Alan Brazil: It’s time to scrap Russia and Qatar World Cups

THE World Cup is football’s sacred cow.

Whatever has happened in the game over the years, whatever disgraces have arisen, the tournament has stood apart.

But now, 85 years after its birth, the time has come we must bring it to slaughter.

Forget Russia 2018. Forget Qatar 2022. They should both be scrapped.

Here in the midst of the most sickening corruption scandal football has ever seen, there is no other option.

I don’t care that Russia has started building stadiums. I don’t care that Qatar has done the same.

The bidding process for both tournaments stank and the air needs to be cleared.

From a fans’ perspective, the World Cup is fantastic. But for FIFA, it hasn’t been about the fans for years.

On suspended President Sepp Blatter’s watch, the World Cup has become a money-making scheme first and foremost and plenty have profited who shouldn’t have.

That certainly seems to be the view of both the US and Swiss attorney generals’ offices, neither of whom tend to waste time jetting around the world making frivolous arrests.

Some of the allegations levelled at senior FIFA figures including Blatter himself are absolutely disgraceful.

Even if only half of them are proven, the scale of financial wrongdoing perpetrated by football’s rulers would still be staggering.

We’re not talking about brown envelopes and backhanders here. It’s nowhere near that simple.

The next two World Cups will earn FIFA BILLIONS of pounds revenue. But where will it go? Whose pockets will it line?

The commercial income, the sponsorship cash, the infrastructure costs, the tie-ins, the TV rights, the wining and dining, the schmoozing. It all adds up and it all goes somewhere.

But where? Who collects? And for whom?

Until those questions have been answered, the Russia and Qatar tournaments should BOTH be put on bricks.

Some will say that’s drastic, but it’s the right thing to do.

Actually, if there’s even the remotest possibility that the sort of crooks FIFA has harboured and empowered of late will profit, it’s the ONLY thing to do.

FIFA needs to be investigated from top to bottom then it needs root-and-branch reform.

Blatter and his ilk must be hammered out of the game forever. The culture of cronyism and corruption he fostered must be killed off, and somebody squeaky-clean must be brought in to run things properly.

Never mind a businessman, never mind a football man FIFA requires a STATESMAN.

We don’t need a Donald Trump or a Lord Sugar, we need a Kofi Annan or a Barack Obama.

Transparency and accountability should be the watchwords. Secrecy and insincerity can get lost.

Football deserves better than it has gotten from its governors up to now. Lord knows the fans deserve better too.

So until the full story behind Russia and Qatar’s World Cup bids emerges, and until it can be shown that football’s top table has been cleared of crooks, not a single ball should be kicked in qualifying.

If the football dries up, so does the money and that’s the only language these people understand.Read more from Alan Brazil – click here