Thread by @by_Matt_Killeen

I love football. It’s an all-encompassing passion that cuts to my very soul. It runs in my blood. Its geographic nature ties it to notions of identity and family and collective consciousness that are the bricks with which I am made. 1/

Football was something I shared with my father, with whom I had a complex and difficult relationship. It was the fulcrum around which a very male-type family were constantly there for each other. It rooted us as we have spread round the globe. 2/

The pure *joy* that I've experienced in those rare moments of triumph isn't quite the point. Defeat is the essential flip side & it can bring a warm sense of belonging. Football can be, as the phrase goes, beautiful. It also has an inestimable cultural value. I love *The Game* 3/

But the clubs, structures, the leagues & federations that run that game are like a seeping abscess. The moral corruption, greed & inequalities are a stain on the whole thing. There's lots of unpleasant fans too, because a lot of people are speaking without filter right now. 4/

Most football fans have to square these two opposing realities, knowing that opting-out of the systems means an act of self-mutilation. The systems don’t care about “legacy fans”, the word clubs use to describe their discerning & existing “consumers”. 5/ football365.com/news/european-…

Growth is everything, we're told. Our participation is simply worthless to most of them. Our absence would only hurt us. You can't choose to watch "other" football, or change teams. As Nick Hornby says of this, you can get divorced, but you can never remarry. 6/

With the possible exception of the “Super League”, no other event has writ this impotence so large and painfully as the 2022 World Cup in #Qatar.
theguardian.com/football/2014/…

The game’s premier body saw fit to award the hosting of its flagship tournament to an authoritarian dictatorship & repressive state of institutionalised human rights abuses & de facto slavery, defined by a sexist, racist & homophobic patriarchal supremacy. freedomhouse.org/country/qatar/…

This country, with a native population the size of Coventry, was too hot to stage an outdoor sporting event in summer and had no infrastructure to support it. Worst of all, they’ve gone on to create a tournament with literal blood on its hands. theguardian.com/global-develop…

It is laughable that former FIFA President Sepp Blatter is now declaring the Qatar World Cup a mistake. It was under his leadership, that FIFA, littered with corruption, awarded the 2018 tournament to Russia, another dictatorship, and then the 2022 edition to Qatar.

Giving the duties of host to smaller footballing nations as part of their development is part of the tournament, although it can result in vast white elephant stadia & some abhorrent social cleansing / gentrification. This was not the case here. si.com/soccer/2020/05…

Even swollen by its transient migrant population, it's simply too small for meaningful footballing development. They've gamed the system for decades to create a worthwhile national team, but their league is incapable of growing in any consequential way. web.archive.org/web/2015100212…

We know why this occurred, & it’s a wonder that more people have not found themselves behind bars as a result, but if the modern game has a god, it’s money. FIFA has previous in this regard. 9 of 22 World Cups have been hosted by dictatorships or violently repressive regimes.

These were the kind of sociopathic choices that we hoped had been consigned to history. Yet, here we are, again.

New president Gianni Infantino was allegedly a new broom. Leaving aside poor decisions (VAR, hosting of EURO 2020, a 40-team World Cup, trying to change the length of games & his virtually non-existent work on transparency & governance) Qatar is his most heinous achievement.

When he came into his role, he had the opportunity to stop the whole thing as the ludicrous decision that it was. Furthermore, it had become clear that Qatar could not, as promised, host a summer World Cup. That was grounds alone to bin the whole mess.
rte.ie/sport/soccer/i…

Any number of countries could run a World Cup at short notice (6 years) & not interfere with the traditional calendar. But he didn’t & has to bear a huge responsibility that includes exploitation, enslavement & the avoidable deaths of some 6500 workers. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Amnesty International have condemned the tournament, alleging forced labour practices in its preparation. Infantino has described these labourers as being “paid” and “proud” of their contribution.
amnesty.org/en/latest/camp…

2017: “Any team, including supporters & officials...who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious." Yet Qatar goes on when it is clear the LGBT+ community can't, realistically, attend. stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/…

Then again, Infantino is a guy happy to accept a medal from Putin. It's a rage inducing human disaster of epic proportions.

talksport.com/football/12404…

For football, it’s a bonfire. Never have I seen the community less enthused. Players are bouncing from club schedules to representing their countries with no rest, no acclimation, no time with international teammates - it’s going to be rubbish.

https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1587581178089033730?s=20&t=2wvegq9l86I-TjzGsILmRg

Fans of so-called elite teams often ignore national partisanship, so this is all just *in the way*. The interested onlookers – the people who make the World Cup pay – are opting out. The guilt and implied complicity are too much. Logan understates here: bbc.co.uk/sport/football…

Nobody is taking days-off to sit in the pub garden because it’s going to be wet and cold. It’s all too much bother. That has a knock-on effect.
ft.com/content/faf576…

It’s also a calamity for FIFA. We have seen how the pursuit of money above all things & the apparent licence to behave in opposition to reality has brought much of society to the brink of collapse. The decision to press on & embrace a humanitarian crime infects everything.

The sponsors, too craven to back out & take a stand when they alone had the power to stop this, must believe that any publicity is good publicity...but that's not a real thing. @budfootball? The beer of homophobia.
The hosts are embarrassed by them too.
vinepair.com/booze-news/bud…

@McDonalds? The fast food of human rights abuses. @HisenseGlobal? Official TVs of modern slavery. You can argue organisational complexity & compartmentalisation, but that's how you're going to be remembered. Well done you! Are those tickets worth it? amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Now...let's get personal. For me, & others, World Cups are not just football tournaments, but markers that count the progress of life and mortality. The years slide by, but these tournaments are markers that make time make sense.

They are also precious glimpses of a people pulling in the same direction, of a shared anticipation, and the hope of those glints of a joy whose rarity makes them golden. It is peak football. The apotheosis of everything.

Qatar makes this a miserable time. Yes, I'd describe it as complicated. Because the whole thing is *about us*. So, I didn't buy tickets - I'm in the ESTC - & I'm boycotting the sponsors & not doing merch. I'm not interacting with FIFA’s lack-of-charm offensive.

As for the smug bigots of Qatar who wanted a piece of the global party, paid for with the lives of those they thought inferior to them and who are now refusing to invite everyone? Fuck. Them.

But to not watch the football? I am simply unprepared to let these monsters take the game away from me. It’s not theirs to do so. It belongs to us. I reclaim it. We have lost so much in last decade. I’m not strong enough to have this taken away entirely.

If this sounds like a cop-out to you, I imagine I might think the same in your shoes. But I’m in mine. Concentrate on the football, FIFA says. Oh, I will, but I will not be quiet about it.

I'll be talking about the football AND tweeting and reminding the sponsors and FIFA what they've done. I'm donating to relevant charities and asking you to do similar. First things first...
amnesty.org/en/donate/

#Beckham was my favourite England mens player. He looked like he cared, at a time when the rest just didn't. This is my pride and joy, an irreplaceable repro with match details and all. I've worn it for every England game since 2011. But no longer.

He can't be an ambassador for this binfire and me wear his shirt. For what that's worth to anyone.

He wasn't my favourite England *player* anyway.😆

Join 26000 others in @stonewall's #ProudStadium and chip in with some cash too.
stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campa…

And if you're still here...maybe later I'll play the England World Cup song I co-wrote back before the country came unglued and proved me wrong about everything.