Tales of fraud and corruption at the highest levels of football have been in the news fairly often, and this book by investigative journalists in England shows how one country, and one man in particular, scandalously went about acquiring what it did not appear worthy of – the right to host the lucrative Fifa World Cup in 2022.
Thanks to the work of authors Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert at the Sunday Times in London, following a great lead that brought forward incriminating e-mails of Qatari billionaire and Fifa executive, Mohamed bin Hammam, it is no longer a mystery how the tiny Gulf state secured such a major tournament. After all, it had no footballing tradition or infrastructure, on top of oppressive heat, a terrorist threat and slave-like employment practices for migrant workers.
What it did have, according to the authors, was an inside man at Fifa in Hammam, plenty of cash and enough people willing to pocket dollars in exchange for votes linked to the bidding process.
The shady dealings listed across the book’s 469 pages must have made it easy for the publishers to settle on the title, which contrasts with living football legend Pele’s description of the sport as the “beautiful game”.
The common theme of “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” gives readers an idea of horse trading between football officials and governments and they may find it hard not to wonder about processes leading to the 2010 tournament on our shores.
The Ugly Game – The Qatari plot to buy the World Cup by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert is published by Simon & Schuster