On the World Cup opening ceremony

“As the World Cup itself was brought into the stadium by Marcel Desailly, who won it with France in 1998, the public address announcer told us it was being carried in a ‘Louis Vuitton travel case, specifically designed to showcase the legendary trophy’.

Showcase being the appropriate term. After all, this ceremony was a spectacle of the unique meeting of a corrupt, money-obsessed organisation and a regime with a medieval approach to civil rights and workers’ safety. Though any of us harbouring such thoughts were quickly put in our place by the evening’s master of ceremonies.

Strolling on to the pitch came Morgan Freeman, the grand Hollywood superstar. He lectured anyone expressing disquiet at the tournament being played in Qatar, words that may well have been scripted by the Fifa president Gianni Infantino, a man ever keen to tell us to stop whingeing and enjoy the competition.

Indeed, in his own speech, Infantino told us: ‘Get ready to celebrate football, because football unites the world.’ Well, if uniting the world means sitting between his employer, the Emir, and Mohammed Bin Salman, the leader of Saudi Arabia and the man who according to US intelligence allegedly ordered the butchery of Jamal Khashoggi, then he is doing a fine job.”