<figure class="image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-109902" title="Russia-2018" src="https://ds-images.bolavip.com/news/image?src=https://images.worldsoccertalk.com/webp/full/WST_20140807_CMS_112840_Russia-2018-600x353_943a4283.webp&amp;width=600&amp;height=353" alt="" width="600" height="353" srcset="https://images.futbolsites.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/07/17052418/Russia-2018-600x353.jpg 600w, https://images.futbolsites.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/07/17052418/Russia-2018-150x88.jpg 150w, https://images.futbolsites.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/07/17052418/Russia-2018-300x176.jpg 300w, https://images.futbolsites.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/07/17052418/Russia-2018.jpg 1239w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px"></figure>
In the latest of brewing Cold War sentiments between the US and Russia, controversial Republican Senator John McCain recently reissued a demand to pull the plug on Russia’s right to host the World Cup in 2018. Speaking to ESPN/ABC podcast Capital Games program, McCain asked whether it was “appropriate to have this venue in Russia,” — although he’s not the first Republican to struggle at his own language, by venue he must have clearly meant event or tournament — “and aren’t there other countries that would be far less controversial?”
McCain wasn’t finished, adding that FIFA’s decision “absolutely should be reconsidered… [and] I’d like to see the United States and other — say, the British perhaps and other countries — raise the issue in ordinary meetings, periodic meetings that they have.”
Servile disciples of their American suzerains, the British did answer McCain’s call to pile the pressure on Russia, with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg telling the Sunday Times that it’s “unthinkable to allow Putin to preside over the biggest event in global sports,” adding that threatening Russia’s 2018 World Cup would be a “very potent political and symbolic sanction.”
This isn’t the first time the West, clearly at political odds with Russia, have called on FIFA to replace the venue of the 2018 World Cup. This past March, two US Senators wrote a letter addressed to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. In their missive, Senators Mark Kirk and Dan Coats, both Republicans, didn’t only ask FIFA to forbid Russia from hosting the World Cup, they also wanted the Russian national team to be banned from participating in this summer’s World Cup in Brazil and in more thespian fashion, to completely expel Russia from FIFA. Their precedent was the Western-imposed ejection of Yugoslavia from both the 1992 European Championships and the 1994 World Cup.
As was expected, after sleazy Western media coverage of the Sochi Olympics, they have now targeted Russia’s legal right to host the 2018 World Cup. Under the pretext that Russia is the culprit behind the still under-investigation Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 disaster, the West and its allies have been unyieldingly castigating Russian. In times that resemble the Cold War more than ever before, the US and Russia have been at political loggerheads since former US President George W. Bush voided the Anti-Ballistic Treaty signed by the two countries in 1972.
When President Putin became president after Boris Yeltsin’s tenure came to an end in 2000, and the US realized Putin wouldn’t be as obeisant as his predecessor, relations began to sour. Clinton was also replaced by President George Bush in that same year, and it took two years of contretemps before Bush did away with the 1972 treaty. This effectively meant that using territory of its NATO allies, the US could place missiles on Russia’s doorstep, like in Poland for example, or Turkey. Several ensuing political differences firmly place the two countries on different ends of the table. From the erstwhile Iraq War and South Ossetia/Abkhazia conflict to the more recent wars in Syria and the Ukraine, time has isolated the two camps greater than it has in recent history.
Instead of using the worthwhile effect sport has on the masses, where it bridges people together casting aside all differences, the US and co. are using a sleazy tactic to do the complete opposite. Imagine a World Cup encounter between Russia and the United States, even though a more interesting bout between the two sides would most likely be in an ice-hockey rink, the adrenaline between both teams would be high and the crowd would love to watch such a heated derby.
Funnily enough, during the Cold War era both the USA and the USSR were a bit more classy; by way of boycotting tournaments such as the Olympics in lieu of threatening each other. The Americans did this for the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow, and the Soviets didn’t go to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Wanting to play the peacemaker, FIFA said that it wants “its tournaments promote dialogue, understanding and peace among peoples,” and has steadfastly rejected any motion to relocate the 2018 World Cup in Russia, adding that it will “achieve a positive change.”
Senator McCain’s last option is to be the better man, and bow out – either bowing out of his preposterous ploy to politicize sport, or to ask the US Men’s National Football team to bow out. And after their performance in Brazil, with their match against Portugal having <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/2014/06/23/usa-portugal-world-cup-game-is-most-watched-soccer-game-in-history-of-us-television/">more viewers than the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final combined</a>, they won’t be so complacent with the idea of boycotting the World Cup.
As for the soccer-loving Brits, no matter how servile they are, they will never boycott a World Cup.

Like Sochi, the West’s Smear Campaign Against Russia’s 2018 World Cup Won’t Work

Like Sochi, the West’s Smear Campaign Against Russia’s 2018 World Cup Won't Work - World Soccer Talk

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You may have heard the news reports that two people died on Thursday when an overpass, which was supposed to be ready for the World Cup in Belo Horizonte to connect the international airport to the stadium area, collapsed, flattening a car, two trucks and trapping a bus. More than twenty people were injured in the accident. For city officials and FIFA, they were lucky the death toll wasn’t greater.
Breathing a sigh of relief, FIFA must be thankful that the bridge collapsed on a day when no matches were taking place otherwise the accident combined with a greater death toll would have overshadowed Tuesday’s semi-final in Belo Horizonte between Brazil and Germany.
But the fact still remains that two people are dead, and more than twenty others were injured. They may not have all been fans who traveled from faraway places to Brazil, but they were men and women working in accordance with the World Cup to make passage easier for soccer fans. These workers, like the the two men who died when a crane collapsed late last year while building Sāo Paulo’s Itaquerāo stadium, are the unsung heroes of Brazil’s World Cup.
Unfortunately, it gets worse for the host nation.
FIFA, busy pointing the finger at another World Cup’s reported flaws (yes, the one in Qatar no less than 8 years from now) and odiously casting aside the merited street-demonstrators trying to make their case heard, has also shelved any real concern for the quality of infrastructure in Brazil.
Many who followed Brazil’s trajectory to finally hosting the World Cup view the bridge collapse as little surprise. At this moment in time, with six more matches to be played until the tournament wraps up on July 13, nobody wants to witness another construction accident, but one has to wonder what if.
The harsh reality is that Brazil is ranked by the ILO as fourth in the world when it comes to work-related fatalities.
In the last 10 years alone, there have been numerous accidents that brings Brazil’s construction practices into question. In 2004, at least three people drowned after the Camara Dam burst in Paraíba, and six years earlier the Palace II residential tower block collapsed in Rio de Janeiro due to faulty engineering practices that killed eight people. Another residential block in Rio, this time more than one building, collapsed only two years ago in 2012, this time resulting in more than 15 deaths. The reason: illegal renovations.
Lastly, and perhaps the worst of all, seven people descended to their deaths during a game between Bahia and Vila Nova in 2007 when part of the stadium collapsed.
FIFA has in effect turned a blind eye to the notoriously decrepit construction practices that plague Brazilian infrastructure. A 2005 study from the Brazilian Ministries of Labor and Employment and Social Security highlighted that the “areas of the highest number of deaths are transport, storage and communications, with seven deaths reported among 3,855 workers; the Construction Industry, with six deaths for 6,908 workers; and Commerce and Repair of Vehicles with five deaths among 24,782 workers.”
Although building and stadium accidents are not unique to Brazil only, it is more so FIFA’s inability to implement sanctions, punish, or at least control the safety of host nations when it sees clearly, years in advance, that the host nation is not suitable to control the factors that determine safety and corruption.
While Thursday’s bridge collapse deals directly with the ministries’ statistics of where exactly work-related deaths occur most, everyone can only hope that no repeat of the carnage reoccurs. Belo Horizonte, the name of the city where the under-construction bridge fell, literally translates into English as Beautiful Horizon, and despite infrastructural shortcomings of this year’s World Cup, all soccer fans worldwide should hope no such incident happens again.
But if anyone should be most hopeful – and most worried, it’s FIFA.

Deaths in Belo Horizonte Overpass Accident Add to Brazil’s Poor Record of Work-Related Deaths

Deaths in Belo Horizonte Overpass Accident Add to Brazil's Poor Record of Work-Related Deaths - World Soccer Talk

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Like Sochi, the West’s Smear Campaign Against Russia’s 2018 World Cup Won’t Work

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Deaths in Belo Horizonte Overpass Accident Add to Brazil’s Poor Record of Work-Related Deaths