The World Cup: all that pomp and ceremony, profit and corruption. As the tempests brewed with the decision to award Qatar the tournament in 2010 there has been a sort of expectancy, a deep sense of dread lingering at the very rear of the mind. 2022? Plenty of time to prepare. Qatar is not a footballing nation, and never will be. It’s players, dazed and diffident as they emerged into a strange global show, wilted under the immense strain of the spectacle on opening night. But the fantasy goes on. England, however long it may last, dominate a game of football. And in all of this confected, fabricated blend of greed and sport, devoid of any moral compass, that’s the best thing Gareth Southgate’s side can do.
Except it isn’t. On the eve of England’s 6-2 thrashing of Iran in the glamorous, soulless Khalifa International Stadium that offered a great big slice of sweaty Dohan sky, England, Wales and five other European nations confirmed their captains would not wear the OneLove armbands after FIFA threatened to impose sanctions. This coming from an organisation whose president, the odious Gianni Infantino, jested about being gay. “He's a terrible face for football, that guy,” stated Gary Neville in one of the better quotes made by an Englishman in this atrocity’s buildup.
For the Football Association these sanctions, whatever they actually mean, was too much to handle for a hopeful portion of the nation promised the smallest slab of spirit and obligation. In Qatar it is illegal to be in a same sex relationship: an instant red flag. The perfect place, then, to host a tournament that through its 92-year history has sought to coalesce a world, rather than sever it. Naturally, this is a whole load of bunkum. João Havelange — instated as FIFA president in 1974 — helped turn a working-class sport into an elitist corporation, and ever since there’s been only one thing in these oil-stained palms: a heavy heap of cash.
The antithesis of what this game was intended for. But what can we, the mere mortals who get fooled into this garish land for a month every four years, possibly do to counter this controversy? Countless lives lost, more than we’ll ever know, and at what cost? $220 billion exhausted on eight lavish, soulless stadiums that will soon stand like skeletons stretched across a sandy, deserted wasteland as if Tatooine were awarded the rights to host the competition. They’d probably do a better job, too.
Of the 22 people who voted for this World Cup to be played in Qatar, 15 have either faced criminal charges or been banned by FIFA. Michel Platini, Franz Beckenbauer, billionaire Mohammed bin Hamman; names of a recognisable nature, corrupt to the bone with Sepp Blatter atop the bungling tree of vicious men with his grimy rictus sticking to our screens. Russia and Qatar pop out of the envelope and there, right there, was the moment FIFA exposed itself to the world.
But let’s try and focus on the football, as Infantino and his infinite wisdom declared ahead of this wintry feast. Qatar were expectedly humbled in the splashy comforts of their own home after informing the globe they are by far the worst hosts in the tournament’s rich history. Then the harsh sun rose and England were tasked with taking on Iran, a nation plagued by its own density of human rights issues as its people protest to provide equal rights for women in what has been labelled as a “gender apartheid” by Lawyer Leila Mansouri.
A fine mess for a finer occasion. After all, England is hardly the united kingdom it sets out to be. Yet in football there’s a distinctive feel that few sports can serve. From pubs to schools, staff rooms to living rooms; a country watches on, throwing pints and pencils high into the air as 19-year-old sensation Jude Bellingham does the same, gorgeously guiding an angled Luke Shaw cross into the far corner of substitute Hossein Hosseini’s hexagon netting.
Lift off. Cue a spangle of epileptic-inducing lights as Southgate rises from his sweat-stained seat, hand clenched in a fist as his team’s harsh critics were shown the metaphorical finger. Eight minutes later and another young starlet, Bukayo Saka, shimmering in his first World Cup appearances made it 2-0 with a fabulous half-volley that just clipped the underside of the crossbar from an adroit knockdown by the even more lambasted Harry Maguire. Playing a back four appears to work, and Iran could scarcely get close to Jordan Pickford’s net as his side tapped the ball about with zeal and zest for an opening half that lasted 59 minutes.
Raheem Sterling, dazzling in his favourite position along the left, added the third at the start of a whopping 14 additional minutes with an artful jab into the bottom corner after his side broke at pace and power. From then on it was just a case of how many, how often. Anchoring the midfield with Bellingham was the persistent Declan Rice. Mafting in the thick afternoon air, he’d pick the pass, thread the needle. Saka’s second arrived after he weaved through a listless string of red-shirted bodies to caress the ball into the far corner with his left foot.
Mehdi Taremi crashed home a consolation with a clinical finish in the 65th minute but then it was all about the substitutes: Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish adding the fourth and fifth in an effortless showing of sheer, sumptuous quality. Taremi rolled the ball home from the penalty spot for his brace deep into another bizarre amount of stoppage time to alter the score once more, but this opener was over before the first giant dose of additional minutes.
At the end of this sultry, surreal occasion, the remaining 22 players sauntered from the luscious lawn with half amiable, half abashed to the sight of the 6-2 scoreline. But in the midst of all of this - this fake, forged fable of sporting elitism that sets out to snap any form of morality this world has left, England’s victory leaves a hollow feeling inside. One of solace yet shame. ‘Show your colours’, FIFA proclaim. But not you. Or you. Or you.
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