3 Comments

Excellent article Martin. Like you I started out with little enthusiasm, but by focusing on the football itself day by day I got more and more engrossed. It was a relief not to be reading about hooligans and wags, even though it seemed the atmosphere at most matches was rather flat and artificial. Football was the winner in the end- despite everything.

Expand full comment

As you say, while the football was mostly decent (apart from one or two of the referees), the issue was always the time and place of this WC. And while we can be critical of Qatar, especially with its take on women, migrant workers, LGBTQ+, alcohol, etc, the bigger issue has to do with FIFA. This organisation has become so unrepresentative of the beautiful game. Infantino has proved no less corrupt than his predecessors, and they are all guilty of bowing and scraping to government figures in a range of less-than-salubrious countries. It is time (overdue) for individual FAs to demand change from those who are supposed to be responsible for football, which is after all the people's game.

Expand full comment

I'd agree with most of that. I watched the England and Portugal games and kept an eye on Argentina because of the Spurs/Benfica interest (I guess Benfica will make a lot of money on Enzo in the summer after that performance). It was somewhat ironic that a country so unworthy of hosting a World Cup got to see the best final. World class players being world class.

I don't think Qatar has done much that will improve its image with ordinary people but I suspect that they'll be even more immeshed into the fabric of corporate money and politics after that. And ultimately that's really all this World Cup was for.

Expand full comment