Note the Adidas logo, Mr. President – they supply me with the resources for my slush fund.
The Schmoozapalooza tour is in full swing as FIFA officials take a four-day, five-city trip around the United States in preparation for awarding World Cup 2018 and 2022 to two lucky countries on December 2nd.
After meeting with Mayor Bloomberg in New York yesterday, the 6-man Technical Inspection Committee arrived in Washington, D.C. late last night to analyze that city’s proposal as a venue for the World Cup. Overall, the tour has scheduled stops in New York, Washington, Miami, Dallas and Houston. While those are just 5 of the 18 proposed cities in the US bid, those sites allow the USSF to highlight it’s newest stadia at The Meadowlands and Cowboys Stadium, which are the centerpieces of the bid.
Headed up by Chilean soccer federation president Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the FIFA crew was to have breakfast this morning at the White House with several members of President Obama’s staff, although it was unclear if the latter would be present (apparently, he’s a busy guy).
After breakfast the committee is scheduled to make stops at the Washington Monument, the Washington Convention Center and FedEx Field. Robert Sweeney, president of the Greater Washington Sports Alliance (and member of Team Schmooze) noted that “[t]his is America’s front lawn, the gathering place for the nation…[w]e want to give FIFA a visual and put in their minds what the World Cup would look like here.” This is by far the most important aspect of the tour, as the 24-man FIFA executive committee awarding the bids will rely on the reports of the (entirely separate) 6-man technical inspection committee to aid in their decision.
Recently, the talk has been that Europe will be awarded World Cup 2018 with China angling for World Cup 2026. The latter, in particular, would greatly increase the US’ chances of landing World Cup 2022. Addressing that issue, USSF president Sunil Gulati noted that another World Cup in the US would accelerate the growth of soccer in this country, and an 11-year time frame (until 2022) would perhaps provide the ideal span for both supporters and the USMNT to achieve its goals.
“We look at this as a 50-year time horizon. What we’ve done since ’84 … we’re roughly at halftime. Just 25 years in, look at what we’ve done in the first half,” Gulati said. “Imagine what we can do in the second half if American television and commercial partnerships treat the World Cup the same way they might treat the Olympics, for example, and more Americans start treating World Cup viewing the way they treat the NFL.”
Wait a minute. A 50-year time frame? So, back in 1984 the USSF came up with a 50-year plan with the goal of winning World Cup 2034? It’s nice to know that we anticipate failure on home soil in 2022.
Funny, just about any post that includes a photo of Sepp is tagged “possible corruption”
I really hope we land this one. Lay it on thick, Team Schmooze.
Possible corruption? Sepp + D.C. = match made in heaven.
As great as it would be to have a WC in the US, the fact that they are showing stadia from NY to TX is crazy. Albeit travel around South Africa was a mess for fans since they have poor infrastructure, and this is a “first world” country, we still don’t have the organized mass transit that LARGE numbers of foreigners could use to follow a national team from game to game if they were going from NY to TX. It’s too far, we don’t have any foreign language signage (very little even in our airports where one would expect the highest percentage of travelers). Bus lines? Forget about it. Fans renting cars and hitting the open road? Please. Wrong side of the road or not, they’d spend all their time driving around the U.S. when they came to watch games.
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Unless they assign a stadium/city to each group and keep them in one place (so the fans can stay in that one city until the semis), then it’d be a nightmare to try and follow any team anywhere around the US. And I think THAT’s the issue with our WC bid. Look overseas. Take any number of fast, affordable trains from place to place or a cheap commuter flight. Hell, most of the England bid can be hosted in one (albeit very large) metro city area. The US can’t compare with that.
If there is one thing FIFA doesn’t care about it is the fans. They wouldn’t have held it in SA if they did.
Maybe this is naive/nativist of me, but is the lack of foreign language signage really a problem? Don’t most people speak English? Also, I think that kind of stuff could definitely be constructed closer to 2022 if it’s determined we need it.
Lawlz. That would be no. ~330 million native speakers, and maybe half that again L2. The highest figure I’ve ever seen, although it wasn’t documented, was about 20% of the world population.
@Ryan – When you travel around the globe, it’s common to see signage (in traveler-centric places like airports, etc.) in multiple languages. Not only as a courtesy to travelers, but think of how much it reduces customer service staffing costs, etc. with stupid questions all the time.
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Not just for the WC, but in general, with our global image problem that’s developed over the past 10 years, it would be nice to show the rest of the world we’re not all the self-centered a**holes we’re made to seem. Showing them which way to go when traveling would be the MOST basic of efforts on that front. (-;
@TFA – seemingly, very true.
@MW – But we ARE the self-centered a**holes that we’re made to seem…
Lol. Goosie wins. Because it’s true.
@Anonsters: I wasn’t talking native speakers though. I admit my knowledge of such things is limited, but don’t most Europeans learn both their native language and English? Same with those in Asia?
I’m not anti-signs at airports or on roads or anything, by all means let’s build some, I just don’t see it as a huge problem.
…And looking at the numbers , maybe not. Oops.
Also, the uproar that would happen if we wanted to add signs in other languages….
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Please don’t get me started on the general American philosophy on learning other languages. It’ll just get super annoyed.
*get ME super annoyed. Sorry, typo.
@Goosie – indeed.
@Ryan – normal road signs? I don’t see anyone forking out the bucks to put those in a foreign language. We all know how upset people in the US get to just have to “press 1 for English”. But for this event, those sorts of matters (at the very least, at airports) should be taken into consideration as they are not a typical tourist – they are fans, and that is TOTALLY different. (-;
The proper question might be “don’t most people who are wealthy enough to travel to and stay in the US for the World Cup speak English”. While we don’t have such statistics, I’m guessing the answer is yes.