In five years time we won't be getting excited for the World Cup just yet because the 2022 edition of the tournament will be played in November and December. But it should have been held in Japan for just one reason, projected matches!
There wasn't a lot of happy faces in the crowd when Russia bagged the hosting of the 2018 World Cup and even fewer when Qatar was awarded the 2022 version just a short time later.
Next year's competition being held in Eastern Europe particularly didn't go down well in England with the hosts of the 1966 World Cup assuming that they'd once again be holding football's biggest event.
Blatter didn't act
However the 2022 situation was the big farce with Qatar, a country with no footballing history and an average July temperature of 41 celsius, beat Australia, USA and Japan, countries with a growing football audience, to the hosting rights.
And a report by CNN in 2010 proves exactly why it should have been Japan who got the opportunity to host the competition, other than the ridiculous weather of course.
The Japanese wanted to be able to broadcast games in stadiums around the world by projecting the match onto the pitches as holograms, think Star Wars only Ronaldo vs Messi instead of Jedi vs Sith.
Don't sit down lads, there's football to watch. Image: Star Wars
Imagine watching an England match at Wembley that was actually happening thousands of miles away in Japan but all the action was happening on the pitch, weird as hell. Although the atmosphere would be amazing, after getting over the weirdness of course.
And in fact forget Wembley, imagine it at Gigg Lane or Kingsmeadow or the like.
Whilst the holograms is by far and away our favourite use of technology that the 'Land of the Rising Sun' wanted to introduce it's certainly not the only one.
During games they hoped to use 200 HD cameras that would use 'freeview point', allowing fans to watch the action from the view of a player, the kind of first person views usually saved for Alex Hunter.
Also in the plans for the World Cup was the possibility for fans in the grounds to wear in-ear computerised translators to talk to fans from other countries. Babel Fish come to life.
At the time of the bids in 2010 no one knew if Japan actually could have followed up on the weird and wonderful promises and that might well have gone against them.
Instead of watching holograms in stadia near us we'll be watching the World Cup in December in a country that has no footballing heritage that no one believes won the bid fairly.
Damn you FIFA, damn you!
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football, Qatar 2022, World Cup, Japan