The Ugly Game
The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup
Published on 11. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
496 pages
978-1-4711-4937-5 (ISBN)
Description
THE STORY THAT BROUGHT DOWN FIFA'S SEPP BLATTER.
'With every page of this book, we see just why FIFA desperately needs a complete overhaul' - Sun
When FIFA awarded the tiny desert state of Qatar the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with disbelief and allegations of corruption. How had a country with almost no football infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk and searing summer temperatures of 50C beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success soon developed into one of the greatest sporting scandals of our time.
And when the Sunday Times Insight team received a cache of hundreds of millions of documents from a whistleblower, the contents of the FIFA Files became a global sensation, unearthing the corruption that lay at the heart of the bidding process.
Now in this remarkable new book by the Sunday Times journalists at the centre of the investigation, Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, comes the most comprehensive account yet of what happened and who was involved. Above all, it explains why, despite all the evidence, FIFA continues to support Qatar - even to the extent of publishing an edited and abbreviated report into the process that was immediately denounced by its original author. Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Ugly Game is undoubtedly the biggest sporting story of our times.
'Never before has bribe-giving been documented in such graphic detail' - Independent
'With every page of this book, we see just why FIFA desperately needs a complete overhaul' - Sun
When FIFA awarded the tiny desert state of Qatar the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with disbelief and allegations of corruption. How had a country with almost no football infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk and searing summer temperatures of 50C beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success soon developed into one of the greatest sporting scandals of our time.
And when the Sunday Times Insight team received a cache of hundreds of millions of documents from a whistleblower, the contents of the FIFA Files became a global sensation, unearthing the corruption that lay at the heart of the bidding process.
Now in this remarkable new book by the Sunday Times journalists at the centre of the investigation, Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, comes the most comprehensive account yet of what happened and who was involved. Above all, it explains why, despite all the evidence, FIFA continues to support Qatar - even to the extent of publishing an edited and abbreviated report into the process that was immediately denounced by its original author. Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Ugly Game is undoubtedly the biggest sporting story of our times.
'Never before has bribe-giving been documented in such graphic detail' - Independent
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
8pp colour photos
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 130 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4711-4937-5 (9781471149375)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2015
1st Edition
Simon + Schuster LLC
€7.73
Available for download
Persons
Heidi Blake is a multi-award-winning investigative journalist. She was assistant editor of the Sunday Times, attached to the Insight team, until spring 2015 when she became BuzzFeed's UK investigations editor. Jonathan Calvert has worked for various newspapers in a long and distinguished career as an investigative journalist. He is the longest-serving editor of the Insight team at the Sunday Times, having held the role for more than ten years.