The soccer World Cup gets underway next month, when chances are you will have no difficulty containing your excitement.
Lackluster though the Saints have been this season, they are still a much bigger draw around here than the American soccer team. The U.S. is one of 32 countries that have made it through the qualifying rounds to compete for the soccer crown. Teams are arranged in eight groups with the top two in each progressing to the sudden-death stages.
We are in the same group as England, Wales and Iran. If we make it through to the later rounds, no doubt interest will grow more intense, but we will probably always remain one of the few countries largely immune to soccer fever.
Thus we have no opportunity to take a moral stand by boycotting the world cup, which is taking place in Qatar, a venue so unsuitable that it can only have been chosen for corrupt motives. Sepp Blatter, former head of FIFA, which regulates international soccer, recently managed to beat a fraud rap in Switzerland, but other officials still face bribery charges. Nobody doubts that FIFA has long been a racket.
The World Cup is usually held in the summer, but that had to be changed when Qatar, to general astonishment, was picked to host the 2022 tournament.
Even now the heat will be hard for players to bear, but in the summer some of them would have assuredly dropped dead.
Soccer is a game that developed in the cold and muddy conditions of northern Europe; there is hardly any soccer tradition in the kingdoms and dictatorships of the Middle Eastern desert. Qatar has to fly in tons of grass seed to create a playing surface in artificially chilled stadiums specially built by migrant workers, thousands of whom have died in harsh conditions hardly distinguishable from slavery.
Visiting fans will be allowed to drink alcohol in limited areas but gay fans have been warned that homosexuality is illegal in Qatar.
By the standards of the liberal democracies, the place is a medieval hellhole, but none has seen fit to sit this one out as a matter of principle.
It's much the same story with golf, where Saudi Arabia has set up a series of tournaments offering much more prize money than the PGA tour. Such star players as Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson have defected, while Greg Norman merely observed that “we've all made mistakes” when asked whether hobnobbing with Saudis was proper, given Crown Prince bin Salman's responsibility for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Golfers who have taken the Saudi gold generally excuse their cupidity by pointing out that they are not politicians, as though sportsmen are not allowed to have principles. Others have stood their ground admirably, in particular Tiger Woods, who is said to have turned down at least $700 million from the Saudis
No star golfer has to wonder where the next meal is coming from, so excuses for fraternizing with Saudi Arabia will always ring hollow. If sportsmen can't have moral principles, maybe philosophers shouldn't have favorite baseball teams.
As for Qatar, the damage was done when FIFA did the dirty deal that gave it the world cup and thus a veneer of respectability. Whether or not we tune into a soccer game on TV will make no nevermind, and it is highly unlikely that commentators will take time out from analyzing games to focus on the many sins of Qatar society.
Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.