Russia beats the UK. Qatar beats the US. Welcome to the new world
Fifa, it is often boasted, has more members than the United Nations.
The fact that football is not “coming home”, and in fact the entire England bid garnered just one extra vote, is such a flash of lucidity, such an utter humilation that it might be a useful moment to consider Britain’s place in the world.
The world is becoming more Fifa-like, not less. The globe’s governance is becoming more statist, less free, less democratic, more mercantilist, more dirigiste, less free trade.
It is entirely fitting, in this new world, that the nations controlling the world’s first and third biggest reserves of natural gas won these totally opaque contests. (The second biggest reserves are in Iran, expect the 2026 bid team to start work shortly).
This is the reality, and I’m not entirely sure that Britain knows its position in this new world. I’m taken back to the time I went to Singapore to visit the legendary speculator Jim Rogers.
He moved to Singapore so that his 5 year old daughter could learn fluent Mandarin. He said power inevitably ends up flowing to the creditors rather than the debtors. Ah yes, its worth noting that last year the national debt of both Qatar and Russia was amongst the lowest in the world, at just 7% of GDP, basically non-existent. Remember just 12 years ago, Russia was in the pit, with 140% national debt and facing default and IMF humiliation. Hydrocarbon billions transformed that.
In the new world where Russia thumps England, and Qatar outmanoeuvres the USA, lack of political transparency, and avoiding a vigorous intrusive press is married together with a ruthless commercialism.
I’ve been lucky enough to go to a few World Cups. The atmosphere around the grounds is definitely odd. It is not quite soulless, but instead a bizarre travelling Football Disneyland. Russia and Qatar are the perfect bedfellows for Fifa, in this regard. I can’t imagine the local media causing Fifa much bother.
David Cameron seems very aware of this power shift. On a number of occasions, in India and the US, he seems to have subtly communicated to Britain that our role in the world is changing rather rapidly. I’m not sure that a Labour Prime Minister could have got away with this.
Today’s World Cup decision will communicate better than any speech or book how power is draining away from the over-indebted West into the oilfields and factories of the East. The UK does not have comparative advantage in offering opaque international sports organisations licenses to print money.
There’s no point bidding again. We should instead turn the Olympic Football tournament in 2012 into our Real World Cup. And we all need to become far more realistic about our place in the world.
* I should say that Moscow was a fanatastically-hospitable host for the European Cup Final in 2008. But it is a place geared to hyper-oligarch luxury. Qatar’s footballing credentials are clearly dubious. Thankfully the bidding process has already changed things there with the establishment of women’s football teams. Holding a World Cup at 55C, also seems a bit difficult. Until you work out that German engineers have a contract to design new technology to cool every stadium down to 28 degrees. Germany always wins!