The Times a'changing

Ah, the Times.  Both the Sunday Times of London and The New York Times printed scandalous stories over the weekend.

The former details the hardly surprising way the tiny but rich nation of Qatar was able to secure the 2022 World Cup.  Curiously, the PTW (price-to-win) was very low at just £3 million ($5 million USD) which suggests a lot of countries could get the World Cup if they really wanted to.  And considering the complaints of playing in "just" 90 degree heat in Chicago, summer soccer in Qatar may have had to be a midnight affair.  I guess we'll have to wait on how Russia somehow secured 2018 at a later date.  Maybe the World Cup will be coming to the USA sooner than we thought.

The latter story talks about how easy it could be to fix some of the professional soccer matches (not just who wins or loses, but on influencing betting) and details that 680 matches from 2008 to 2011 were "suspicious".  Of course in the MLS, it's just bad refereeing.  Hopefully, the World Cup will got without a hint of scandal as most of the oddities occur at lower-levels or "tournaments" where for some reason, betting is prominent.