My plot to bring the World Cup to Conn.
If we’re going to follow in Qatar’s footsteps, we’re going to have to bribe a lot of people. There was a time when Connecticut was up to the job. Twenty years ago, the national media were using terms like “Corrupticut” and “worse than New Jersey.”
You may have noticed that when journalists attempt to convey the smallness of Qatar, they’re quite fond of calling it “a country the size of Connecticut.”
And it got me thinking: why couldn’t our fair state host the World Cup?
There are other similarities. Both names are difficult to pronounce. The current thinking about “Qatar” is that there is no correct way to say it. Even the people who live there say it wrong. The spelling is misleading. The closest thing to a phonetic rendering would be “Murfreesboro.”
I’m at the age where a person starts to think about his legacy. What have I done to leave my mark on this world? Have I dared to dream and then make that dream a reality? Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn’t done what I did?
Actually, that last one may be from a Beach Boys lyric, but you see my point.
There are a lot of arguments against Connecticut as a World Cup host, but consider that Qatar had no real soccer tradition, an intolerant theocracy decades out of step with most of the industrialized world, only one halfway decent stadium and weather so hot that the World Cup, which is always played in the summer, could not possibly be played in the summer.
Did Qatar let that stop them?
So I’m going to lead the charge.
Let’s look at the topline factors in Connecticut’s quest for the World Cup.
Money. The cost to Qatar is estimated at $225 billion, also expressed as 5 Elons. (An Elon is the new international measurement for a massive, poorly thought-out investment.) I think we can do this more cheaply because Qatar basically had to build a whole new country.
Fortunately, Connecticut has $3.3 billion in its rainy day fund. (Qatar had much more due to zero rainy days.) The state also has $1.4 billion in federal pandemic relief funds kicking around and expects to close out the current budget year with a $2.3 billion surplus. This might seem like a lot, but it might not be enough, which brings us to …
Oil. Here is my thinking. We must have oil here, because oil is basically dead dinosaurs, and we definitely used to have dinosaurs because there’s a Dinosaur State Park. It doesn’t seem like they went all out at the naming meetings, huh? At minimum it should be Fred and Wilma Flintstone State Park. There’s precedent too, because I’m pretty sure there’s a national park named after Yosemite Sam.
(From my editor John Breunig: “Oil does not come from dinosaurs. That is a persistent myth. Oil is mostly from algae, plants and bacteria dating back hundreds of millions of years. Also, Yosemite National Park is not named after Yosemite Sam.”)
Oh yeah? Then why is it called “fossil fuel?” And what about the Sinclair dinosaur? I suppose I just imagined that.
The point is, we need to start exploring for oil. I’m going to rent something called a Geoprobe and start probing the geo. I plan to start in Rocky Hill, the location of FTX-Flintstone State Park.
(To Breunig: “The Geoprobe 7822DT rents for $12,000 a month, if we waive the collision insurance. Does this expense need to be pre-approved? You might want to run it by Wendy.)
The point is, we need oil so we can get money which we will spend on …
Corruption. There’s good news. We Americans tend to think of NCAA Division I sports and the NFL and Major League Baseball and competitive walleye fishing as morally depraved and bloated with money.
Those institutions — with the exception of walleye fishing which has gotten really bad — are like a bunch of handwringing Unitarians compared to FIFA (the world soccer organization) and the International Olympic Committee both of which go bobbing through history on lava flows of bribery.
One of my favorite recent developments came when former longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who is basically a Bond villain, said the Qatar decision, which he presided over, was a mistake because Qatar is too small, as if they recently washed Qatar and it shrank in the dryer.
If we’re going to follow in Qatar’s footsteps, we’re going to have to bribe a lot of people. There was a time when Connecticut was up to the job. Twenty years ago, the national media were using terms like “Corrupticut” and “worse than New Jersey.” I’m not saying we’re squeaky clean these days but we don’t got game the way we did back then.
My plan would involve bringing back some of the big names of yester-year — Rowland, Ganim, Silvester — for one last mission, something between Ocean’s 11 and Suicide Squad.
Them: “We don’t do that stuff anymore.”
Us: “Connecticut needs you. It’s not like we’re sending you up to blow up a comet or something.” But what about … Reputational damage. The good/bad news is that nobody seems to care. Qatar is corrupt, autocratic and treats its migrant workers so badly that perhaps 6,500 of them were essentially worked to death building an ersatz country. Homosexuality
is a crime; dissidents get locked up; women have minimal rights.
Do you think anybody here is cheering less loudly when the United States wins a game?
Fox Sports, which acquired rights to the World Cup, has decided to refrain from mentioning the many controversies.
Such stars as Dua Lipa, Shakira and Rod Stewart declined to participate in the opening ceremonies, but do you know who didn’t decline? Morgan Freeman. Who played Nelson Mandela. In a movie. About sports.
The only thing people got really riled up about was …
Beer. Qatar is not allowing beer at the games. To hear the commentary, you’d think this was a major human rights violation, as opposed to, you know, Qatar’s actual human rights violations.
I’m not the kind of person who needs alcohol to get through a sporting event. I’m the kind of person who needs alcohol to get through life. But as a fan of the Red Sox, Packers and Suns, I don’t see the point of consuming extra depressants during a game.
But soccer fans in Qatar have gone full-on Qavanaugh. They like beer, OK? They really like it. So in Connecticut, they will have beer galore. Also the amusing house red.
Have I left out anything? Oh! Connecticut would have to be separate country. We’d have to secede. Maybe Dan Haar could look into the details of that. I’m exhausted, and I have to drive the Geoprobe down to Rocky Hill in the morning.
Colin McEnroe’s column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Tuesday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.