Football should try to expand to new regions, but awarding a World Cup to Qatar was a mistake on a number of levelsAs tournament director of Euro 2024, I am meeting many people from the huge German football base. They are children in jerseys with whom I take selfies, youth coaches who teach rules to their players, presidents of small clubs who have been volunteers for decades. They all love the lightness of football, know its educational power, appreciate its importance to our community.When the conversation turns to Qatar, however, their tone becomes serious. Many consider missing a World Cup voluntarily for the first time in their lives. In the past, a World Cup was a folk festival, for children...
As we consume the football on show in Qatar despite knowing the brutal facts, we should at least force Fifa to make change So here we are then. Premier League season on pause while the lower leagues keep chugging away. Knackered and injured players off to a country where it’s illegal to be gay, where women who are victims of sexual assault can be put in prison and where thousands of migrant workers have died since Qatar was awarded the tournament 12 years ago. Welcome to the World Cup.Of course, we all know these things by now. In fact the impact of hearing about them again and again seems to numb you from the brutal facts. It’s easier to just...
Football – facing fans’ disgust at this World Cup – should beware a plummeting status in the face of a critical mass of frustrationLook at a photograph of the crowd at the 1923 FA Cup final and pretty much everybody is wearing a hat. Fast-forward a quarter of a century and a rough estimate would be that a little under half the crowd at the 1948 final are similarly clad. Go forward another 25 years to 1973 and although Bob Stokoe, the Sunderland manager, topped off his tracksuit-and-mac look with a trilby, almost nobody in the stands at Wembley has their head covered.In the unlikely event that anybody at the first Wembley Cup final gave the matter any thought, it...
Lionel Messi leading Argentina to glory would be a moment of sporting beauty but still a sportswashing win for QatarBuenos Aires has a new Diego Maradona mural for the World Cup. It looks great, although the vast, Stalinist-scale Diego head selected by the artist is not the obvious version from 1986, when the quality of the light, the white noise in the stadiums and the way Maradona moved were basically all one perfect golden sun-drenched substance.Instead Buenos Aires has gone for the Italia 90 version, with the insolent stare and the deep blue kit, hair trimmed into an idealised barbershop photo-style low bouffant. Maradona still managed to lead Argentina to the final in Italy and to produce that otherworldly artist-as-pickpocket...
With a slew of injuries to contend with, Graham Arnold’s 26-man World Cup group contains an eclectic mix of players After all the hysteria and innuendo of a transfer deadline day had been poured into a few weeks of World Cup squad speculation, Socceroos coach Graham Arnold finally named his 26-player squad for football’s global showcase on Tuesday. It is a group full of what Arnold called “boxing Kangaroos”.Fresh as this new slogan may be, the motif and messaging represents a continuation of the fighting spirit that has been a hallmark of Arnold’s tenure – not least when qualification for the tournament in Qatar became less certain and backs were against the wall. Continue reading...