Most reasonable people hate the fact that the World Cup is being played in Qatar. We know it is bent but how many of us can resist watching it? I hoped England would be crap yesterday so I could pretend I didn’t care. However, the bastards played well, meaning I am now hooked into it.

My Hypocrisy

I justify my hypocrisy by watching it on ‘free to air’ and stating that the real villains are FIFA, not football supporters. I know, I know, it’s weak justification, but FIFA are the ones with a history of taking brown envelopes, not me. Football managers and players get dragged into it and it is easy to make our own moral judgments from the sidelines.

In an ideal world, I would have liked to see England pulling out and causing an international domino effect. Without teams there is no World Cup and Qatar would be screwed. However, big money and international trading relationships are at stake, so that was never going to happen. Once FIFA representatives took the bribes, there was no turning back.

Gary Lineker

This then kicked off the whole issue of who should travel to the World Cup. Football pundits such as Gary Lineker, were subject to accusations of hypocrisy after going to Qatar. This was despite him questioning the credibility of the tournament. When he did speak up on human rights, the less educated amongst us told him to shut his face and concentrate on football. Lineker is less popular than David Beckham who allegedly filled his boots with £150 million of Qatari cash. You can square that morality circle by remembering Beckham queued to look at a coffin.

I’m fence sitter with regards to Gary Lineker going to Qatar but I tend to side with him. This is because of the people who claim he isn’t allowed an opinion outside football. That’s like me going down to the local pub and refusing to have an opinion on about anything other than recruitment in the electrical industry. People who don’t think someone is allowed an opinion outside their profession are as thick as the turd of an elephant finally relieved of constipation.

One Love

Then just as England’s campaign kicked off, the players were told to bin their ‘One Love’ armbands. They did so without an apparent fight and were roundly criticised for not standing up for themselves. It was a depressing moment of weakness from the FA. They cowered to FIFA who, presumably knowing what Qatar had on them, did as they were told.

I would have loved the England players to take a stand but I am not going to batter them for not. History will be the judge of how they are labelled but it is the FA who were weak for not standing up to FIFA. Maybe they themselves have been put under pressure to pipe down by the British Government?

Human Rights

Here is the oddest thing of all. Whilst all this talk of restricted human rights in other countries is going on, guess what? The British government is attempting to rip up our own bill of rights and leave the ECHR. Whilst we are distracted by what Qatar are up to, Suella Braverman is salivating at the prospect of crushing demonstrations, workers/human rights and environmental laws.

I guess the silver lining is that under a government with Braverman in it, we’ll be well placed to bribe FIFA and hold the World Cup in the future.