Bill Clinton: World Cup Call Is "a Way to Embrace" Middle East

lost to Qatar because FIFA, soccer's governing body, wants to expand the sport's reach across the globe.

"I think they wanted to make soccer a world sport,” the former president said at The Economist magazine's World in 2011 conference kick-off dinner at the Skylight SoHo. “They wanted to say, here's a good non-terrorist, non-bigoted way of embracing -- no really, I'm not trivializing this -- a way to embrace the modernization attempt of the Middle East.”

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/blogs/niteside/NTSD-Clinton-On-Lost-World-Cup-Bid-We-Dont-Have-to-Be-Yesterdays-Country-111249664.html