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Title details for The Ugly Game by Heidi Blake - Available

The Ugly Game

The Corruption of FIFA and the Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup

by Heidi Blake
Jonathan Calvert
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
"The book that reminds you exactly what's wrong with FIFA" (Esquire UK): This meticulously reported account by two award-winning, investigative journalists at Britain's The Sunday Times explains how the 2022 World Cup was secured for Qatar—a key element in the ongoing, international FIFA controversy.
When the tiny desert state of Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with shock and disbelief. How had a country with almost no soccer infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk, and searing summer temperatures, beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success soon developed into a global news sensation.

In 2014 The Sunday Times Insight team in the UK spilled the secrets of a bombshell cache of hundreds of millions of secret documents, which were leaked by a whistleblower. In forensic detail, they reported how Mohamed Bin Hammam, Qatar's top soccer official, used his position to help secure the votes that Qatar needed to win the bid. The investigative team spent three months painstakingly piecing together Bin Hammam's activities and reporting on cash handouts, lavish junkets, and evidence of payments to soccer officials around the world.

Now in this remarkable book by The Sunday Times journalists at the center of the investigation, Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, comes a comprehensive account of what happened and who was involved. A bestseller in the UK, The Ugly Game is undoubtedly the biggest sporting story of recent times.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 18, 2015

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781501131509
      • File size: 12036 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781501131509
      • File size: 12042 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      October 1, 2015

      In 2010, FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a small, oil-rich nation with no soccer stadiums or soccer history--a decision that shocked sports fans. Rumors and accusations of bribery and enormous payoffs flew throughout soccer, and all signs pointed to corruption at the highest levels of FIFA. Iron-fisted president Joseph "Sepp" Blatter naturally denied any wrongdoing but when two members of the London-based Sunday Times insight team gained access to millions of FIFA documents, the ugly truth came out--the organizataion and its officials were guilty of the worst kind of corruption. Under the byline of coauthors Blake and Calvert, the Times began publishing the sad story in June 2014. In a narrative that at times reads like a spy novel, the authors lay out the entire scheme, focusing on Qatari billionaire Mohammed bin Hammam, the supreme fixer behind the sweeping scandal. VERDICT Although its vast litany of names creates confusion on occasion, this complex account of corruption is precisely detailed. Soccer's shame is the reader's gain as Blake and Calvert write an engrossing expose.--Boyd Childress, formerly with Auburn Univ. Libs., AL

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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