WC In Qatar, Brutal for Football fans across the world, Except Iranians

[KC McElroy]

I was in russia 4 years ago, big country with very expencive domestic flight tickets. Trains, well they go very slow and are not high quality. Russia is a nice country for sure and i agree women there are nice to but to be fair Russia cheated them self to get World Cup aswell, just like Qatar did. When it comes to football i dont care of the host countries people but if you want to talk about people i can tell you one thing, Russians can be very racist, their men are very rude when it comes to foreigners. I dont want to bash russia, my own wife is russian by the way It seams most of you have hate for arabs thats why you bash Qatar more than russia. I dont like arabs much either.. Everything is FIFAs fault anyway... If Iran would pay the cash we could also get World Cup one day, thats how fkuped it is..

What i am saying is that both Qatar and Russia cheated to get World Cup, neither two should even have got it in first place. But again world cup can not allways be in nice countries, to be fair it also have to be in some Asian country and Russia should also have it once... But it should be done fairly and not by corruption..

Qatar is the only country who have acknowledged the bribing for their bid.

[Bi-honar]

I dont think Qatar will take an Asia spot. 1 spot is always reserved for hosts, no matter where they are from, isnt it? how else should the equation end up? I will just check WC 2002.

They've been changing the damn thing so many times, who knows what they're gonna do. Going back to 1990:

* 1990: Europe had 13 places + Italy (host), N&C America had 2

* 1994: They only added 0.25 qualification spots to N. America, despite the US (host) taking one full spot, Europe had 13 spots + Germany as champion of 1990

* 1998: They actually gave two extra spots to Europe to accommodate France taking up one spot as the host (i.e. 15 spots)! Asia had 3.5 spots.

* 2002: They added one more spot to Asia, but Japan and Korea took two of the spots as hosts, so Asia actually lost one spot! Europe still had 14.5 spots.

* 2006: Europe actually lost 0.5 spot and Germany as host took another spot! Africa had 5 spots.

* 2010: Africa actually gained an extra spot taken by S. Africa for hosting for a total of 6. S. America had 4.5 spots.

* 2014: S. America gained an extra spot because of Brazil hosting the tournament (i.e. 5.5 total). Europe had 13 spots.

* 2018: Europe got an extra spot for Russia hosting the tournament (14 total). Asia has 4.5 spots.

So, if we go by the last 3 world cups only, Asia should get an extra spot because of Qatar hosting the tournament - essentially, the net effect to Asia should be zero because Qatar wasn't going to be a contender anyway.

But if you really think about it, in 2014 we exchanged an African team like Cameroon for for an extra S. American team like Uruguay. In 2018, we're going to exchange Uruguay with a team of Sweden's caliber. In 2022, we're going to exchange a team of of Sweden's caliber for Qatar if they keep the same format!

[Abtin]

^If Iran is close to qualify, they will suddenly remove one spot from Asia. you heard it here first.

[AminGP]

Russia is by far the most expensive country that I've ever visited. Even more expensive than Tokyo. So I'm worried how expensive it's going to get during the world cup.

Here are some of my highlights from 2010 trip:

Hair cut $200
Ordered 3 glasses of whiskey coke in the hotel $250. It would have cost me $10 to buy a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store
Whiskey Coke in a night club $45 per glass
Taxi $100 to anywhere in the city
Breakfast (omelette with orange juice for 2 people) $150

My Russian friends were taking us to excellent fine dining restaurants but the cost of fine dining in Moscow is 3 x times than US.

Another issue is that no one speaks english and all the street signs are written in Russian.

[KeonKish]

Re: WC In Qatar, Brutal for Football fans across the world, Except Iranians

Russia is by far the most expensive country that I've ever visited. Even more expensive than Tokyo. So I'm worried how expensive it's going to get during the world cup.

Here are some of my highlights from 2010 trip:

Hair cut $200
Ordered 3 glasses of whiskey coke in the hotel $250. It would have cost me $10 to buy a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store
Whiskey Coke in a night club $45 per glass
Taxi $100 to anywhere in the city
Breakfast (omelette with orange juice for 2 people) $150

My Russian friends were taking us to excellent fine dining restaurants but the cost of fine dining in Moscow is 3 x times than US.

Another issue is that no one speaks english and all the street signs are written in Russian.

You either went to the wrong places or you were in the wrong neighborhoods. Russian people could not afford that, and therefore those prices are not accurate for normal people places

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

[Bi-honar]

Russia is by far the most expensive country that I've ever visited. Even more expensive than Tokyo. So I'm worried how expensive it's going to get during the world cup.

Here are some of my highlights from 2010 trip:

Hair cut $200
Ordered 3 glasses of whiskey coke in the hotel $250. It would have cost me $10 to buy a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store
Whiskey Coke in a night club $45 per glass
Taxi $100 to anywhere in the city
Breakfast (omelette with orange juice for 2 people) $150

My Russian friends were taking us to excellent fine dining restaurants but the cost of fine dining in Moscow is 3 x times than US.

Another issue is that no one speaks english and all the street signs are written in Russian.

Dude, that's a lot of whiskey for a good Muslim boy - hell that's even a lot of whiskey by my standards - lol!

Joking aside, Moscow was very expensive in 2010 but Ruble has lost 50-60% of its value since then, so things aren't that bad right now - at least for visitors. Of course, we still have 3+ more years to go and a lot can change between now and then.

We were going to go to St. Petersburg in 2013 on a side trip from Helsinki and hotels were pretty reasonable and I did a quick search on other stuff and it didn't seem too too bad. Speaking of which, you should see the street names in Helsinki - you can read them, but they all sound similar to Kathmandu!

It was a long bus/train ride though and the flight wasn't cheap (I like getting a lot of value out of my travel dollars), so we ended up taking the high speed ferry across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn (capital of Estonia) which was super cheap and a great place to visit with lots of eye candy - first time I've been in a U-boat! Highly recommended if you're going in that direction again (both Helsinki and Tallinn).

[AminGP]

You either went to the wrong places or you were in the wrong neighborhoods. Russian people could not afford that, and therefore those prices are not accurate for normal people places

Russian people, specially the ones in Moscow are some of the riches people in the world. My friend is one of biggest DJs in Moscow so we were hanging out in all the top exclusive places and hotels and I never thought it would be that expensive. There's a club called "Krisha Mira" that they're not gonna let you in even if you a book a table. Hands down the best club I've ever been too. You're gonna encounter the most good looking and stylish women you've ever seen. You have to know someone to get in and it's not like the clubs in US that they would let a beautiful hot girl with all of their girl friends in. No you have to know people to get in.

[AminGP]

Dude, that's a lot of whiskey for a good Muslim boy - hell that's even a lot of whiskey by my standards - lol!

Joking aside, Moscow was very expensive in 2010 but Ruble has lost 50-60% of its value since then, so things aren't that bad right now - at least for visitors. Of course, we still have 3+ more years to go and a lot can change between now and then.

We were going to go to St. Petersburg in 2013 on a side trip from Helsinki and hotels were pretty reasonable and I did a quick search on other stuff and it didn't seem too too bad. Speaking of which, you should see the street names in Helsinki - you can read them, but they all sound similar to Kathmandu!

It was a long bus/train ride though and the flight wasn't cheap (I like getting a lot of value out of my travel dollars), so we ended up taking the high speed ferry across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn (capital of Estonia) which was super cheap and a great place to visit with lots of eye candy - first time I've been in a U-boat! Highly recommended if you're going in that direction again (both Helsinki and Tallinn).

hahahaha I know man. I wasn't being a good Muslim back then. Its' been 4 years that I've stopped drinking and it's quite funny that I quite drinking when I moved to US. It's usually the other way around.

I actually just checked the hotels in Moscow and they seem to much more reasonable now. Back then it was like $300-$400 for an ok 4 start hotel in the middle of winter.

I think for this world cup we'll book a place for 10 days and stay in Moscow only. I have a lots of friends there and the clubbing scene there is absolutely incredible. The best clubbing scene that I've ever experienced. This is coming from a guy who lives in Miami and has been clubbing in the best clubs around the world.

If we wanna watch other matches we'll fly the same day and hopefully be able to fly back the same night. In Brazil we were hopping around and there were some cities that we went to that weren't fun at all. Rio was probably the only city that I liked.

Are you planning on going to this world cup as well?

[Kiarash]

WC In Qatar, Brutal for Football fans across the world, Except Iranians

^ Assuming Iran makes it to the round of 16, you will probably have to stay longer than 10 days my friend

[babak_australia]

There was slavery in every other World Cup so far, and this one is no different.
However because it is in the Middle East and we happen to be the scapegoats at the moment, it's trendy to say "oh yeah look at the working conditions."

Any reason as to why some of you are saying Qatar don't 'deserve' it? Why not? What's the reason?

Your name says it all mate. You really are a Dreamer.

Also...who is 'We?' Are you a Qatari?

Was there slavery in Germany, USA, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Brazil or even South Africa?? There may be poor conditions in Brazil or South Africa but there was no slavery. Who the hell justifies slavery in this day and age like you seem to be doing?????

If you don't know how poor working conditions are in countries like UAE and Qatar then open your F'ing eyes. I have never read a more uneducated and naive comment on this site. And if you do not know that Qatar blatantly bribed its way to this World Cup then there is no hope for you in this life.

[_Navid_]

^ A more respectful comment would be nice!

[SinaOlyaei]

That will probably only happen if we prepared well, which will never happen unless those mullahs leave the country.