Qatar World Cup is a symbol of everything wrong with the game
FAKE fans drinking fake beer at a fake World Cup. You’d wonder what the point of the tournament in the desert is beyond putting millions in certain pockets.
It all looks like a pretty miserable experience, from the fans who are being shoved into portacabins in the craic-free zones to the players who do not seem to be delighted about having to play in a place like that in November.
FIFA, who you can’t accuse of being morally bankrupt because that would raise the question of whether they had some morals to lose, have their shabby little show and the suits will be comfy in their champagne-filled, twenty thousand dollar VIP boxes.
The rest of us are supposed to watch on the telly and forget all about Qatar’s disgusting human rights record – and the fact that the stadiums are built on the bodies of migrant workers who were treated like dirt.
But if the desert kingdom’s rulers were hoping to get some positive PR out of all of this, by paying FIFA and famous football personalities to white-wash their reputation, they had already lost before a ball was kicked. All they
have really done is make Qatar a symbol of everything that’s wrong with football, and no amount of flashy opening ceremonies or fancy pictures of Lionel Messi and Ronaldo posing to play chess on a suitcase can change that.
We had FIFA’S chief eejit Gianni Infantino making a total spanner of himself with a bizarre speech just before kick-off, saying he now knows how it feels to be African, gay or poor and exploited.
That was rich coming from a baldy Swiss guy on €2.6million-a-year (basic) who travels on private jets.
Ireland has just made a joint bid with our neighbours to host Euros 2028 and it would be great if we got it.
Imagine the party we’d have in Dublin if we got the Germans, Italians or Danes over for a few matches?
Here’s hoping that we do – and by the time Europe’s best teams come to Ireland – this sham of a fake football tournament in a desert car park is all forgotten about.