Before any other nation had even the smallest opportunity to weigh up its chances, Asia came steaming in with full support for Saudi.

When I say full support, I mean the full support of the head of the Asian Confederation – Sheik Salman… a Bahraini infamously linked with the Qatar bid which amazed the world by being selected to stage the 2022 World Cup despite its deadly summer conditions and even deadlier record on worker rights and human rights generally.

What on Earth is FIFA doing?

I will now digress and tell an apparently unrelated story…

Some years ago I worked with a woman who told me the most appalling story. She’d been married to a Saudi man (in Australia) who was not religious. (She wouldn’t have married him if he was.) After a few years of marriage, he told her he wanted to visit his family in Saudi Arabia, so off they went – for three weeks.

She was a little disturbed by the religious pressure put on her husband by his family, and very disturbed by the conditions she was forced to endure – no travelling beyond the home without a male family member; wearing a hijab in public...

On the day before they were due to go back to Australia, her husband informed her they were staying. Permanently.

She was utterly horrified but there was nothing she could do. Her passport was taken and her husband became an ultraconservative member of the family.

I won’t go into the full details of the tortures and privations she endured – mainly at the hands of her female relatives, who watched her like a hawk – but it took her two years to escape. She made a secret friend in another household who helped her get across the border and eventually make her way back to Australia.

She was a sad and broken woman when I knew her…

Giving the World Cup to these medieval despots where women have no rights… extraterritorial workers have no rights… and people who speak up against the regime (like Jamal Khashoggi) can simply be murdered with impunity proves only this…

FIFA is no longer relevant as a world governing body.

FIFA has long been regarded as a byword in corruption, but effectively selling the World Cup to Qatar and now standing by idle as Sheik Salman ushers the World Cup into the Saudi camp tells me just one thing…

It’s over.

It is time the decent football world – sick to death of sports washing – did one of two things.

  1. The soft option is to split Asia into two confederations – East and West – with Oceania drafted into the East with a border somewhere around India.
  2. The hard option is that all countries disgusted by the antics of FIFA over the last 20 years simply leave and start a new world football body.

If we went with the soft option we would at least quarantine some of the most corrupt and inhumane regimes into their own irrelevant body. They could only occasionally disrupt the rest of the football world with their bribes but I would take it further. I’d suggest that nations joining the new body should legislate to prevent Saudi (and other) countries or companies from owning or sponsoring teams.

If we went with the hard option (now my preference) we’d start with a whole new charter of rights and responsibilities which prevented any sort of discrimination and allowed only those who committed to open and free societies to be members.

All the rest could do what they like… spend what they like… and I no longer give a crap about them.

Can we now just talk about football?

 

Adrian's books can be purchased at any good bookstore or through ebook alchemy. His first sci-fi novel (Asparagus Grass) was published by Hague Publishing in July 2023. The ebook can be purchased here and the paperback can be ordered here or at your local store.