And the rest of mind boggling football attachments….
THIS IS THE 17TH DECEMBER 2022, the date of the ’22 world cup final between France and Argentina. The apex of the mountain where 32 clubs attempted to climb to the top. The first time the completion was held mid season for most countries – usually in mid June etc.
It was hosted by Qatar, originally selected under dubious circumstances involving politics, co-ertion, bribery, threats and any long list of shenanigans, including corporate murder – allegedly.
The preparation for the competition was marked with everyone from corporate murder of poorly paid work force to contract abuse to adverising lies to stupid prices.
There was to be little access to alcohol – worked out to be a good thing as at least the England supporters didn’t do their 4 yearly shaming of their country.
It was called by some, the competition that is, the Humane games. The big issue or most was the complete intolerance of the host Qatar authorities of same sex relationships – jail time and allegedly worse – there were many LGBT+ demonstrations that were quickly closed down by the authorities – the rainbow symbol for gay rights was at every turn destroyed if on a t-shirt, scarf and all other forms of publicity.
Qatar got the most stick, rightly. There were shams all over the place, there were a huge number of other countries that escaped a shouting as the press ignored . The USA and it’s racism, the UK and its supply of arms, Iran and it’s murder of women, Argentina and its murdering dictators, Spain and it’s willingness to host British ex-pats – joke, but only a bit – and many more.
Who is right?
Money of course rules the roost! – these players get 150,000 pounds per week across the year, guests ambassadors get paid for just being there and getting photos taken- David Beckham , surely passed his sell by date was paid allegedly 10 million pounds to be a lead ambassador, sit with Arab kings and world association football officials.
As with all things football half of this article is about non football matters at the core.
England Colonial eleven did well average but scored goals which kept the descendants of slave owners happy in the City of London – for a while. The lack of ‘balls’ had them out to finalists France in the quarter final, ending on a barely caricatured penalty miss by the real king of England, the over rated in my opinion, Harry Kane. Arse.
My recently arrived grand daughter Faye could have scored that!
And you, Faye were born after it was taken.
The football was all-out passing boringly- too much of this – and the commentators telling us that the last time these two teams met was draw in 1923. They failed as they tried to make the tedious ok by saying that it was, well, ok.
They had their short list of BIG players and repeated their names ad nauseam even when their team was knocked out. Note Harry Kane being mentioned in the final repeatedly when he was already home!! And by the way, the time filling mention of statistics was worth of a night in the Qatar cells. Awful.
Morocco and Saudi Arabia, countries with no problem with human rights – they don’t have any, – were the main shock entertainment and good value for the football teams – Saudi human rights are amongst the most anti-human in the known world, but they get cheered by the overpaid pundits in the TV studios – some get a million pounds each for watching football and giving analysis that would numb a park bench..
Argentina won the final through a penalty in the shoot out – good term for Argentina – the match described by inarticulate correspondents as ‘the best ever’. That is rubbish, for two thirds of the game France were s$@&, Argentina were adequate and then it got better. The whole match was not the best ever, but it’s a football thing for the hangers on, leeches and small army of exploiters.
There were exciting moments however, in almost all games as in all games you could have wandered off in the middle and done the washing and vacuumed the house, missing nowt.
Kids, maybe the world cup for football, when you are old enough to bother, will be different.
I hope so