Ysenda Maxtone Graham

The joy of loathing the Qatar World Cup

issue 05 November 2022

It was on 2 December 2010, when the boys of the global footballing community were still quaintly playing FIFA 11 on PlayStation 3, that the venue was announced for the football World Cup of 2022. Among the crowds in the great hall of the Fifa headquarters in Zurich on that Thursday were David Beckham, Bill Clinton, Roman Abramovich, Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson. 

What a moment of disappointment it was for us. Not only had England got just a paltry two votes in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup, losing out to Russia, but we learned that the 2022 one was going to be held in a tiny, single-city desert state whose football team had never got near to qualifying, and whose summer temperatures were 50°C. My now 28-year-old son remembers where he was when he heard the news (at his desk at school), the traumatic moment seared into his memory.

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