If It Moves, Kick It is a tumblelog.

Shhhh! Just don’t tell the doofus Luddites

Stefan Fatsis, writing for Slate from South Africa, gets invited to Sunil Gulati’s suite in Johannesburg and goes all sports biz on the prospects of the U.S. getting another World Cup, and is most fascinated by the palace intrigue:

“Does the combination of business and political firepower make the United States a lock? Not by a long shot. In international sports, it’s not always what you do; it’s whom you impress, or promise, or pay. When CONCACAF—the 35-nation soccer federation for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean—met recently, it invited all nine World Cup bidders to make a pitch. When the African federation gathered, its ‘congress’ was sponsored by the bid group from Qatar—which was the only bidder allowed to make a presentation.”