Fifa and QATAR FARCE
Be allowed to get away world governing body shouldn’t CHRIS DUNLAVY argues that football’s to die building stadiums in Qatar, a country allowing migrants with hosting the 2022 World Cup
Chris Dunlavy speaks out
FORGET, for a moment, the righteous bleating of European Leagues. Anyone who thinks the most outrageous aspect of a World Cup in Qatar is a spot of domestic disruption has got their priorities wrong.
Does the average fan really care if the Premier League stops for six weeks? It’s not like they won’t have any football to watch.
Yes, we have our ‘traditional’ Christmas fixtures. But we used to have ‘traditional’ 3pm kick-offs on Saturday and you don’t hear the Premier League clamouring to protect those, do you? Of course not. There’s no money in it.
The only reason Richard Scudamore and his pals are kicking up a stink is because they’re worried that the loss of bumper festive fixtures will weaken their negotiating position next time the TV rights come up for renewal.
And after all the corporate backslapping that accompanied the latest £5bn fleecing of Sky and BT, that just wouldn’t do.
No, don’t go getting the violins out for the Premier League. They’ll be just fine. The clubs who really benefit from Christmas fixtures – those League One and Two minnows for whom cashflow is king – won’t need to stop for the World Cup.
In fact, they will probably emerge an unintended beneficiary as fans of top-flight clubs seek their fix elsewhere.
Remember, too, that Europe has had its own way for a long time. Brazil and Argentina have spent the best part of a century rearranging their domestic programme to fit around a summer World Cup.
With seven wins between them – plus another two for Uruguay – it’s not as if it’s done the South Americans any harm.
Here in England – and indeed much of Europe – we’re so hung up on tradition that we never stop to ponder the benefits of change.
Yet South American countries regularly tinker with both the structure and schedule of their national leagues. Not every incarnation is a success (and some have been cynically rigged to favour the biggest sides) but at least they know what works best.
Start the season a month earlier and we might find attendances rise due to warm weather. Insert a six-week break for the World Cup and we might discover the players who don’t go to Qatar return fresh and injury-free.
We might not, but until we try, we don’t know. If everyone subscribed to the ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ mantra, we’d still be driving to matches on horses and carts.
And are we really saying that any country with extreme weather in June cannot host the tournament? It’s hardly a ‘World’ Cup if half of Asia and all of North and Western Africa are on the blacklist.
No, domestic disruption is not the issue, much as the Premier League would have us believe. The real problem is that petty disputes about festive fixtures are being allowed to detract from a corrupt bidding process that awarded a World Cup to a murderous, totalitarian regime.
A regime that has – so far – allowed some 1,200 migrant labourers to die in the process of building World Cup stadiums.
A regime that packs them ten to a room in