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Heidi Blake

The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup Hardcover – 23 April 2015

by Heidi Blake (Author), Jonathan Calvert (Author)

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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 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.
Allegations of corruption were soon flying, 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 heart 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. The Ugly Game is undoubtedly the biggest sporting story of the year.

Print length

480 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date

23 April 2015
Dimensions

15.29 x 23.39 cm
ISBN-10

147114934X
ISBN-13

978-1471149344
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Product description

Review

'I would also like to pay tribute to the Insight Team at The Sunday Times without whose investigations, many of these allegations may never have come to light' --John Whittingdale, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport

'Allegations of shady dealings have long swirled round FIFA...never before has bribe-giving been documented in such graphic detail.' Independent

'[The Ugly Game] offers the most comprehensive account of the affair to date, and asks why Blatter continues to support Qatar despite all the evidence against the desert state.' --Radio Times

'There's an urgency about the storytelling as the authors manage to extract excruciating tension from the unpromising materials available to them' The Secret Footballer

'An explosive account of the biggest World Cup heist since the trophy was nicked in the 1960s' SPORT

'Truly stunning journalism' FOUR FOUR TWO

'With Sepp Blatter under criminal investigation, this tale of how Qatar bagged the 2022 World Cup is a timely football horror story. At times it is hard to believe how corrupt and dirty football's global leaders were. With every page of this book, we see just why Fifa desperately needs a complete overhaul' --The Sun

About the Author

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster UK; UK ed. edition (23 April 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 147114934X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1471149344
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.29 x 23.39 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 647,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 252 in FIFA
- 552 in Football Fans
- 3,397 in Football Clubs

Customer reviews:
224 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

224 global ratings

5 star		61%
4 star		25%
3 star		10%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Amazon Customer

A must read if you are interested in the mess that is FIFA

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 1 July 2015

Verified Purchase

This book was written by two members of the Sunday Times insight team, who have clearly spent years and thousands of hours trawling through all the data that they have managed to obtain from secret sources. Quite clearly shows the amount of money that is available in the murky world of professional football and the lengths that countries will go to to obtain the world cup.

The book is well written, gives plenty of background and leads a coherant path through what must have been millions of files and data, to show what Bin Hamman did to obtain the world cup for Qatar. I almost felt I knew the key players in the book after reading it and it would have been easy to write a book that was so full of detail that the key events would have been lost. Credit to the journalistic skills of the reports.

The corrupt world of FIFA was hardly a surprise to me, after reading both Foul! and Omerta by Andrew Jennings and How they Stole the World Cup by David Yallop. The root causes of the rot in FIFA are clearly shown by these other three books and urge any readers of the Ugly Game to read the other books. Luckily, it seems FIFA has a chance to redeem itself - sadly, as this book shows, even the probable new President (Platini) is just as tarred by the Qatar world cup vote has everyone else on the ex-co committee.

If sanity prevails and the world cup is taken away from Qatar, it will be in no small part, the result of this brilliant investigation.

One person found this helpful

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Hugh Ramsey

enlightening

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 May 2022

Verified Purchase

Most knew how corrupt FIFA were, but this book really reveals how corrupt they really were, and how blasé some of the hierarchy were about it.

One person found this helpful

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EP

An amazing book!!!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 May 2022

Verified Purchase

I’m not a football fan but this expose of alleged corruption within an world wide organisation is just staggering!

One person found this helpful

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Mike C

Money has totally ruined modern football

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 June 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a well researched book on how massive amounts of money changed hands to guarantee Qatar received FIFA approval to hold the 2022 World Cup. How FIFA President Sepp Blatter can say he never knew anything about massive bungs to third world countries to ensure the necessary votes defies belief. If he didn't then he has been incredibly naive and totally incompetent

A thoroughly good read. Quite disturbing though. There is corruption throughout football. So many powerful people involved with the game regard it as a glorious money opportunity to be siphoned off as much as is humanly possible, before the well goes dry.

It seems impossible to think FIFA will ever be able to regain the confidence of the majority of football fans. Football is becoming dodgy. I now look at a diabolical refereeing decision, or a strange football result, and wonder if money has been involved and a particular match has been rigged

3 people found this helpful

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Keith Buckley

Interesting information, poorly presented.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 September 2015

Verified Purchase

Strange book but worth a read. Sure there's a lot of information in here; some of it will undoubtedly be tied to corruption, but some may not be, it's not always easy to distinguish the two.
Personally I don't much like how the book is written. It comes across most of the time as being written as a fictional story. I don't understand the need for that?
In the end, there's enough here to expose the workings of FIFA. Sadly, it's just the way the world works whether it be FIFA, government politics or corporate business. If there's money and humans involved, you can bet there will be greed and corruption!
Sadly knowing all this doesn't change the fact that there's not a damn thing you can do about it!

One person found this helpful

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D. T. Andrew

Absolutely nessecary reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 5 July 2015

Verified Purchase

Absolutely nessacary reading for anyone wishing to be fully informed on the background of the current FIFA crisis and it's future repercussions. Grippingly written and exciting to read. I read this before the current spate of mass arrests of FIFA officials and breathed a sigh if relief when they finally were. Although, as this book highlights, there are many more arrests that should be made. To read this book makes you sad that football has been hijacked in this way by self serving megalomaniacs but reassured that great journalists and investigators are out there to bring them down. Qatar MUST NOT hold the 2022 World Cup.

One person found this helpful

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David Triesman

This is a compelling read and takes you through a ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 24 September 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a compelling read and takes you through a wealth of detail without tedium. I was surprised at some gaps. Qatar was represented at some cost by a very accomplished UK public affairs firm who you'd see at all the key meetings and who gave evidence to the Parliamentary Stnding Committee. Yet they don't merit a single mention. Nonetheless, a very thorough insight.

4 people found this helpful

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maglaw

as most of us who love football do

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 31 July 2015

Verified Purchase

Even knowing as much as I already did about the disgrace that is FIFA....as most of us who love football do.....this book was a revelation. The journalists who committed themselves to this investigation have done billions of fans worldwide an immense service. Read it and be angry!
If you're not a football fan read it because it is an impeccably researched, beautifully written expose of a shadowy world..as gripping as a thriller and as satisfying as only the best journalism can be. Thankyou to both of you!

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The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup Hardcover – 23 April 2015

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