The World Cup is a farce because we've have allowed football to prostitute itself ✍️ ianbirrell
It was bizarre. But Infantino is at the helm of a heavily-tainted body, set to be elected unopposed for a third term. Everything about this World Cup is wrong – from the timing that forced a break in Europe’s domestic season through to the location in a sweltering desert mini-state that happens to be sitting on huge oil and gas reserves. It is an affront to anyone who cares about climate change, corruption, democracy, equality, feminism, free expression or human rights.
And it is grotesque to witness a gilded potentate blow £180bn – at least 12 times more than the last host – on a giant public relations exercise, not least when his nation is a sport minnow that has never qualified for a World Cup and matches there must be held in air-conditioned stadiums.on sponsorship only to see its beer banned in stadiums
. Yet beyond the epic scale of this sports-washing by a feudal monarchy, there is nothing new in seeing football abused by a dodgy regime. Italy’s squad infamously made fascist salutes and wore black shirts when defending the trophy in 1938. Four decades later, a nasty military dictatorship in Argentina was handed the event, sparking calls for a boycott.
Football, for all its communal roots in schools and working-class streets, has been tainted at the top level for decades. Once it was local businessmen skimming ticket sales and handing over paper bags stuffed with cash to players; today, it is repressive royals, shady oligarchs and electronic transfers through hidden offshore accounts. Well-meaning footballers promote, yet they are the hypocritical ultra-rich beneficiaries of a sport that prostituted itself to pay their huge wages.
, while Putin’s pals were only winkled out by sanctions imposed after his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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