'I haven’t been duped or hypnotised. Maybe a little anaesthetised by the smooth efficiency with which everything falls into place but you can buy efficiency, you can’t buy soul.' This is great from CliveTyldesley...
Today I feel Ex-Pat. I’m not sure what guise Gianni Infantino is currently adopting in his ‘Stars in their Eyes’ world but I watched the England game on Friday night with a couple of mates and a couple of glasses of wine, just as I would probably have done at home. Life at a Qatar World Cup is er, well, normal.he was particularly quick to reassure us that he wasn’t in fact African or gay or disabled and so I, too, should stress that life here isn’t normal. It just feels it.
If Keys and Gray were to tell me that sky is actually hand-painted by migrant workers before dawn every morning I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Walking up towards each of the exotically-themed stadia feels like entering Epcot. If Disney did World Cups… Those impossibly comfortable armchairs from which the feted and the famous watch the endless churn of daily matches in the VIP box are, for me, the symbol of this World Cup. This is the deluxe version of a football tournament. Hopefully a limited edition. You must make yourself really comfortable to appreciate the imported blood, sweat and tears that has gone into trying to make it immune to fault-finding. You need to buy into it. Gianni has, and now I can see why.
Just yesterday, ITV screened an excellent film by Gabriel Clarke drawing yet more attention to the concerns over this culture’s attitude to homosexuality. Sports-washing is a two-way street and the traffic towards the scrutiny of Qatar’s version of Islamic law has been pretty steady over the last few weeks. If you weren’t aware of their stance before, you surely are now. In Gary Lineker’s words, this a report not a support.
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