Stocksbridge Works football team in days of yore – definitely not heading for Qatar, more likely The Miners’ Arms.
It’s hard to think of a World Cup which hasn’t, at some point, aroused controversy, both on and off the pitch. "Politics and sport shouldn’t mix" is a standard response to this situation but one which is feeble, ignores reality and misses the point: it is inevitable that the world’s most popular sport should attract political controversy, particularly now that every word, every move, every gesture is conveyed around the world in a matter of seconds.
Even so, the astonishing decision by FIFA to even contemplate holding the World Cup in Qatar, a country with no meaningful history of football, or a football culture, where temperatures can reach the mid-40s in the summer (when it was originally envisaged playing the tournament), an appalling human rights record in terms of migrant workers (6,500 dead according to one report) and gay and lesbian rights etc. was always bound to cause protests and friction. FIFA, still reeling from allegations of corruption on a huge scale, has done itself no favours and is now, again, covered in ignominy with some countries (Denmark has been mentioned) contemplating leaving the Association.
In my lifetime football has changed enormously and not all the changes have been bad. The first football match I ever attended was at Bracken Moor, home of my local works team Stocksbridge Works. I was ten or eleven and I made a rosette from cast-off scraps of blue and white paper, the ground was dilapidated, the ‘stand’ could hardly stand and half-time refreshment – a meat pie and a cup of scalding hot Oxo – could be bought from a ramshackle green hut which, like the stand, had seen better days (so had the meat pies). The players were all local steelworkers, it was quite a family affair and a distant cousin of mine was the Works’ goalkeeper. Sometime shortly after, I graduated to watching Sheffield United which I have stayed with loyally over the years despite all the up and downs (mainly the latter it has to be said).
Football today is, of course, a far cry from those halcyon days of a mug of hot Oxo and a meat pie, although catering standards have not improved that much, unless you can afford an executive box. Which brings us inevitably to the perennial question of money. Why else would Qatar have been chosen as a venue for the World Cup? This tiny country (it’s smaller than Yorkshire), with a population of just 2,781,677, sits on huge reserves of natural gas and oil, has one of the highest GDPs in the world and can throw its money around like confetti at a wedding. The amount the Qatar ruling elite have spent in ‘persuading’ FIFA member countries to support their bid is phenomenal. Forbes estimates that Qatar has spent, in total, $220 billion for this World Cup making it the most expensive in history. I don’t know whether this figure includes David Beckham’s $277m fee (spread over ten years) for his role as ‘football ambassador’ for Qatar. That FIFA is a cesspit of corruption, including bribery and laundering the proceeds, is self-evident. A long-running US investigation has resulted in over 50 individuals and corporate defendants being criminally charged and investigations by Swiss authorities (FIFA headquarters are in Geneva) have revealed similar levels of skulduggery and top FIFA officials, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, have only recently returned from long periods of suspension. Michel Platini’s career could be seen as a metaphor for the way in which the standards and values of the so-called ‘People’s Game’ have deteriorated over the years, not that they were ever much to shout about. A brilliant captain of the French national team Platini was much admired as a player, even receiving the Legion d’ Honneur, and no doubt many hoped his appointment would, in some way, ‘straighten out’ FIFA. It didn’t and Platini now stands as a discredited and much diminished figure within the footballing world. Just how the Augean Stables of FIFA will ever be cleared out remains to be seen. It would take, at least a couple of the big national football associations to stand up to them and the chances of that happening are about the same as Sheffield United lifting the Premiership Trophy anytime soon.
On the ground the Qatar authorities have behaved in a confusing fashion, at one point banning ‘Rainbow hats’ and then allowing them. They agreed to allow alcohol in and near the stadia, but that has since been rescinded and only the glitterati, willing to fork out 4K for a special executive suite are exempt, thus depriving English fans – and others – of their time honoured practice of getting totally bladdered after a game. Signs of adherence to the values of LGBTQ+, armbands etc., have likewise been banned, although I sometimes have the impression that the issue has become one of the physical wearing of these insignia and the values that they stand for have been side-lined. There have been many gestures and no doubt many of them were sincerely meant, such as the England team playing a match with a hastily cobbled together team of migrant workers, but wouldn’t it have been better just to have said ‘no’ in the first place and boycott this World Cup. What we have now is a mess, with accusation and counter-accusation flying back and forth, the west is accused of arrogance, lots of ‘gesture politics’ and little of substance. One exception would be the Iranian fans, particularly the women, who are courageously using the Cup to highlight the oppression of women in their home country.
It was clear from the very start of the bidding process that Qatar’s success was based primarily on a complex and well-planned campaign of ‘favours’, bribes and nepotism and we are a long, long way from even a passing notion of the ’Peoples’ Game’. Maybe this phrase should just be dumped, when did football ever belong to the people in any meaningful sense? I don’t look back with nostalgia to the days when I stood in the cold and rain watching Stocksbridge Works who are now ‘Stocksbridge Park Steels’ in yet another sign of the times, despite the steelworks being almost completely shut down. My metaphorical mug of Oxo is now stone cold and tonight England will play the USA but I am struggling to summon up much enthusiasm.