IT'S hard to accede to all the contradictory commands from Fifa President Gianni Infantino
A few months back, it was 'Football can be a force for change'; at the weekend it was 'Just focus on football, let's not talk about anything else'; and the main message from his bizarre rant on Saturday: 'Don't criticise Qatar'.
Well, focussing on the football, it's impossible not to criticise Qatar – its team and its supposed supporters.
The hosts' display against Ecuador in the World Cup opener was appalling, pathetic. Beaten 2-0 by a team pulling up by half-time, who had a very early goal ruled out by a contrived VAR offside call.
The fans were even worse, with the stadium emptying out from half-time onwards.
So proud to be the first Arab and first Muslim-majority country to host a World Cup, obviously.
Sunday's starting line-up was almost half non-native – although attacking star Almoez Ali/Mohamed Abdulla did come to Qatar as a child from Sudan.
However, defender Carvalho Deus Correia/Pedro Miguel/ 'Ro Ro' – that's one guy known by two different names and one nickname, was born and brought up in Portugal; fellow backs Bassan al Rawi and Boualem Khoukhi are from Iraq and Algeria respectively; defender/ midfielder Karim Boudiaf was born in France and is of Algerian/Moroccan heritage. Both the subs brought on, are from elsewhere: Mohammed Muntari is from Ghana, while Mohamen Waad/ Jadoua Al Bayati is Iraqi, although he came to Qatar in his teens.
Qatar actually reached the 1981 World Youth Championship Final, defeating Brazil and England en route, before losing to West Germany in the decider.
Yet football did not develop; instead Qatar tried to buy success, forcing Fifa to change its eligibility rules in 2004 when the Qataris tried to fast-track the citizenship
Now, though, Infantino allows Qatar to do whatever its rulers want.
Infantino only really cares about money and power – and he has ceded most of the latter to the Qataris (and to Putin before that) in exchange for the former.
I'm not much of a beer-drinker (never was, as my friends will attest); I stopped having more than one pint even before a game because I hated having to go to the toilet before half-time.
So Infantino is quite right that the lack of beer on sale at stadia is not a major deal – well, except for Fifa's long-term sponsors Budweiser, and for the message that that late decision sends out.
There's also the hypocrisy that those who can afford a corporate box can drink alcohol in the stadia. Qatar is a 'dry' country – except for those rich or powerful enough to stay in certain luxury hotels.
Banning the captains' armbands set to show support for LGBTQ+ people was even worse, further evident of the repressive, authoritarian nature of Qatar's rulers and Fifa's kowtowing to them.
The moral cowardice from the FA and their counterparts in Wales and other countries was appalling too.
You really care about LGBTQ+ people – except if it means your captain taking a booking. Pathetic.
I'm married to a half-Nigerian woman. My children have Yoruba first names.
My good friends at school included a Chinese boy and someone of Pakistani heritage. At university, I was pals with a Sikh chap, a Hindu girl, a black woman. One of my best friends from those days is half-Iraqi. I was pals with a Manchester United fanatic – and even an Evertonian, the latter to this day.
I just liked all of those people.
None of those relationships/friendships mean that my thinking might never be unconsciously racist or sexist or 'Western', or that I don't have my own intrinsic biases; the smart part is in recognising those.
It also means that, as much as I respect others' backgrounds and views, I can always learn more about cultural and religious diversity.
My initial instinct was that Qatar was too hot to host a World Cup; but that would prevent a whole swathe of countries from ever being hosts.
If teams from cooler climes have to adapt, have to play a different, more energy-efficient style of football, then so be it.
If Infantino really cared about people with ginger hair and freckles he'd bring the World Cup to Ireland and Scotland, certainly not to the baking heat of Qatar.
The Fifa President didn't entirely talk rubbish on Saturday. As my freelance colleague Padraig O Meisceill has pointed out in an erudite, thought-provoking piece on SubStack, Infantino was quite right to allude to the appalling treatment of refugees in the seas by 'Fortress Europe'.
However, the Fifa bod was quite wrong to blithely imply that Qatar is now treating its migrant workers well.
Acquiring Qatari citizenship is almost impossible for them.
The World Cup is only in Qatar because of bribery, corruption, and Fifa money-making.
The weird argument that you can't criticise Qatar if you didn't criticise Russia doesn't bear much analysis.
Strangely, most of those making that claim a) ignore all the criticism directed at Russia in advance of the 2018 World Cup, including calls for England to boycott that tournament; b) mostly can show no evidence that they criticised Russia themselves.
Yet even an absence of prior criticism should not preclude criticism now, otherwise logically no one would ever be able to criticise anything.
At least I have a proud track record of lambasting VAR…
I'd be more than happy for the World Cup to go to an Arab country, but one with footballing pedigree – Egypt (recent host of the world climate change conference, Cop26), or Morocco, or Algeria, or Tunisia.
Those are all countries which would benefit far more from Fifa investment and from football fan tourism than Qatar. All have much better teams than that shambles representing Qatar.
Instead, the talk is that Infantino wants at least some part of the 2030 World Cup to go to Saudi Arabia and his murderous pal Mohammed Bin Salman.
Sure the Saudis stunned Argentina, but there are wider perspectives than football.
In such a scenario, Uefa needs to say 'No'. 'No. We're not going there. Have your Rest of the World Cup'.
The consequent reduction in income might make Fifa think again.
