In a country half the size of Wales where homosexuality is illegal, it’s unwise for a man and a woman to shake hands and left-handedness is frowned upon, England are drawn in a group with Iran, USA and either Ukraine, Scotland or, erm, Wales.
I think there is a lot of pressure on England. Their recent performances in tournament football justifiably put them among the favourites. Iran are a lot better than you might think, waltzing through qualification. USA are inconsistent but have bags of talent. The last option is a derby game, and look how they tend to end up, or a match against the entire world’s second favourite team (apart from a handful of countries not there).
I’m too upset with the cost in human misery for the stadiums, the lack of rights in Qatar and the corruption that resulted in their award of the World Cup in the first place, for me to be excited. But, I’m sure, come kick off, my heart will begin to race.
How about you?
Boycott that shit all day long. No interest, other than to see who actually walks the walk on equity and justice after all that talk.
Just to add here, what will actually happen is this: the England team, along with everyone else, will dutifully troop along and offer the kind of purely symbolic, brand-friendly gestures that play well at home without rocking the boat too much with the hosts (Rainbow laces! Press conference reminders that they do not support the bad things! Maybe a trans ball person!), while simultaneously feeding at the trough and granting the Qatari regime the overall PR win they came for. They’ll claim their presence and their activism is improving the local situation, whereas we all know full well that it doesn’t really make a blind bit of difference – just look how holding a World Cup brought Russia in line.
We’ll all be told what great lads they are for “using their platform” and “taking a stand”, unless they go out in the group stages, which is unlikely. Everyone wins.
Anyone with a moral bone in their body wouldn’t get on the plane, and Southgate’s excuses/the whataboutery used to justify the whole shebang are pathetic. Some things in life are just plain wrong, and this is one of them – particularly when you’ve made “social justice” part of your brand.
Don’t forget the viewers who don’t want to be morally inconvenienced by the context and will say they’re “just interested in the football, not the politics”, as if enjoying the one isn’t making a conscious choice to tolerate the other. It’s like going to the coliseum and saying you just enjoy the lions for their own sake, as sport, and the fact that the legs and entrails in the dust actually belong to recently-alive humans is a mere nitpicking detail.
And then they’ll get angry about “virtue signalling” and start whinging about woke snowflakes or something. Bet.
I’m not going to watch the bastard thing, but I don’t want to judge the viewers. The majority of them won’t have spent the last couple of years publicly quacking on about righteousness and standing up for decency, plus I do think life’s a bastard for a lot of folk right now and they’ll take their joy where they can get it.
That excuse doesn’t extend to the FA, the manager, the players or the media though. From the latter, we’ll see endless hand wringing op ed pieces condemning the corruption of the whole enterprise, while they send a fleet of journalists to enjoy the hospitality of the hosts and provide full hour by hour coverage, with ads run against it. 🗑
I don’t mind apathy, it’s hypocrisy I can’t stand.
I’m not quite with you there, though I get what you’re saying. If it weren’t for the viewers, the thing wouldn’t happen, and it’s not like information on Qatar’s slave labour, floggings, repression of women, prosecutions of gay people, etc etc etc et-bloody-cetera is hard to find. They’ve been part of the coverage of the run-up to the WC enough that I’m aware, and normally World Cups pass me by as thoroughly as all other football.
I’m generally not a “blame the public” type, but I don’t think there are that many ways to have missed what this tournament means. Wanting a good time after a couple of rough years is a valid excuse for a lot of stuff; I’m not sure it extends this far.
I try to imagine being in Southgate’s, Kane’s, Sterling’s etc boots and what would I do? It’s not easy but the answer is I’d play. Ultimately it’s not their fault it’s in Qatar, this is all on FIFA.
I imagine Jordan Henderson is really struggling and I could see him refusing to play or at least step outside of the official line with his comments. So I ask the question. What would you do if selected to play for England at the World Cup in Qatar?
Refuse to go and sleep like a baby.
I genuinely don’t consider this a difficult moral question. Go play in stadia built by slaves to lend publicity and gravitas to a regime that locks up homosexuals and tells female FIFA reps raped while attending the planning stages that they should consider marrying their attacker, or miss out on a football tournament. It’s really not that hard. It doesn’t matter who wins this one anyway; it’s thoroughly tainted.
It doesn’t matter that it’s not their fault it’s in Qatar. This is the hand that’s been dealt. And if you don’t go you make it that bit less likely that future tournaments will be held in such places.
It’s really that easy for you? I’m very impressed. I would struggle I’ll admit but actually saying “no, not for me” would be tough. 32 teams , 24 players per squad plus coaches etc say 1000 people and I don’t know any yet that have refused. Maybe it will come nearer the time.
It’s also an easy decision for me. I haven’t watched any World Cup qualifying/tournament games since 2014. Russia was a no-no and this Middle Eastern cesspit a definite no-no.
“Everyone else was doing it” is an excuse we wouldn’t accept from a child. It’s not one we should make for ourselves.
Very well said. If it bothers you not, I’d like to share this whole post with my whatsapp group of old uni friends who are all pretty footie obsessed. (I don’t know their thoughts on Qatar yet.) I’ll attribute it to “a wise and handsome acquaintance”.
Why, thank you, Gar! *simpers*
The thing is with their depth of talent Gareth’s boys could win this. So come December as the tournament reaches its climax any thought about lack of rights, human misery and the corrupt nature of the whole rotten thing will be extinguished under a tsunami of warm lager thrown from English plastic pint pots. That’s the awful beauty of sport, in its exquisite moments it can make you not care about the bigger moral issue but capture you in the drama. God! What badly written flowery pompous nonsense but I hope you get the jist of what I’m trying to say.
The Swedish team was lucky enough to lose their final qualification game on Tuesday, so we’ll be able to boycott the games and feel terribly good about ourselves (at least until the final…)
Same with my dad’s team, Italy. No tarnished medals for us, oh no! 😀
Italy are always ‘my’ team assuming Scotland aren’t there or have been knocked out (which is pretty much the same thing), so I’ll have to come up with another team to support in an offhand fashion.
Your dad’s team is Italy? Cool! Though I hate it when Italy win as I begrudge my friends’ joy. Which is kind of the opposite of schadenfreude, I guess. Do you/he have Italian roots?
Well yes, my dad is Italian, moved to Sweden in his teens after WW2 with his parents who came here to work. Lots of family there still.
My dad was strangely calm about the team not qualifying – he’s always yelling at them for playing badly, so I think he’s quite happy to be able to watch the tournament without getting upset…
It’ll be interesting to see it actually happen. I hope it’s an expensive disaster for Qatar and FIFA. I think it’ll have an art museum-like air of vulgar opulence, like the pristine lobby of a seven star hotel in Dubai. Playing in a perfectly air-conditioned stadium to a silent crowd of mega rich tossers will suck all the joy out the games.
I do hope England win thing though. If we do, then the real proof will be in the next tournament at proper grounds in front of real fans. And if we don’t, it was a farcical non-tournament anyway.
We shouldn’t be taking part. My only interest will be that a nice bloke who went to my kids’ school will probably be a starter for England and for the first time ever Barnsley could have a player at the World Cup. Michal Helik of Poland. We won’t if we lose to Reading tomorrow though, as he’ll leave, along with half the team, when we go down.
I won’t be watching any of the games unless my lad gets into it, which he might, as he got excited as England neared the Euro final. Of course, that day I had to have that talk that every English bloke has to have with his son at some point. “Son”, I said, “there’s something you need to know about England and penalties…”
Viz Top Tip:
Hold off buying those Cross of st George flags, hats and banners until after the early knock out stages by which point they’ll be littering every street in the land
Beautifully put but I think you can do better.
Viz Top Tip:
England footie fans!
Hold off buying those Cross of st George flags, hats and banners until after the early knock out stages by which point they’ll be littering every street in the land
Born in 1965 I was too young for 66 & 70. My formative World Cups in 74 and 78 managed just fine without England. Argentina 78 remains my favourite World Cup. 82, passed me by. 86 Maradona, 90 Gazza. 94 no England again. 98 Beckham and glorious failure. Then arun of tournaments in the 2000’s that tested my national pride to breaking point. God what a dreadful lot they were. Then Allardyce. ALLARDYCE!! Then a new dawn with a genuinely good man in charge. New young players who care about the world and set good examples (mostly). From the pit of The Premier League somehow following 2018 we have a team and manager to be proud of who can actually win in 2022. If you think FIFA can ruin this moment I’ve waited my whole life for by playing the World Cup in Qatar then you are absolutely right.
Has the Allardyce appointment actually turned out to be the best thing for England?
Well he had a 100% record so it’s hard to knock him
I think what I mean is that the best thing is that Gareth Southgate got the job as soon as he did. If any other “safe pair of hands” had been given the job, they would have been there for a few years. I’ve little doubt that whatever had happened, Southgate would be manager by now but we got lucky when Allardyce screwed up.
Couldn’t care less. He lied. I’ll feel some level of justification for paying attention if and only if England win and the team takes the world stage opportunity to say something thoroughly damning about the venue and its vile leadership and their evil, poisonous beliefs.
Where to start? The current set up really needs Harry Kane playing for it to work properly, and he is probably at the peak of his powers right now. This is the best squad we’ve had for decades, maybe ever. I don’t envy Southgate at all. Tremendous pressure to deliver again in a major tournament while being under the media spotlight and maintaining the right level of diplomacy.
The “right level of diplomacy” is to not go.
Best ever? Check out 1966 and 1970. This English team have done well last 2 tournaments, but were pretty much outclassed when they played absolute top quality opposition. The Euros final was very close, but it was total Italian dominance after about 20 minutes (and they haven’t even qualified for the World Cup)
Huge dilemma for players on the fringes of the squad. At what point do you accept you’re not going to make the cut, and pre-empt it by declaring yourself unavailable for selection because your conscience won’t allow you to go?
I did so myself last Thursday, although I’m only on the very, very remote outer fringes of whatever it is we’re talking about.
Qatar is no longer bothered whether you’re planning a moral boycott or will be glued to the coverage. They don’t care because they’ve already achieved what they wanted, as this entertaining article by Barney Ronay in today’s Grauniad points out: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2022/apr/02/why-qatar-is-done-with-saying-sorry-for-human-rights-and-equality-issues
That’ll be convenient for Ronay when he’s writing multiple think pieces a week on the football during the tournament.
I think it’s self evident that the organisers will be unhappy if people don’t watch and players/teams pull out in numbers. It’s also self evident that it’s the single best way to deter FIFA from pulling something like this again.
Frankly, even if it achieved little or nothing it would still remain the right thing to do.
Harsh on Mr Ronay. His point that Oil & Gas rule everything is well made and spot on. I simply these days have no idea where to draw my moral line. Twas easy back in the day – don’t bank with Barclays and don’t eat SA apples.
Now – where to start?
Football was my passion but obscene TV revenues and oil-rich owners have virtually killed that. However, if, by some miracle, Scotland get to Qatar I will no doubt be glued to my TV screen.
I would love to think that when (if) Scotland play Ukraine in the play-offs our lads stand on the halfway line and say “Our goal is there, see how many you can score”. Like any team boycott of Qatar, that ain’t going to happen.
Why all this hand wringing now? Surely the time for countries to say they won’t participate was at the time when the venue was announced.
Exactly.
Have they ever actually said sorry for anything?
It’s a grotesque spectacle and I’d like to see a mass organised boycott by teams and journalists – it could finish FIFA. I don’t really care much for international football anyway – I find the international breaks that now pepper the domestic season an unwelcome irritation. Of course some of the moral issues at play here extend to our own Premier League. David Conn’s superb book Richer than God tore at the very fabric of my lifelong support for MCFC. But the World Cup can do one as far as I’m concerned, and take the Olympics with it on the way out.
I am afraid that a few liberals not watching it on television is hardly going to make the slightest difference to anything, except for ones own conscience. Shame but there it is. The awarding of the tournament to Qatar may be the most corrupt thing that an extremely corrupt organisation ever did.
If Wales win their next (delayed) game they will be there for the first time in my life time. They may have to beat Ukraine to do it which may well make them the most hated team there. There will be other World Cups for the likes of England, there probably won’t be another one for Wales (if they make it)
Spot on, @dai. These Gulf states are perfectly aware of how they are seen by liberals in the West. Work has taken me there a few times and it was abundantly apparent how easily Western cultural bodies (arts, sports) roll over and beg when there’s the chance of some cash from the dishdash.
The vast majority of fans don’t care where the tournament’s being held any more than they care who owns their club and funds the huge transfer fees and players wages. If England do well, then pretty much the whole country will be watching regardless of the morals of the situation.
Incidentally, what a bloated tournament it is now it’s been expanded – but more games equals more money – I think we can all pick the two teams who’ll qualify from each group now without a ball being kicked – and I believe even more teams will be in the 2026 finals.
And every two years after 2026 if certain people at FIFA get their way.
I do feel for the players. Their careers are short, opportunities are more limited than you’d think and World Cup define careers. Calling for individual players to refuse to go is unfair and unrealistic. The FA should have withdrawn as soon as the tournament was given to Qatar but they didn’t and there is zero chance of that happening now.
The tide may turn against dirty money in football but, somehow, I doubt it. At the very least, this world cup, coming as it does after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, is highlighting the sewer that underlies football. Qatar might have hoped it would show off their country in a good light but the opposite seems to be the case. I just wish our political leaders stopped toadying up to hideous regimes simply because they are rich but that’s a wish that will never be realised.
Meanwhile, bring on Iran! 🙁
Maybe just try extending the same excuses you’re making for the players to our political leaders.
Ok.
I do feel for the ministers. Their careers are short, opportunities are more limited than you’d think and elections define careers. Calling for individuals to refuse to have anything to do with Qatar is unfair and unrealistic. The government should decide.
It doesn’t quite work because a minister has greater influence over the government than a footballer over the FA. However, it does highlight why they will do anything to look good come the next election. It gives me a bit of hope that they might do something about energy prices after all.
😀
I would argue that Harry Kane has far greater influence over the FA than most (but not all) cabinet ministers do Boris Johnson, but that’s besides the point.
If our political leaders stop working with hideous regimes there are potentially serious implications for our security, energy supply and economy. It would almost certainly be politically damaging for many of them at an individual level. Realpolitik, and all that.
We often hear politicians use many of the same excuses that emanated from Southgate last week; namely “if we don’t go, someone else will and it’ll all carry on without us anyway”. Everyone has a good reason in their head.
If the PM instructs a minister to do something unconscionable, and the minister does it, where does the moral burden sit. With the PM alone, or with both individuals? Clearly the latter, and a minister is under far greater obligation to follow that instruction than any England player is to follow the FA’s line on this tournament.
Ultimately, we all know it’s wrong that the players will be there. They also know it’s wrong that they’re going to be there. Which is why they’ll lightly protest the very event they’re lucratively attending, and tell us all how it’s important they’re present to spread their message, like those valiant individuals who choose to remain members of the racist country club, bravely changing things for the better by their presence at the side of the pool. Tough work, but someone has to do it.
In normal times, moral discourse is a fundamental part of a politician’s job. They wrestle with ‘issues’ on a daily basis. I think you overestimate Kane’s influence. This England squad have stood shoulder to shoulder to face down blatant racism directed at some of them. That’s a very long way from dealing with an obnoxious national regime.
However, you are quite right. They shouldn’t be there and they shouldn’t have been in Russia. We should all do our bit and, as fans, not watching is probably the best we can do.
👌👌👌
But why draw a line at the World Cup? It’s abhorrent and awful and shouldn’t be happening. Just like the awful stories of murder & rape coming out of Ukraine. And Johnson still lies every single day. And Trump may well get re-elected. And your iPhone is made by a seven year old kid in Bhutan. And and and.
I’m sorry but a bunch of well-meaning liberals refusing to watch footie on telly will mean precisely nowt. Nowt. Might as well send a letter to The Guardian. Either stop your sanctimonious posturing and get off The Grid completely or shrug your shoulders, take care of each other (that’s the most important bit) and hope beyond hope somehow it will all work out ( just don’t hold your breath).
As I’ve said at the very top of the thread: I’m not asking people not to watch it.
What I am asking them to do is to stop making anaemic excuses for watching it. Of which this “get off The Grid” stuff is a fabulous example.
Yes, terrible things happen in the world, and yes people point them out and complain about them. It doesn’t become sanctimonious posturing at the point it causes some discomfort to your sports viewing.
I apologise for and withdraw “sanctimonious posturing”. However, my point remains where/when/how we take our stand. These are truly depressing times and, frankly, whether or not to watch the World Cup is not high on my list of moral dilemmas.
I can’t do much about Ukraine other than support the relief effort, I’ll vote against BoJo the next chance I get and I don’t have an iphone.
The issue that’s hitting me most is that there are people living nearby who, as pencilsqueezer described it, have to clap hands to keep them warm. The World Cup seems an irrelevance in comparison.
In reply to your question, I think it’s pretty clear that the moral burden – and indeed in some cases the criminal burden – applies to both.
So what would it take for the footie-addicts to finally turn away from tournaments like this?
Stonings of homosexuals and beheadings of adulterous women at half-time?
Depends on the score…
You can’t have homosexuals being abused at football matches.
Or any racial discrimination
The late ruler of Oman was a merry lad indeed, it was an open secret in the country. His palace was pink FFS.
The belief that not pressing the “on” switch on their TV would actually make any difference.
It’s not cricket.
The whole thing is morally repugnant of course, but it could be pointed out that at the time of our glorious moment in ’66, good old Blighty wasn’t exactly a beacon of liberal values either with regard to homosexuality, women’s rights, race relations etc., and the death penalty was still a very recent part of our legal infrastructure. In a way, it’s unsurprising that the Qataris have set their collective face against so much Western moralising. I’m not defending them or their grubby World Cup in any way, but there are different perspectives than ours around.
The 78 World Cup was staged for the benefit of a hideous military junta that was busily torturing and disappearing its opponents. It made the England of 1966 look positively enlightened; there were political prisoners being tortured during the tournament close enough to the stadiums that they could hear the crowd noise. Admittedly the tournament was awarded to Argentina prior to the coup.
The difference is that in 1978 (and 1966) footballers were dramatically less politically aware and hadn’t made social justice part of their personal brand. How the hell do you spend two years appearing in ads telling everyone to “stand tall against all forms of discrimination” and then hop on a plane to shill for the Qataris? How do you take a knee week in, week out, and then go play in stadia built by what are pretty much literally slaves by any sensible definition? This is what’s known as having it all ways, and it’s total bullshit.
You don’t have to be a footballer to have such dilemmas. The clothes I wear and the device I am using no-doubt involved the exploitation of people in other parts of the world. The materials we rely on to live comfortably rely on planet-destroying unsustainable plastics and fuels too.
To really, truly stand up and be counted you have to go off-grid to such an extent that you’ll be living alone in the woods, foraging for berries. I’m not prepared to do that, so by the same token, I don’t expect Jack Grealish to sign up for Forest Green Rovers any time soon.
If a footballer uses their position to do good, it’s particularly admirable in my view. Giving them a hard time about it is playing to the vast gallery of unproductive, unimaginative cynics who say things like “yeah, meanwhile….in the REAL world…”.
Well said. As I said above, with so much Wrong out there in the World it’s mighty difficult to know where to take your stand. If Scotland don’t get to Qatar I personally shall refuse to watch.
It’s not remotely the same. You might use a device that involves the exploitation of people somewhere in the world, but (unless I’ve missed something pretty material): (a) you’re not participating in a global publicity event that will hugely and directly benefit the people doing the exploiting; and (b) you haven’t previously publicly decried precisely such exploitation on a regular and high profile basis.
Besides all of which, the above (“we’re all guilty, so how can anyone be expected to act otherwise”) is the precise excuse rolled out nowadays to obviate all moral responsibility for ourselves and those we like (albeit never for those we dislike). To suggest that the opposite of this position is cynicism is mind bending.
The reality is people want to watch the football and they don’t want to have to think too hard about what it means. Which is genuinely fair enough, but it’s better to just say it, in my view.
You say it’s hugely benefitting the people doing the exploiting but I don’t understand how they’re going to benefit.
I assume the income from the World Cup itself won’t pay for the cost of the infrastructure etc (I’ve no idea how they’re going to make use of those gleaming new stadia in the future) so the main thing they have to benefit is the opportunity to show the world that they’re good hosts/people. If most people and teams involved make sure that doesn’t happen then Qatar doesn’t benefit.
It lends them credibility as a location for tourism, business and investment. The intention is that it’ll help them pivot as the oil eventually runs out.
Saudi Arabia have just bought Newcastle and will probably spend the better end of a billion on players as part of the project. They’re not doing so in the expectation that no one will talk about the horrible shit they do – they’ve priced it in. The benefits of sportswashing massively outweigh that cost.
The World Cup is no different; the kind of polite, symbolic protests that will happen at the tournament to provide moral cover won’t come near to changing the intrinsic cost/benefit analysis. And if you don’t think they’re going to benefit then ask yourself why they’re holding the tournament at all, and why countries like this seem so very keen to hold major sporting events.
“The whole thing is morally repugnant of course”
Sounds just like the Olympics.
So, let me get this straight. One shouldn’t go to work in any country where human rights issues exist? Or is it just footballers? Do the UK based staff of Qatar Airways have to resign? If a Qatar National asked me to paint his house, should I refuse?
Why would a Qatari pay you to paint his house when he could just fly a bunch of illiterate labourers in from Pakistan on the promise of what are for them very attractive wages?
Best of all, our Kuwaiti mate won’t ever actually pay up as many of his workers will die from inhaling VOCs while working unprotected. The few who survive to the end of the project can then go to the back of the creditors’’ queue when you declare bankruptcy.
Well he might have a house in the UK and he may struggle to fly some Pakistani painters in to work.
My point was really that Qatar are not the only country in the world that operates to different standards. Are we going to be consistent in boycotting those countries?
No one is proposing a boycott of Qatar.
The boycott being called for is in respect of a specific event, organised by the Qatari government for sportswashing purposes, awarded on what was quite clearly corrupt grounds, and at which the presence of the players is a critical aspect of said sportswashing.
I also think “operating to different standards” is a pretty gentle way of putting it; they’re not driving on the other side of the road, they’re jailing homosexuals, abusing/killing migrant workers and horrifically oppressing women. When England players are racially abused in Eastern European stadia, no one describes the crowd as “operating to different standards”, and nor should they.
Well put.
The Afterword: Operating to a Different Standard Since 2012
On a global scale, there are quite a few nations that are similar to, or worse, than Qatar in the human rights stakes. I’m not suggesting that it makes it ok. Just that Qatar are mid table in the human rights abuse league.
On one table they are 82 out of 173. Mexico and Brasil are considered a bit worse. Russia and China are much worse.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/human_rights_rule_law_index/
My real point is no one really was bainging the boycott drum when major sporting events were being held in these 4 countries. Did you boycott them?
Again:
“No one is proposing a boycott of Qatar.
The boycott being called for is in respect of a specific event, organised by the Qatari government for sportswashing purposes, awarded on what was quite clearly corrupt grounds, and at which the presence of the players is a critical aspect of said sportswashing.”
I can capitalise it all next time, if that helps.
Also: whataboutery.
I really did just mean the Qatar World Cup. But my point is still, why is this one worth a boycott when the Russian, Chinese, Mexico and Brazilian global sporting events were not.
It’s difficult to speak to a chart you’ve literally just pulled off the internet from a source with which I have no familiarity and which appears to be ranking not just the observance of human rights, but also corruption and the rule of law.
It’s equally tenuous to apply the findings of that chart to events that happened a decade ago, and are happening in future.
It’s also difficult to compare the footballers of 2014, from whom we heard very little indeed on social causes, to the footballers of 2022, who wear these things on their sleeve as a badge of honour. Could Leighton Baines troop off to Brazil without taking a position on deaths during stadium construction? Probably. Can Raheem Sterling tell us all to stand tall against all forms of discrimination and then go play in Qatar? Can you position yourself as a moral leader and then fail to show any moral leadership when a price tag is suddenly applied? I don’t believe so.
Somewhere, a line is crossed. I’m not particularly interested in microscopically defining where that line is. I think it’s a largely pointless sidebar, intended to distract from the matter at hand and to reduce all such issues to a sort of moral stasis: if you can’t precisely define right from wrong in all circumstances, you can do so in none.
Given what we know now, in 2022, should players be attending a tournament to which a material proportion of the fanbase cannot legally travel? No. Should players be attending a tournament to which women cannot safely travel? No.
To flip it around: if Russia were hosting the next World Cup, should the players plan to head off to that one too, on the basis that the Russians “operate to different standards”?
Well, they played in Russia 4 years after they last invaded Ukraine.
I’d be ok with footballers withdrawing – it’s up to them. But I understand why they won’t – a World Cup is the pinnacle of their professional career.
I’m just not buying the inference that watching the World Cup in Qatar equates to supporting the government of Qatar.
As the old song goes; if Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d explain that – actually – one can’t realistically be expected not to take meetings of this type, that there are lots of other awful dictators out there so how do you choose who not to send a limousine for, that we’re all poisoning the planet so can hardly judge, that sending a limo for Hitler does not equate to supporting Hitler and that meeting a foreign dignitary of this calibre will be a career pinnacle for those in attendance.
Some pinnacle.
I think that’s probably true apart from the last part. I don’t think most sane people would call a meeting with Hitler a pinnacle. Anyway, we probably should end now that Hitler has been mentioned.
Yes. This is all about hating Qatari nationals. 🙄🙄🙄
The are a fairly second rate tribute band to the INMG hitmakers…
My hear bleeds for the football players and managers who must be going through personal hell getting their lunch hooks on the tainted Saudi dollar. Trotting out onto a field to kick a ball about most weeks of the year earns them the right to do what they think is right – and if what they think is right means being a mealy-mouthed bunch of hypocritical grifters I say – good on yer, lads! The hopes of a nation go with you! 🎶 THIRTY YEARS OF HURT NEVER STOPPED US DREAMING …
@bingo-little is right. I love watching the World Cup and I always want England to do well. Particularly this team – who are doing all the right things both on the pitch and off (apart from when it’s a penalty shoot out). I sincerely think that taking the knee is an important gesture. They are racially abused and it has to stop. What on earth is wrong with that?
I’d be happy for England to boycott the tournament, but I seem to recall reading that FIFA have some sort of long-reaching directive that effectively prevents this. It’s along the lines of ‘if a team boycotts, they get a ban from future tournaments’, or similar. My apologies for the haziness of this; I cannot find my original source.
The whole idea of a World Cup in Qatar is just vainglorious folly. As the journalist Oliver Holt pointed out on Sunday, ‘of the 22 FIFA executives who voted in 2010 for Qatar to host the tournament, at least 16 have either been banned, accused of or indicted for criminal corruption, involved in FBI cases or accused of ethical violations but not convicted.’
My objections are aesthetic rather than moral. A World Cup in the most boring place on earth, in November, kicked off by Qatar v Ecuador? What a load of rubbish.
I’ll not be playing golf in Florida anymore that’s for sure.
Max, a footbAll journalist, ponders what to do.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/apr/07/qatar-2022-world-cup-moral-maze-comment