And so it has come to pass. Fifa has drawn a line in the desert sand – and it hasn’t used the magic foam. Actually, perhaps it would be better to refer to the latest news about Qatar 2022 as an annunciation, because we now know Fifa is to be delivered of a Christmas World Cup, with a final apparently played on the night before Christmas Eve. So festive! Maybe the grounds could serve mulled wine to warm the cockles of those braving the 22C Doha evenings, and adapt the pie option to mince (the other sort of mince)?
Anyone looking for the three wise men in this tale is probably going to have to scale down their search, or at least settle for three blokes with an IQ pushing 90. Humble stables are also in short supply – unless you count the stinking makeshift camps in which many workers building the Qatar dream are housed. And I’m not sure Fifa does count them. With entire cities being thrown up in the desert just to stop various new stadiums looking silly, Sepp Blatter is unlikely to have to lay down his sweet head in a manger. Then again, perhaps it’s more helpful to think of the Fifa boss as the Father Christmas in all this – a twinkly eyed, genial old man, in whom all sane and rational adults should continue to believe.
Needless to say a few minor details continue to distract from the true message of the Christmas World Cup, such as those allegations that cash from within Qatar is siphoned to Isis. But leaving aside such fripperies, the real outrage is perhaps that this can still happen in an age when we know so much and can disseminate that knowledge with such ease. It’s not the fact of the skulduggery around the 2022 World Cup, repulsive though that obviously is – cheaters gonna cheat, slave drivers gonna slave drive, Fifa’s gonna Fifa, and all that.
But what should remain shocking is money’s ability to brazen it out once it becomes known. And by “it”, I mean all of it: the corruption allegations, the human rights violations, the deaths of the migrant workers – the deaths of the indentured workers – the mendacious switcheroo on the scheduling. And, you know, the Isis stuff.
Never has so much been exposed about a World Cup; never have people who are disgusted by it been able to connect with each other to discuss it and protest against it with greater ease; never has opposition to a sporting mega‑event seemed so vocal and concerted. Yet all of that has made absolutely zero difference and continues to make absolutely zero difference. Saying “money talks” doesn’t really begin to cover it. Money shouts. Money bellows. Money shits on everything in its path. Qatar 2022 sails on regardless – in fact it finds new ways to double down on its toxicity.
That is what the latest news on scheduling does. Evidently deciding that it hadn’t pissed enough people off with this one, Fifa has now gamely added a few other constituencies to the already countless impotent armies of disaffected. In fact, those of us who have felt that the horror would not be complete without an inane think-piece from the former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey may now sleep easy and merely strike off the days until he arrives in the pages of the Daily Mail to explain “WHY THIS IS AN INSULT TO ALL CHRISTIANS”. (On the plus side, it’ll do wonders for the duty-free industry of Qatar, whose airports are likely to be denuded of anything that could possibly do as a Christmas present as the tournament draws to a close.)
Mainly, though, the December schedule finds a new way to annoy people watching at home. Christmas is perhaps the one time of year when a lot of people really don’t need or want to add weeks of heavy sporting diversion to their own calendars. If it were up to me I’d pick January, when you’re crying out for stuff to watch (they’re already giving the Africa Cup of Nations a monster headache so they might as well bump that one on a bit). Let’s face it, January really is the dog days of other sports, a fact always underscored by the scheduling of the BDO World Darts Championship right after the PDC World Darts Championship, a decision that could be matched only by moving Queen’s Club to the weeks after Wimbledon and trying to convince people that the latter is a warm-up for the former.
Still, the head of Fifa’s taskforce into the matter of the 2022 World Cup scheduling – the Bahraini royal Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa – has concluded that the December option will be for “the overall benefit of everybody”. And as a member of the ruling family of a non-democracy, the sheikh will have lots of experience with taking decisions for what he decides is the greater good.
Of course, the European domestic leagues are less familiar than the Bahraini people are with the experience of having unpleasant things decided for them. Yet if these dates are what finally gets the opposition up in meaningful arms then it will be difficult to escape an awkward conclusion about our local footballing powers. Namely, that they were fine with the corruption and the slavery and the deaths but get in the way of their domestic league gravy trains, and you’ve gone too far. And therein, perhaps, lies the potential for this story to still keep defying the odds and become even more distasteful than it already has.