Montero, sober fans in Qatar and the World Cup

A big day for football news, first the local story. Sounders signed Fredy Montero as the club’s third designated player yesterday. There is no transparency on the contract, but if they have signed him as a designated player then we must assume he is in the long term plans of the team. This is good news for the side, ownership, Fredy and the fans.

It shows they are not afraid to spend money on the right young players and are adopting a notably different strategy to the other two sides with three designated players signed. LA and New York signed big name players who are mostly on the downside of their career (Landon Donovan excepted) and seem to be aimed at driving ticket sales. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea.

Seattle has a slightly different approach. Montero is only 23 and joins Alvaro Fernandez and Blaise Nkufo as designated players. Nkufo is a little older and a solid experienced player, but like Montero, Fernandez is an exciting young player with huge upside and are the sort of players that a team build arA big day for football news, first the local story. Sounders signed Fredy Montero as the club’s third designated player yesterday. There is no transparency on the contract, but if they have signed him as a designated player then we must assume he is in the long term plans of the team. This is good news for the side, ownership, Fredy and the fans.

It shows they are not afraid to spend money on the right young players and are adopting a notably different strategy to the other two sides with three designated players signed. LA and New York signed big name players who are mostly on the downside of their career (Landon Donovan excepted) and seem to be aimed at driving ticket sales. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea for the league, I just like Seattles model better for the long term.

Seattle has a slightly different approach. Montero is only 23 and joins Alvaro Fernandez and Blaise Nkufo as designated players. Nkufo is a little older and a solid experienced player, but like Montero, Fernandez is an exciting young player with huge upside and are the sort of players that a team build around and can be competitive year after year.

Real Salt Lake has done the same thing by signing Álvaro Saborío as a DP. He’s a younger (28 in his case) player that’s proven he can score and after scoring 12 times in 27 league games last year, like Fredy Montero deserves the money and recognition that comes with the DP tag.

I think this is a great move for the Sounders, a young, proven scorer who is going to be here for a while, allied with a creative midfielder with some good speed and a big tough target man up front. Next on my Christmas wish list is to keep the Zakuani here for another year or two.

This is a team that today took a step forward.

The second big news today was the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. They went to Russia and Qatar respectively. The decision process largely takes place behind closed doors. Some time ago the head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, made it clear who he wanted these world cups to go to, and by a strange coincidence, he got what he wanted.

There are two ways of looking at what happened this morning. Either it was a bold decision based on developing the game worldwide. Or the decision was made months ago and the technical reports, lobbying and presentations were just for show.

Both Qatar and Russia scored rather poorly in the technical evaluations. Qatar got marked down for having to build nearly everything, questionable facilities for training and the heat. The stadiums are planned to be air conditioned, but the training grounds are not.

Qatar had some nice touches to the legacy of the event; some of the stadiums will be taken apart and donated to the developing world. A very interesting concept, but does it make up for the 105 degree weather?

Russia had some similar issues around infrastructure, there is a lot of building to be done and the distances are listed as a potentially huge issue for both fans and teams.

Blatter leaves a huge legacy from his time as FIFA president in developing the game world wide. He wanted a tournament in Africa and with the local organizing committee put together a great tournament last summer. He wanted the same for South America and has that in Brazil in 2014. Once he got that part of the wish list sorted he abandoned the “rotation” system for giving out World cups.

Giving the tournaments to Russia and Qatar is big step in the world wide development of the game. However you get the feeling that it was all sorted some time ago and today was just the FIFA committee rubber stamping the bosses decisions.

There were clearly technically better bids than these two and a in the last few weeks two committee members have been barred form taking part after a bribery scandal.

It’s difficult to have a lot of faith in FIFA right now, there needs to be some accountability and transparency in the process of handing out arguably the biggest prize in sports. At the end of the day it’s 22 men sitting in a room and surrounded by controversy deciding this behind closed doors with little accountability. I think the game deserves better at the top.

Real Salt Lake has done the same thing by signing Álvaro Saborío as a DP. He’s a younger (28 in his case) player that’s proven he can score and after scoring 12 times in 27 league games last year, like Fredy Montero deserves the money and recognition that comes with the DP tag.

I think this is a great move for the Sounders, a young, proven scorer who is going to be here for a while, allied with a creative midfielder with some good speed and a big tough target man up front. Next on my Christmas wish list is to keep the Zakuani here for another year or two.

This is a team that today took a step forward.

The second big news today was the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. They went to Russia and Qatar respectively. The decision process largely takes place behind closed doors. Some time ago the head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, made it clear who he wanted these world cups to go to, and by a strange coincidence, he got what he wanted.

There are two ways of looking at what happened this morning. Either it was a bold decision based on developing the game worldwide. Or the decision was made months ago and the technical reports, lobbying and presentations were just for show.

Both Qatar and Russia scored rather poorly in the technical evaluations. Qatar got marked down for having to build nearly everything, questionable facilities for training and the heat. The stadiums are planned to be air conditioned, but the training grounds are not.

Qatar had some nice touches to the legacy of the event; some of the stadiums will be taken apart and donated to the developing world. A very interesting concept, but does it make up for the 105 degree weather? One last thing about Qatar, in places like England and Germany having a drink is part of the football culture. While Qatar is not totally dry, it’s difficult to get a casual drink and there is absolutely no alcohol outside the big hotel bars. It would be interesting to see what 25,000 sober England fans look like, let alone a dry Tartan Army should Scotland make it.

Russia had some similar issues around infrastructure, there is a lot of building to be done and the distances are listed as a potentially huge issue for both fans and teams.

Blatter leaves a huge legacy from his time as FIFA president in developing the game world wide. He wanted a tournament in Africa and with the local organizing committee put together a great tournament last summer. He wanted the same for South America and has that in Brazil in 2014. Once he got that part of the wish list sorted he abandoned the “rotation” system for giving out World cups.

Giving the tournaments to Russia and Qatar is big step in the world wide development of the game. However you get the feeling that it was all sorted some time ago and today was just the FIFA committee rubber stamping the bosses decisions.

There were clearly technically better bids than these two and a in the last few weeks two committee members have been barred form taking part after a bribery scandal.

It’s difficult to have a lot of faith in FIFA right now, there needs to be some accountability and transparency in the process of handing out arguably the biggest prize in sports. At the end of the day it’s 22 men sitting in a room and surrounded by controversy deciding this behind closed doors with little accountability. I think the game deserves better at the top.