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  1. #1
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    The World Cup virtue-signalling race.

    The great World Cup virtue-signalling race has begun – and fans are already turning off

    Few spectacles are more likely to spark a switch-off than a 24-hour cycle of hollow pieties

    OLIVER BROWN
    CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
    16 November 2022 • 8:00am

    Oliver Brown



    Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, left, and FIFA President Joseph Blatter, right, applaud, as Sheika Mozah bint Nasser al-Misned holds the World Cup trophy, after the announcement of Qatar hosting the 2022 soccer World Cup in Zurich, Switzerland -

    Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter (right) admits the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar was a 'mistake' CREDIT: AP/Michael Probst

    It was 12 years ago that Sepp Blatter unfurled a fateful slip of paper to reveal a single word: “Qatar”. And yet many countries at this World Cup have left it until the week before the tournament to semaphore the fact they are not best pleased with the choice of host nation. What, pray, were they doing for the other 623 weeks when they had a chance to make a righteous stand? Polishing their rainbow crests?

    I hate to break it to Denmark, proudly toting their all-black third strip to reflect the bleakness of migrant worker deaths, or to Australia, whose players have put out a video lamenting the inability of Qatar’s LGBT community to “love the person they choose”, but such gestures are too late. About a decade too late, in fact. Once, a collective highlighting of grievances might have had the power to force Fifa into a change of heart. Now, it just looks as if these nations are scrambling to outdo each other for hand-wringing and opportunism.

    They are outraged, they say, about the lives lost in creating eight state-of-the-art venues in one tiny patch of desert. Doubtless such fury is sincere. Here is the problem, though: the grounds are already built. Too many labourers are already dead. Ten European federations, including the Football Association, are lobbying Fifa to guarantee a compensation fund for workers and a centre in Qatar where their rights can be defended.


    But if you are so steadfast in your conviction that these World Cup stadiums are steeped in blood, surely the more principled act is not to play in them? As ever, this is where the most conspicuously right-minded lose their nerve. Pulling out of the World Cup would, for most teams, trigger a financial loss too catastrophic to contemplate. So what emerges, as a substitute for withdrawal, is a veritable orgy of virtue-signalling.

    Take Group B alone, where the United States have replaced the red, white and blue in their logo with the full spectrum of colour, and where England have landed aboard a Virgin Atlantic aeroplane christened “Rain Bow” – albeit in print so small that you would need a long lens to see it. Is this truly how the next month must unfold? With a circus of cosmetic protests, empty rhetoric and “OneLove” armbands?


    The England team were flown to Qatar aboard Virgin Atlantic’s “Rain Bow” plane CREDIT: Telegraph


    It is little wonder that, according to one recent survey, 40 per cent of supporters in the UK are predicting this will be the worst World Cup ever. Few spectacles are more likely to spark a switch-off than a 24-hour cycle of hollow pieties. Already, the event is threatening to become the moralistic equivalent of a poker contest: “I’ll see your mournful black jerseys. And I will raise you … an LGBT pride plane.” Hugo Lloris is one player who has had enough, refusing to wear anti-discrimination armband with a rainbow heart.

    “When we are in France, when we welcome foreigners, we often want them to follow our rules, to respect our culture, and I will do the same when I go to Qatar, quite simply,” the world champions’ goalkeeper said. “I can agree or disagree with their ideas, but I have to show respect.” His position tallies with that of Noel Le Graet, president of the French federation, who has expressed unease about teams lecturing other countries about how to conduct their affairs.

    An character wearing trainers decorated in rainbows features on part of the plane flying England to Qatar. Credit: Virgin Atlantic England’s World Cup squad are expected to fly to Qatar tomorrow on a plane called “Rain Bow” - The great World Cup virtue-signalling race has begun – and fans are already turning off
    The England team were flown to Qatar aboard Virgin Atlantic’s “Rain Bow” plane CREDIT: Telegraph
    It says much about the absurd bind in which football finds itself that its great ethical battleground is over armbands. Where Harry Kane is hailed as a hero for donning one, Lloris is widely denounced as a traitor for refusing to follow the herd. “Homophobia is not a cultural trait or an idea,” lamented Charlotte Minvielle, of France’s Green Party. “Lloris, this is a lack of respect for human rights.”

    So often, sport is seduced by such airy idealism. Just look at the G20 summit in Indonesia, where Gianni Infantino made a risible little speech about the World Cup and the war in Ukraine. “Let’s take this opportunity to do everything we can to start putting an end to all conflicts,” said the Fifa president.

    “You are the world leaders, you have the ability to influence the course of history.Football is offering you a unique platform of unity, and peace all over the world.” Cue a giant collective eye-roll. This is the same man, do not forget, who once performed keepy-uppies with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

    Thomas Bach, Infantino’s counterpart at the International Olympic Committee, is just as culpable, trotting out the same vapid bromides in the faint hope of a Nobel peace prize. Except by now, you may have noticed that all his white-dove talk seldom cuts through. In 2008, the “Olympic truce” was accompanied by the rumbling of Russian tanks into South Ossetia. In 2014, the Sochi Winter Games was followed instantly by the annexation of Crimea.

    And this year in Beijing, the postscript to Bach’s pleas for harmony was for Putin’s bombs to rain down on Ukraine. Sport deludes itself if it imagines that it can heal bitter political enmities, or if, in the case of Qatar’s strict laws on homosexuality, it can strip away entrenched religious customs. This is not to suggest that it is powerless, merely that the time for exercising its power has come and gone.

    "To apply pressure, it had to be 10 years ago,” Lloris argued. “Now it’s too late. The focus has to be on the field.” He will find himself excoriated for those remarks, bombarded with accusations that he does not care. Ultimately, however, he is right. Football fluffed its lines when it had the chance to condemn Qatar as one. Now, as the tournament dawns, we are left only with a chorus of feeble sanctimony.

    The great World Cup virtue-signalling race has begun – and fans are already turning off
    p.s. the stereotypical cartoon limp wristed poof mincing it airborne fashion on the side of the plane is the just the trick to suddenly make the qataris change their minds about poofery, sex before marriage, alcohol and human rights.

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Well that was well worth opening a new thread for.

  3. #3
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    tax is frantically signalling that he is not poof

  4. #4
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    After all these years he's still firmly stuck in the closet . . . such a shame. He could only free himself on his two trips to Bangkok, but those days are gone as well. Poor taxidriver.

  5. #5
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    Are gay footballers banned from representing their team in Qatar? I doubt it, because that would mean the tournament would have to be cancelled.

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    tax is frantically signalling that he is not poof
    baldprick with is token gay innuendo post

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backspin View Post
    baldprick with is token gay innuendo post
    How is that an "innuendo", Skidmark?

  8. #8
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    It is not innuendo if it is true

    Urban Dictionary: Backspit

  9. #9
    Isle of discombobulation Joe 90's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Well that was well worth opening a new thread for.
    Tbf there isn't a thread to bash Qater yet.

    I've noticed in the UK that people are more interested in Xmas than the World cup.
    Most people I know are boycotting it.

    The flags are not flying in the pubs.
    The football cards and folders remain stacked and unsold in the shops.
    There's no fever or frenzy like 4 years ago.

    This is the worst world cup in
    my living memory !
    Shalom

  10. #10
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe 90 View Post
    Tbf there isn't a thread to bash Qater yet.
    Yes, the existing thread is full of sabang and hoohoo style brown nosing.



    Fifa world cup finals qatar 2022

  11. #11
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe 90 View Post
    Tbf there isn't a thread to bash Qater yet.

    I've noticed in the UK that people are more interested in Xmas than the World cup.
    Most people I know are boycotting it.

    The flags are not flying in the pubs.
    The football cards and folders remain stacked and unsold in the shops.
    There's no fever or frenzy like 4 years ago.

    This is the worst world cup in
    my living memory !
    I only hope the travelling fans have also decided to boycott it. Nothing says you're shit than having to fill your stadia with interior ministry employees, soldiers and schoolchildren.

    (I exempt Korea and Japan from that, because they got fucked by Blatter and his son-in-law, which should have been a red fucking flag even that far back).
    The next post may be brought to you by my little bitch Spamdreth

  12. #12
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    I only hope the travelling fans have also decided to boycott it.
    And be...err...non-travelling fans?

    It would be pretty funny if the only people there were Beckham, Neville and Qatar's other paid shills/spies.

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille View Post
    And be...err...non-travelling fans?

    It would be pretty funny if the only people there were Beckham, Neville and Qatar's other paid shills/spies.
    I've got a group arriving here next week to watch the England match.

    They wanted to travel but wanted to ditch Qatar.

    So technically you could probably call them travelling, non-travelling fans. Or non-travelling, travelling fans. Or something. Probably.

  14. #14
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille View Post
    And be...err...non-travelling fans?

    It would be pretty funny if the only people there were Beckham, Neville and Qatar's other paid shills/spies.
    Just to elaborate on Korea/Japan, Blatter had given all ticketing to a pal and his son-in-law to handle.

    They of course put tickets together with accommodation and tried to charge a fucking fortune, with that and the distance putting most fans off. They returned most of it at the last minute, too late for Korea to do anything about it.

    The first game I attended, which if I remember was South Africa-Paraguay, was probably a third full. At half time, the stadium filled up with schoolkids and soldiers.

    For the next two games I attended, they had rush printed thousands of shirts for the participating teams (S. Korea excluded), so it looked to the TV cameras that the stadia were full of fans from around the world. Same crowd.

    That's twenty fucking years ago and they still didn't consider it corruption.

    CNN.com - FIFA blasted over ticket fiasco - June 3, 2002

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    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Well, look at COVID and the massive corruption linked to it via the tories.

    Corruption is alive and well in many countries apart from Thailand, and in many organisations other than FIFA.

  16. #16
    Isle of discombobulation Joe 90's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille View Post
    Well, look at COVID and the massive corruption linked to it via the tories.

    Corruption is alive and well in many countries apart from Thailand, and in many organisations other than FIFA.
    Keep on topic Ciz, there's a good fellow

    Fuck Qatar and fvck Fifa!

  17. #17
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    The World Cup virtue-signalling race.-justforsybille-jpg

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    It is not innuendo if it is true

    Urban Dictionary: Backspit

    That's pretty much 'our' very own Backspit

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat DrWilly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by taxexile View Post
    It was 12 years ago that Sepp Blatter unfurled a fateful slip of paper to reveal a single word: “Qatar”. And yet many countries at this World Cup have left it until the week before the tournament to semaphore the fact they are not best pleased with the choice of host nation. What, pray, were they doing for the other 623 weeks when they had a chance to make a righteous stand? Polishing their rainbow crests?

    I hate to break it to Denmark, proudly toting their all-black third strip to reflect the bleakness of migrant worker deaths, or to Australia, whose players have put out a video lamenting the inability of Qatar’s LGBT community to “love the person they choose”, but such gestures are too late. About a decade too late,
    You tit. Australia complained about it immediately, and have done so for a decade.

  20. #20
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrWilly View Post
    You tit. Australia complained about it immediately, and have done so for a decade.
    As did England.

    It was up to the Swiss authorities to do something and they abdicated their responsibility in their usual style.

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat
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    At the end of the day billio swill still be watching and not give a stuff about Qatar . . . I'll watch as well, doesn't mean I support/like/admire the place. Been there, as I mentioned on the other thread, for a while doing IT JVs - unbearable place . . . though the food is good.

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