Qatar 2022

09/01/22 • 44 min

2 Listeners

How did this small, Middle Eastern autocracy, with no international soccer pedigree or modern stadium infrastructure, land the ultimate international sporting competition: the 2022 FIFA World Cup? Money. Lots of money.

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Equal Footing

Today’s episode is all about hope. The stunning success of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team offered FIFA a roadmap to a better way of doing business, one that promised soaring profits while embracing the organization’s core mission: to spread soccer and fair play around the globe. Instead, FIFA relegated the women’s game to second-class status even after seeing record crowds. In choosing to stick with its old corrupt ways, FIFA lost the one thing it cares about most: money. But women’s soccer still offers the last, best hope for a better FIFA.

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Lords of Soccer - Qatar 2022

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:04.440

The circular conveyor belt a cabman Dou's Trobooven International Airport is chaos. Passengers returning from Qatar elbow for room to grab their cellophane wrap suitcases and battered cardboard boxes filled with expensive and hard to get stuff like flat screen TVs, mobile phones, and designer clothes. But in this clamor you'll find another type of traveler, eyes swollen with grief, clutching crumpled tissues, reaching into the jumbled mess of lug