What will be the legacy of the Qatar World Cup?
It's been 100 years since the first international football match. Football has been eclipsed by globalisation. The latest World Cup is the inevitable result. It's not the the last World cup to be hosted by a regime that doesn't conform to liberal-democratic values. Paul Breitner refused to play in Argentina in 1978. The game exists in glorious isolation. For the duration of the game the world beyond ceases to matter. That's what it's all about. I've seen training-ground games between Premier League teams that were every bit as good as the matches at Anfield or Ibrox.
The Fifa Museum is full of football memorabilia. The library contains over 7,000 books, documents and periodicals dating back over a century. For him the highlights were the old football annuals of his childhood. The FA Book for Boys was a highlight for him.
What will be the legacy of the Qatar World Cup? What will happen when the oil runs out? Will nature reassert its power? I'll miss the kindness of strangers in the mosques and souks. I miss Mohammed, my Palestinian driver.
The new stadia of Qatar are rising out of the desert. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote about football at Eton.
‘Nothing besides remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away.
