The Ugly Game

The Ugly Game investigates Qatar's controversial bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Based on a cache of leaked documents and extensive reporting, journalists Blake and Calvert trace the strategies used by Qatar's bid committee to secure votes from FIFA officials. The authors document the money trails, secret meetings, and backroom dealings that surrounded Qatar's World Cup campaign. Through interviews and document analysis, they reconstruct key events and identify the major players involved in the bidding process. The book maps the intersection of global soccer, politics, and billions in development contracts that shaped the 2022 World Cup decision. From Doha to Zurich, the narrative follows an international network of influence that reached the highest levels of the sport. This investigation raises fundamental questions about corruption in international sports governance and the price of global sporting prestige. The text serves as both a warning about institutional failures and a call for reform in how major sporting events are awarded.

Readers praised the detailed investigative reporting and documentation of corruption in FIFA's 2022 World Cup bid process. Many noted the book reads like a thriller despite covering complex financial and political dealings. Multiple reviews highlighted the authors' ability to make technical material accessible. Common criticisms included that the dense information and large cast of characters made the narrative hard to follow at times. Some readers felt the writing became repetitive in later chapters. "Meticulous research but could have been more concise" was a recurring theme in reviews. Ratings: Goodreads: 3.95/5 (231 ratings) Amazon: 4.3/5 (57 ratings) From a Goodreads reviewer: "The level of corruption exposed is staggering, but the book gets bogged down in details about wire transfers and shell companies." From an Amazon reviewer: "A comprehensive look at FIFA's dark underbelly, though casual readers may find the financial minutiae overwhelming."

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🏆 The book emerged from a detailed investigation by The Sunday Times Insight team, who spent months gathering evidence about corruption in FIFA's 2022 World Cup bidding process. 🌏 Qatar, which won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, had never qualified for a World Cup tournament before being selected as host, and had only one fully functioning stadium when awarded the event. 📊 The authors uncovered millions of documents, including email correspondence and bank records, revealing a complex network of payments totaling $5 million used to secure votes for Qatar's bid. 🔍 Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert's investigation led to multiple FIFA officials being banned from football and contributed to the eventual resignation of FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2015. 💼 The book details how Mohamed bin Hammam, a Qatari football official, orchestrated the campaign to secure the World Cup bid, though he was later banned from football for life due to corruption charges.