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The soft touches of sport slowly unpick elaborate web with Putin’s regime | Andy Bull

Governing bodies are using weasel words, instead of the plain ones needed: invasion, war, murderEarly last Thursday, overcome by the desire to do something, anything, however petty, to try to fight off that sense of desperate futility, I started sending out emails to the sports federations who had events scheduled in Russia this year asking if they were going to cancel them. There were already reports that Uefa was talking about moving the Champions League final, later that day the FIA announced it was cancelling the Russian GP, and Rugby Europe that it was calling off Russia’s upcoming match against Georgia. A lot of the Olympic sports, though, were moving a little more slowly.Fina, which was due to hold two...

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The World Cup provides a chance to be reminded of our self-delusions | Marina Hyde

I cannot wait for the tournament to start. I just feel like I’m going to be happier arguing about VAR than about nerve agentIn 2012, the Pointless host Richard Osman conceived the World Cup of Crisps, in which 32 big-hitting varieties of crisp were pitted against each other in group stages, all decided by Twitter polls. Thereafter, the winners proceeded to knockout stages, meeting in quarter-finals, before progressing to – well, I believe you are familiar with this general format.Osman has since expanded the idea to the World Cup of Chocolate, and a book called The World Cup of Everything, which invites readers to stage their own hotly contested tournaments between the weightiest competitors in the fields of such things...

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