“It’s that nexus of sports and politics where the real greed, graft, extortion, and other dirt have to be well established for FIFA to even look your way, and unfortunately for us, we’re not at that level.”
Ramat Gan, May 31 – Amid talk of Qatar’s possible forfeit of its bid to hold association football’s World Cup on its soil in 2020, officials in Israel’s sports industry expressed doubts their country would ever achieve the levels of graft, cronyism, and greed necessary to secure such a bid for Israel.
The Israel Football Association, which administers several leagues of professional soccer around the country at various levels of play, aspires one day to bring the best teams to the country to compete in the championship matches that occur every four years. However, few members of the organization harbor the illusion that such a campaign would succeed under current circumstances, given the comparative paucity of resources available to Israel compared to the level of corruption FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, generally seeks out in a host ocuntry.
“As things stand now we don’t have the slightest chance,” assessed Sohet Shohad, a mid-level executive with the IFA. “Not when we’re up against giants in the field of corruption such as Russia, China, and a host of Latin American and African countries. A couple of decades ago that wouldn’t have been an insurmountable obstacle, but government reforms and greater media independence have made it harder to reach the requisite corruption levels since then. Back then, of course, Israel couldn’t afford to host the event in the first place. Kind of a bitter reversal.”
“Oh, we’re a corrupt society, all right,” acknowledged his colleague Mirma Me’ila. “And this industry is no exception – in fact I’d say we do it as well or better than most, except career politics. But it’s that nexus of sports and politics where the real greed, graft, extortion, and other dirt have to be well established for FIFA to even look your way, and unfortunately for us, we’re not at that level.”
Experts see little chance of the prospect in the next decade. “Barring some unforeseen breakout of uncharacteristic boldness in engaging in such behavior, I don’t think you can realistically envision Israel or any of its cities appearing in the official logo of the World Cup through 2032 at least,” predicted Torem Hashai, who comments on sports in Israel for the news and gossip site Ynet. “If ten years ago I would have said the same thing because of international political pressure, boycotts, and a hundred other considerations, that all seems to be shifting. I can see, in the emerging unity of Arab states against Iran, a scenario in which those countries don’t actively try to block an Israeli bid to host the World Cup. But I can’t see us being able to muster the necessary level of favors, kickbacks, and other ‘benefits’ for FIFA executives that would make critics of Bibi’s expensive tastes explode.”
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