PPH World Cup Betting -- Brazil, FIFA Hoping to Avoid Embarrassment
The FIFA World Cup begins on Thursday, as host nation Brazil tackles Croatia. The Brazilians are -350 favorites for all the PPH sportsbook bettors at WagerHome.com, with Croatia priced at +900 (the draw is +380). It's a nice "tune-up" for the rest of the tourney for the team that is listed as the +210 overall favorite in World Cup futures betting.
Are you planning on going to the opening game? Leave early, and be flexible. More on that in a minute.
Things will be kicking off (literally) amid an atmosphere of controversy, because of suspicions that have been raised about the recent award of future World Cups to Russia and Qatar. The Qatar World Cup (for 2022) is considered the most curious, in the sense that it has been alleged that Mohammed Bin Hammam, who was head of the Asian Football Confederation and survived a ban that was imposed on him by the FIFA Ethics Committee in 2011, for allegedly offering bribes in his campaign to become FIFA president, may have gotten involved where he shouldn't have been.
The Sunday Times in London recently ran a story that includes evidence Bin Hammam may have offered "incentives" to heads of various world football associations in support of Qatar's World Cup bid. Well, five million dollars worth of incentives. Qatar denies that Bin Hammam has had any role, directly or indirectly, with the bid they have put together. But that is not sounding all that plausible right now, and there is talk that the bid from Qatar (which has a lot of oil money) is going to be reviewed.
Okay, we've covered "news to know" for PPH soccer bettors on the worldwide end. As far as the local confusion is concerned, well, the subway workers in Sao Paulo, where the World Cup opener is being played, have done their level best to contribute to it by striking, and that will have the effect of crippling the city at its most critical time.
As WagerHome.com customers are undoubtedly aware, there are going to be thousands of fans riding the Metro to that first game - 24,000, it is estimated - and this just creates a lot of confusion the country doesn't need before one of its most important events on an international scale.
The word that came out of the country as of Monday was that there would be a suspension of the strike, then a move Wednesday among union leaders on how to proceed. Of course, if they vote to vacate their jobs again, they are not going to leave a lot of time for alternate plans to be made.
And you can add chaos in other World Cup host cities to the circus. Salvador and Rio de Janeiro have to deal with strikes by bus drivers. There are yet other cities that have had their share of problems with labor. Because the workers figure they have leverage, anything can happen at any time.
Quite obviously this is not the kind of face the powers-that-be in Brazil want to put on for the rest of the world, and there is no way to mask the unrest, since the whole world is watching.
And you guys are complaining about Qatar?
Let's go back to the field for a minute.
Here is the rundown on the World Cup betting favorites at WagerHome.com to WIN out of the eight groups that will get things started, before we move to the elimination phase:
Group A - Brazil (-600)
Group B - Spain (-160)
Group C - Colombia (-150)
Group D - Italy (+120)
Group E - France (-160)
Group F - Argentina (-700)
Group G - Germany (-200)
Group H - Belgium (-180)
By the way, Neymar, from the host country, and Lionel Messi, from Argentina, are the favorites to take top individual honors when all is said and done. Messi is +600 to be the top goal scorer (Neymar is +900), while the two are both +550 at WagerHome to capture the Golden Ball, which is awarded to the top player overall in the tournament.
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