our greatest attacking player ever produced since Eric Wynalda in Landon Donovan.

I know these men care about the game and their actions can speak louder than words, but sadly the words coming out of their mouths lacked the intensity behind them. I will never question Landon’s heart playing for the USA. He has done so much for club & country that his play speaks for itself. But I hate to say it his time on the podium was very poor. Morgan Freeman also lacked a passion out of his voice when he was reading his speech (I can overlook him missing a page). Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton, nothing you can do with how he talks, yet Sunil Gulati looked more like a brainiac instead of a football man.

They assumed they were going to get the bid when they discussed stats and facts. There were real people missing from the bid committee, real people who could have flown over to Zurich, Switzerland and tell the Executive Committee of FIFA why the World Cup should’ve made a return to the United States. I’m talking about us. We The People who love this game should’ve gotten some plane tickets by US Soccer and tell FIFA why we deserve the return of the World Cup.

Or maybe the two million dollar gift from MLS should’ve been sent to FIFA as interest instead of towards the US bid committee.

Sadly that’s how things work within the House of Football. That’s the real reason Qatar got the bid victory, a fantasy of air-conditioned open air stadiums and tons of cash to overfill the Swiss bank accounts of these so called honest men. If such a thing was true, why hasn’t Qatar built one already as an example? If this type of technology can be done, where are the plans to build it or why hasn’t one been built already. You would like to think that if this was a reality and Qatar has one working flawlessly, there would be a feeling from most of us that the US Soccer Federation lost this bid legitimately.

I remember a time when FIFA was in the middle of a problem. Who did they come to or heed the call from a member that would fix their dilemma? That’s right ladies and gentleman it was the US Soccer Federation when China was supposed to host the 2003 Women’s World Cup, but the S.A.R.S. epidemic was causing a problem. Who came in and saved the day? The USA, but I guess the price wasn’t high enough to give us 2022 as well. Oh how quickly the House of Football forgets.

Should the US Soccer Federation try to get the 2026 World Cup and develop a better game plan to win it? I would raise my hand and offer myself to give them the passionate boost that they needed while they contact Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and transfer over the proper amount of bribe money to the House of Football, because right now that’s the only language Sepp Blatter and the rest of FIFA understands.