OPINION: Qatar World Cup Different and Disappointing

The 2022 FIFA World Cup has kicked off in Qatar. It is usually a feast of football for fans and a jackpot for FIFA which, in fact, lives from championship to championship, earning huge money from each of them.

But greed and corruption have ruined everything. A familiar situation, isn’t it?

The celebration did not work out. First, because it’s winter and fans are not ready, there is no conditioned reflex. There is no time for buildup, for anticipation of future matches, each of which is repeatedly played in the head.

Here comes the national championship, the Champions League, and then bang –suddenly the World Cup, without buildup.

Teams that did not have a standard month of training are not ready either. Everyone will play on the go, experiencing fatigue which threatens injuries and a low level of play. Few of the fans are ready to go to Qatar. After all, a trip to the World Cup is not only about football – not so much about the matches, but about the atmosphere.

And there is trouble with the atmosphere in Qatar because of strict laws, no available alcohol, and little geographical space.

As a result, what started with a scandal continues with scandals. They say that the fans are not real because the sheikhs, having bought the World Cup, bought the fans as well, hiring Pakistanis for each team.

Maybe they even bought off who built these stadiums… and survived. Indeed, in the process, many deaths of builders were recorded due to an indifferent attitude to safety.

As a consequence, there is no sense of a holiday among the fans. There is low audience interest expressed for watching it televised.

Accordingly, FIFA will lose money, because the lower the interest in the match, the fewer viewers and income. Not to mention the blow to the image, which might result in the federation losing sponsors’ money in the future.

Ask Elon Musk after buying Twitter.

Why all this? FIFA is in the red. Football is suffering losses as well. Who needs it? Couldn’t this have been expected?

Yes. There is only one answer – corruption. FIFA is a PUBLIC and very corrupt organization.

And the decision as to the venue of the championship was made as a result of a corruption conspiracy, which, as it turned out recently, involved not only FIFA officials, but also former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who received a generous military order from Qatar.

And we can see a classic example from Ukrainian history when systemic corruption aggravated the situation for everyone: the organization itself, the fans, business as a whole, and football.

And what about Ukraine?

We are outsiders at this celebration of life. The Ukrainian national team did not qualify, although it was very close to getting into the World Cup, where a very symbolic group of the United States and Britain on one side and Iran on the other side was waiting for us.

Was corruption the cause of our defeat? Directly, no. We lost in a fair fight.

But does corruption in Ukrainian football affect the regular absence of our team among the strongest national teams in the world? Yes, it affects it.

While in European countries football is a business, in Ukraine it is just a toy for oligarchs, officials, and bandits. Due to this we mainly learn about the football federation from NABU (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) investigations. At the same time, these investigations themselves have no effect on the staff of the organization, who are busy with anything but the development of football in the country.

And as long as it lasts, we will always be outsiders even if these football fests are not quite real.

The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.