Portugal has been ‘closed’ again. Was open, or ‘green’, as we now call it, everyone booked flights and holidays and then… it went ‘Amber’. You can still go but when you return home they put you in prison in Folkestone with seven thousand asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan for a month. (Some of these details may not be completely accurate).

Yet Portugal was the venue for last weekend’s European Champions’ League final. Played between Chelsea, who unfortunately won, and Manchester City, who fortunately lost. Two English teams, you may note. Originally scheduled to play the final in its originally selected destination of Turkey. But Turkey was a ‘red’ country so they had to move it. So let’s think. Where shall we move this final… the two finalists are both from England… we don’t want people traveling the world unnecessarily… Wembley Stadium is free that (and every other) night… so what’s the most sensible thing to do…

Play it in Porto! Of course. It’s so obvious.

From my understanding (never a great starting point) they wanted to play it at Wembley. But England was not prepared to accept the thousands of UEFA and FIFA hoy-polloi without the usual checks and quarantines and shit, and Portugal weren’t so fussy. Probably why they’re rates are now rising.

In a typical year at such a massive event, there’d be, say, 60,000  spectators. Of which, the two competing teams are allocated about 10k each for their fans and the other 40,000 are for UEFA, for clubs to give to dignitaries, sponsors, lawyers, agents, all the usual band of over-paid, free-loading bottom-feeders who collectively curse the modern game of football. And because these (un)worthies come from many different countries, all at different levels of covid risk, England said ‘non’ and Portugal said ‘why not?’ And letting in 20 thousand actual supporters from India-by-proxy central, what’d’ya expect??? So Portugal became amber and thousands of tourists (including one daughter) get screwed. 

I’m only playing football in my garden and holidaying in Southend-on-Sea. 

Happy Saturday

A xxxx