Putting fans last is normal but sucking the joy out of sport

Holding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has sucked the joy out of the world’s biggest sporting event, writes fan Michael McGuire.

Football’s World Cup has kicked off. Every four years it’s the world’s biggest and most important sporting competition. Every four years even those with only a passing interest in the game will cast an eye towards the TV and take in a game.

My earliest memory of the World Cup was the one in Argentina in 1978. As a seven-year-old in Glasgow, even Scotland’s farcical performance that year wasn’t enough to tame the addiction. (Although look up Archie Gemmill’s goal on YouTube).

Every four years since then, the World Cup has been something to anticipate. Something that will drag me out of bed at all sorts of unhappy hours to watch all sorts of weird games. I love it.

But this year it’s different. This year it’s Qatar. This year it’s difficult to summon up much in the way of enthusiasm.

It feels like the game is being further ripped away from the fans. Football fans have long been dubious about the ethics and morality of FIFA, the game’s governing body, and holding the World Cup in Qatar feels like it is just trolling us now.

Ecuador fans cheer in the stands during the opening match. Picture: Francois Nel/Getty Images

But I also know that I’m enough of a hypocrite to realise this all may change as soon as Wednesday when Australia take on France.

Then the football gene, the football madness will kick in and it won’t matter whether the game is being played in Qatar or on the moon.

And, no doubt, that is what FIFA is relying on. That a football fan’s love of the game will override FIFA’s political and corporate bastardry. They really shouldn’t put us in that position.

So, for the moment, the fact that the world’s biggest sporting event is being played in Qatar has stripped the joy away.

Qatar was chosen as host back in 2010. A decision followed by allegations of bribery, that votes were bought and sold and the feeling that the actual business of playing and watching football matches was very much a secondary consideration.

The last 12 years has done nothing to diminish that sense. Indeed as 2022 approached the feeling only deepened.

There were stories that thousands of migrant workers had died in building Qatar’s shiny new stadiums. This was on top of existing concerns about the country’s appalling record on human rights. The fact that it’s illegal to be gay, that women have negligible rights, that only a little more than 10 per cent of the country’s three million population are classified as citizens.

As a football fan, there is also the question of timing. World Cups are always held in the middle of the year.

But by half time many seats were empty. Picture: Francois Nel/Getty Images

In its bid, Qatar said it would stick to the traditional schedule and hold it in June. But that’s the middle of the summer and with temperatures pushing 50C, it was decided to push it to their winter, when it was a little cooler.

No one wants players keeling over with heat stroke.

So, there has been little in the way of build up, little time to get excited. It feels again that the desires of the actual fans are of limited interest to those that run the game.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino hasn’t helped much either, giving a meandering, self-absorbed press conference on the weekend where he castigated those who dared object.

“You can crucify me. I’m here for that. Don’t criticise anyone. Don’t criticise Qatar,” the infant cried, before claiming he too had suffered discrimination and hatred growing up and could therefore sympathise. He had red hair you see.

That the England team could be punished for wearing rainbow armbands is another sign of FIFA’s willingness to kowtow to Qatar.

For a long time now, sport has been slipping out of the hands of the fans.

Sport has become a political tool for countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are looking to rehabilitate terrible reputations.

Last week’s announcement by the Labor government that it was bringing the LIV Golf circus to Adelaide being another step in that process.

But it’s also wider than that. When sporting bodies such as the AFL wholeheartedly jump in bed with gambling companies, it is inevitable corruption will follow.

Last weekend Sport Integrity Australia boss David Sharpe was warning that criminal gangs are targeting sport, looking for match-fixing and spot betting opportunities.

You wonder how far sporting organisations such as FIFA and the AFL can push the fans before there is some form of retaliation.

They only survive because the passion and dedication of the ordinary fan overrides all other rational feelings.

If Jason Cummings smashes home the winning goal and Australia lifts the World Cup, no one is going to be thinking about the rights of migrant workers in Qatar.

And, of course, neither they should. Such a moment is about exhilaration, adrenaline and community.

But the beauty and joy of sport, that addiction, makes it all the easier for groups like FIFA to change nothing at all.