Filed under: Soccer
It is easy to understand why so many among us who comprise the United States feel like they have a birthright to at least direct, if not actually control, the rest of the world. As the sun started setting on the British Empire late in the first half of the last century, America assumed that throne through its own version of hook, crook and ingenuity.But America's days as the undisputed worldwide leader have been in a countdown for some time now. To be sure, a group in our nation's capital that is as important as its name suggests -- the National Intelligence Council -- predicted five years ago that America's dominance over the rest of the world would end by 2020. That would be two years before Qatar hosts the Middle East's first World Cup.
FIFA, the international soccer governing body, didn't act with audacity on Thursday when its executive committee chose the tiny and oil-rich Persian Gulf country over the U.S., in particular -- as well as Australia, Japan and South Korea -- to host the 2022 World Cup. FIFA continued its refreshing recognition of the changing world we all live in.
"This is new land," FIFA boss Sepp Blatter pronounced upon announcing the selection. "Never has a World Cup gone to the east of Europe, never to the Middle East. And Arabia has been waiting."
It has been waiting just like the African continent, where FIFA awarded last summer's World Cup to South Africa - also a first for a predominantly black country -- and watched it come off without one of the hitches so many predicted would doom it. It has been waiting just like the countries that made up the former Soviet Union, including Russia, which FIFA on Thursday gave the 2018 World Cup.
What FIFA did was affirm the diversity of the increasingly smaller world in which we all live. In particular, the diversity it embraced was the dominant religious culture of Islam that so many in the West have demonized because of the involvement of Muslim men in carrying out the horrific event of 9/11.
Derek Jeter Kyle Busch Dario Franchitti Ron Hornaday Tony Schumacher
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