Qatar Makes It Rain On FC Barcelona

Two weeks ago, the tiny nation of Qatar took the soccer world by storm with its host selection for the 2022 World Cup. The country’s proposal included financial investments in infrastructure that put its bidding committee in quite a class of its own.

Now the oil rich nation seems to be still hungry and on another soccer spending binge. This week a Qatar “foundation” was able to buy what many thought was the untouchable-the front of Barca’s shirt. The club was a lone outlier in not selling its most coveted piece of real estate. When other clubs took the cash, Barca went in the opposite direction and gave away cash to UNICEF for use of the organization’s name.

Barca had embodied it’s tag line of “more than just a club.” Now, the storied club may just become another impulse by for national investors that would to blow off steam, spend some cash and turn the global soccer community on its ear.

A Winter 2022 World Cup In Qatar? Beckenbaur Proposes Alternatives

According to Goal.com,"Franz Beckenbauer has confessed that he would like to see World Cup 2022, which has been awarded to Qatar, staged in January and February.

Concerns have been raised from several quarters about the intense summer heat of the Arab state, and the former Bayern Munich and Germany star has echoed those suggesting that one way around the problem would be to play the competition in the winter.

“We should think about a solution in January and February. There will be pleasant temperatures around 25°C,” the member of Fifa’s executive committee explained to Bild on Saturday morning. “Why would it not be? The calendars of the major European leagues should be changed in 2022. It would not have too great an impact and would represent an alternative to the enormous expense of providing cool spaces and stadiums for fans.”

Beckenbauer also expressed his surprise that Australia was eliminated in the first round of bidding for the competition, a sentiment he echoed with regard to England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup, which was ultimately handed to Russia."

In other Beckenbaur news, the German legend has announced that he will be stepping down from his FIFA Executive committee post in March. He cites personal reasons fo his departured. German football federation chief, Theo Zwanziger is going to run for the post.