Vincent Vega
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
The relative popularity of the sport has little to do with why Qatar is such a bad idea. The size of the country, the fact that it averages 40 degrees centigrade in June, and the fact that they still have to build most of the stadia they need are much more relevant.
As you may have derived from the rest of my post, I wasn't exactly excited about the choice either. For those very reasons, though given their concept the temperatures may not be of that much concern in the end.
In my view it should have been down to the US or Australia, and between the two of them it should've been Australia. The reason is, while both USA and Australia are almost equal bidders, the US already held one WC whereas Australia didn't.
This summer, when the WC took place in South Africa, we had around 40°C here in Europe. And our venues don't even have cooling systems. As far as I know, such temperatures are not unknown to many parts of the US during that time.