what beats me is why there are so few people voting even then and many of them come from tinpot footballing countries like Guatemala!

Agreed. Surely every country should get a vote! It really is like the RFL. You can play the game but you can't have a say in how we run it.

I blame the FA for sending in David Cameron to screw it up at the final hurdle

I blame the FA for organising the bid! lol

I can understand the annoyance with FIFA but in terms of who will benefit it'll be the Russian economy , just as the UK economy would have benefited.

Unfortunatly we can't hold the morale high ground to any country about Yob violence (cup final or otherwise).

Most of us have never witnessed the WC live in this country and we invented the game. We had everything in place now, ready to go. We would have put on one hell of a show too, as we have proved already with Euro 96.
I think it was just another chance for the little ones to give England a bloody nose, along with the nudge nudge wink wink favours for votes. How can a footballing nation with biggest league in the world, that invented the game, and is the most watched comp, together with a widely recognised as the best commercial/techinical bids get just 1 vote plus our own?
I blame Thatch!!!

Well I did see a World Cup played in England albeit on the TV way back you know when.

Seems to me Cameron turning up in Zurich and memories of Thatcher would have turned off a lot of the voters.

It does surprise me though that it has gone to Russia and then that tiny Arab country the time after.

I have decided not to go to either tournament in protest and if I am still alive when the games are played I shall go to a pub with no TV.

What you going to do this coming season if we draw Crusaders or the Scorpions in the Challenge Cup ?

Let someone else drive me there - But then again .....

It's getting like the " Eurovision Song Contest!"

I expect the votes have been bought to be honest and I say that as a realist not a footie fan.

OK Russia has a large population but Qatar why would anyone want to go there when it has an average daily temperature of 45c when games would be played ? I would not go if I was a player never mind a fan of that game.

I`d have liked us to have got the WC but FIFA make the RFL the most sensible governing body. IMO the allocating of the WC is flawed to say the least and totally corrupt at best. I hope we as England never apply again and let the tools at FIFA go about their business with such sincerity.

I think the 2022 decision has shown it up as a farce even more than the Russian decision.

There were 5 options.

3 of them (usa, korea, japan) have hosted (or co-hosted) one of the last 5 world cups. No way should they have another one so soon.

Qatar.... they don't even have a pro league, the population doesn't care about football, their national team is awful, its a desert, they have yet to build 9 of the stadiums, 10 of which will be in the same city!! The weather and heat is a massive negative and the country is under sharia law with very strict alcohol laws etc etc which will put off visiting fans. The population (and country) is tiny so attendances will probably be poor.

And then austalia, growing football interest, structures in place, decent team, sporting nation and loads of other benefits.

You would expect australlia to get the bid EASILY surely?

No... they got ONE vote out of 22! ONE!!!

It is so obvious that something dodgy has gone on that it is almost laughable