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FIFA Doesn't Like Freedom

Here are some well-respected measures of political, press, and economic freedom of the recent and scheduled World Cup hosts, as well as the other competitors for 2018 and 2022. The measures I'm using are the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders, Freedom in the World by Freedom House, the Democracy Index from the Economist, and the Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Foundation. They use different scales, so I've color coded them in a general green-is-good, red-is-bad spectrum (with apologies to the colorblind). In multi-nation bids, I averaged them.

World Cup Hosts
Year Nation PFI FIW DI IEF
2006 Germany 4.25 1 8.82 71.1
2010 South Africa 12.00 2 7.91 62.8
2014 Brazil 16.60 2 7.38 55.6
2018 Russia 49.9 5.5 4.48 50.3
2022 Qatar 38.0 5.5 2.92 69.0
 
Other Candidates
Year Nation PFI FIW DI IEF
2018 England 6.00 1 8.15 76.5
2018 Belgium/Netherlands 2.00 1 8.81 72.6
2018 Spain/Portugal 12.31 1 8.25 67.0
2022 United States 6.75 1 8.22 78.0
2022 Australia 5.38 1 9.09 82.6
2022 Japan 2.50 1.5 8.25 72.9
2022 South Korea 13.33 1.5 8.01 69.9

In both cases FIFA selected what was, by far, the most autocratic and oppressive nation available.

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