The World Cup started! Did you see that? Brilliant. Ecuador played the hosts, Qatar, in a match that was… can’t say ‘riveting’ because 1237 riveters died making the stadia… can’t say ‘breathtaking’ because all 6,500 who died stopped breathing at the exact moment of death… and I can’t say ‘outstanding’ because it really wasn’t. But it was football, so we must all be grateful. And no-one collapsed in the heat. Though Ecuadorians and Qataris are both hot weather people.

Ecuador scored a goal early on. It went to VAR for checking, as all goals must do, according to the 11th commandment, and… and… and… it was disallowed. The pundits checked it out, I checked it out, Gary Linneker had a look and we all thought it to be a righteous goal, but VAR thought otherwise.

Now here’s the funny thing. Everyone fucking hates VAR. In its 2 or 3 year tenure as the ‘official ruination of football’ we’ve all become almost immune to the quirks and vagaries of that horrible, destructive, heart-breaking system. And yet my first thought was not ‘VAR has fucked up again’, nor that there was some off the ball incident before the goal causing a problem. No. My first thought was ‘they’ve bribed the video ref’. And I was so ashamed for making such accusatory thoughts, so prejudicial against the host nation, that I thought I must have been the only person with such things in mind. And that, once again, its because I’m a bad and terrible person.

Then the meme, above, hit my WhatsApp stream. And I realised something different. That no-one trusts Qatar. Having used bribery and corruption to obtain their ‘dream’, why should it stop there? As has been mentioned a billion times: ‘they are not a footballing nation’, so why would they care about honesty in that game? When they live in a world where ‘everything has its price’ and they can easily afford to pay it. You get David Beckham for 150 mil, Morgan Freeman for a pretty penny, Gianni Infantino for whatever it takes, a humble video referee would get you change out of a few hundred grand.

Ahhhh, but the goal was disallowed for that usual VAR type nonsense, a toe was offside. Possibly just a toe-nail, but definitely offside, hence no-goal. We had no reason to doubt the honesty and integrity of anyone.

And yet I did. It was my very first thought. One never to have previously crossed my mind. That the game might have been compromised or corrupted.

The legacy of Qatar has begun.

Happy Monday

A xxxx