World Cup on display near 974 stadium in Qatar

THE World Cup of whataboutery and uncomfortable contradictions ended the only way it could. Awkwardly. The colossal and the crass had to come together, one more time, to sign off on Qatar 2022’s dubious achievement.

There was Lionel Messi and his legacy. Untouchable. There was the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Hamad Al Thani, and his legacy. Uncertain. And there was the black bisht, a traditional men’s cloak, being draped across the shoulders of Argentina’s captain. Unexpectedly.

But it wasn’t unexpected, was it? Qatar dominated all aspects of this tournament, through 12 years of Fifa corruption allegations, geopolitical manoeuvres and deaths in the desert, right up until the purest moment of them all. The trophy presentation. And the hosts took charge there, too. This is what US$220 billion really buys. Control. Until the very end.
Naturally, defenders of the symbolic gesture are insisting that it’s just that. A respectful symbol, the black bisht is paying Messi the highest honour. The Qataris consider him one of their own. But he isn’t. He belongs to the badge that was covered by the cloak. And like the empty seats in the opening game, obscuring the Argentina jersey in the last game ensured a wearying theme endured.

Limitless cash really can buy just about anything. It can buy Messi and Kylian Mbappe, the poster boys of Qatar Sports Investments, via their ludicrous contracts at Paris Saint-Germain. It can build an opulent stadium – and a city to host the stadium – to showcase Messi’s coronation. It can even buy the greatest World Cup final of all time. But it cannot buy the ingrained instincts and self-awareness of a sports culture.

This was Argentina’s moment. This was Messi’s moment. In that order. That’s the accepted hierarchy of international team sport. It was not Qatar’s moment.

But the trophy-lifting photographs will say otherwise, indefinitely, a surreal, slightly tarnished snapshot, trapped in an ugly period of football’s history that can never be repeated. Even a final for the ages isn’t worth the price paid for this one.

From calendar shifting to cloak wearing, Qatar has danced to its own tune of rhythmic sportwashing for 12 years, breaking promises pretty much whenever it liked, as long as the geopolitical dream was realised.

When a World Cup evaluation report expressed concerns about safety in Qatar's summer heat, the bidders said they’d build air-conditioned bubbles (they didn’t) and would not move the tournament to the winter (they did).

Building stadiums, accommodation and highways from scratch required a huge influx of migrant workers, but they would not be exploited (they were). They would be spared the hazardous summer conditions (they weren’t). There would be no deaths (there were).

And we are all complicit and hypocritical here. Unlike Argentina ’78, the latest figures are just a Google click away. We were supposed to learn from Russia 2018. Never again, we said, until the next World Cup. Qatar required round-the-clock construction to complete projects in record time. Seriously, how did we think those steely white elephants, looking resplendent on our 4K screens, were being built?

And, yes, indignant Qataris are right to be irritated by the relentless coverage on human rights. Complicity and hypocrisy are like Messi against the French. Everywhere. Lurking in the shadows, forever looking over one’s shoulder. Once the ghosts of Qatar have been exorcised in the next news cycle, we’ll move on to more tolerant, western World Cup hosts, where it’s often easier to control a woman’s womb than gun ownership.

Let’s hope the same journalistic rigour and condemnation applied to Qatar is replicated in the United States in four years.