FIFA was facing fresh bribery claims Sunday after a whistle-blower accused two executive members of the international soccer body of striking deals worth $1.5 million for their votes ahead of last week's contest to host the World Cup

Bribes look to be cheap these days

Well, I've narrowed down the pronunciations for Qatar. I can't decide between "catarrh" and "gutter."
Oh, and I see I have a brand-new all time least favorite team. Terrific.
So in the interview/rant I did with Derek's interview I touched briefly on one of the reasons I thought FIFA had two bids at once.

For someone like me who has ties to both England and the United States, the decision by FIFA to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar respectively hurts.

I watched the announcement Thursday morning on BBC World News from my cabin aboard the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship while sailing north west of Cuba on unusually stormy seas.

The most famous tournament in the world brings all together with the same understanding – a festival of football that unites and inspires across all social and racial boundaries...except it's not anymore really is it. It's long been accepted as a multinational company cash cow, whored out to any nation willing to fill its trough for FIFA's officials to snout around in.

On Wednesday, as I sat in the studio with two microphones clipped to my tie and makeup on my face, I was put in the position of acting as a defense witness for the U.S. bid. It was all very good natured, but it revealed some of the biases against, and criticisms of, the effort to bring the 2022 World Cup to America.

It's tempting to claim that bribes, favours, politics and financial opportunity determined the fates of World Cups 2018 and 2022 long before the staged drama of bid presentations yesterday and today.

It's easy to say that Blatter is taking the World Cup to Russia to make money, or that Qatar got the World Cup to build Blatter's legacy.

Ian Wright said in the Sun newspaper on December 3rd: "I would love to see some proper investigations into FIFA rather than this Jennings bloke shouting at people." And Wright has been calling for such investigations for hours, going back to 4pm on December 2nd. Instead of just shouting at people, investigative journalist Andrew Jennings should have delved deep into the workings of FIFA.

Mmmm - look at all these big, juicy grapes! There must be enough for years! I wonder how they taste?
Before we start tossing around suggestions - and there have been some good ones - we need to get on the same page as to what actually happened.
There has been a lot of talk that the technical superiority of the England and the US bids hampered their campaigns.

Russia might have already given up on winning the 2018 World Cup bid if reports emerging from Zurich are anything to go by. When heads of most delegations including figures like heads of governments, royalty, football stars and keen enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting the news. Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin will be sitting pretty in his home where he will be watching the proceedings on television.

I wish this were the US bid's logo, but clearly the Qatari's
must have put more money in Sepp Blatter's bank account.As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I'm indignant (at best) at the selections of both Russia for WC2018 and Qatar for WC2022. Ravi Ubha over at ESPN calls the two picks bizarre, and I couldn't agree more.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Lucky 5 for Barcelona and Dimitar Berbatov, Real Madrid lose the plot and corruption at the heart of FIFA. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast.

Following the disappointment of the United States' failed bid for the 2022 World Cup, I received an e-mail from U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati with the subject line "What We Achieved." Although Sunil and I are tight, I assume a few other U.S. Soccer backers got the same note. With all due respect to the efforts of the U.

Following the disappointment of the United States' failed bid for the 2022 World Cup, I received an e-mail from U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati with the subject line "What We Achieved." Although Sunil and I are tight, I assume a few other U.S. Soccer backers got the same note. With all due respect to the efforts of the U.

There are plenty of things in this old world I know absolutely nothing about. Zilch. Like women's shoes. Or fly fishing. Or macramé.

And bribes. I know diddly-squat about the high-dollar, high-stakes, hifalutin world of bribery.

Why would I? I'm a journalist.

The things you miss if you aren't on Twitter.
Like a respected Newsweek reporter casually dropping a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb, the kind that looks more like a bowling ball with a wick than something that might actually harm anyone, labelled "Qatar World Cup Bribes" into the laps of Twitter's ever-milling soccer writers, bloggers, and fans with not so much as a "how do you do.

Things are getting strange, he's starting to worry We all no doubt took an interest in the BBC's Panorama revelations on World Cup vote bribes earlier at the end of last month. But it now appears that some of us took more of an interest than others. Take Arsene Wenger, for instance. The Arsenal boss [.