Quoting Astrakan:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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FIFA really needs to understand this strategy does not work...

I wouldn't say that. Football's grown by leaps and bounds in the U.S. since 1994, and while I'm far from an expert on football, it would seem to me it's in very large part because they hosted the cup.

Hell, the MLS was created simply because the U.S. hosted the cup. And now with players like David Beckham and Thierry Henry, attendance continue to rise.

Even the U.S. national team has only gotten better and better since then, they've even qualified for the tournament every year, which means they currently have a better streak than England. And that's not intended as a dig, merely to illustrate that it's a growing sport there. And I don't think it's a coincidence that that growth more or less began with them hosting the cup.

I know from anecdotal evidence that it's had an impact north of their border as well, with several of my friends now being heavily into the sport, entirely due to the fact that they caught football fever during the 1994 cup.

Phooey. Football has grown in the USA for many reasons, and it has little to do with the World Cup. Youth soccer (as it is called here, we have a "sport" called football where the foot is rarely used) has grown larger than youth football in the Netherlands. And, unlike Europe, girls have great support. With the passing of Title IX, women's sports had to be funded as well as men's sports. So, women's soccer, softball, and volleyball suddenly got gobs of money and many athletic young women found scholarships to colleges. Youngsters saw the success the women's team had and suddenly, youth soccer was bigger than football, little league and nearly all other youth sports. Parents went to youth soccer games and learned the laws. Now there is more than one soccer channel available on satellite TV and the MLS and Premeire League and Euro cup matches shown on live TV.

Add to that, the huge number of Mexican-American coaches and their children playing... learning Spanish/Italian/English/Dutch/Brazilian/German style football, and you have a huge explosion of football in California and other states.

Frans Hoek brings his coaches to the USA every year, and many other international coaches do the same. When England last hosted the World Cup, there were no youth soccer camps in the US, now, in addition to tens of thousands of weeklong day camps, there are hundreds of live-in camps... more than a half dozen in northern California... every year. We are learning football from our kids, and have steadily since the late 1970s... long before our World Cup.

Quoting whispering:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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Nah we all know Russia got it cause Putins a god.

At least use a proper video to go by that statement

lol you know how hard it is to find a decent video given how much censorship there is

And i say if Qatar can host the world cup. Then i think us Scots should have a go at landing the tournament.

We already have some great stadiums a massive tourism industry so no shortage of accommodation.