sport news OLIVER HOLT: A jewel of our summer has been stolen from us with World Cup ... trends now
In a normal year, in the time-served tradition of football's four-year cycle, the latest incarnation of the greatest celebration of the sport would be starting some time around now.
Early to mid-June is usually when the men's World Cup dawns. Many of those of us who love the game have measured out our lives in the anticipation of those glorious summers with the tournament at their heart.
Not this year. Not this year the gilded afternoons and evenings spent in the pub garden or in the pavilion at the cricket club, or at home with friends, watching the game. Not this year the packed summer where the World Cup jostles happily with the other staples of our June and July calendar, Wimbledon and a Test series. This year, the jewel of our summer has been stolen from us.
Not this year, the summer pilgrimage for England fans to follow their team abroad. Not this year, the carefree sunshine holiday where supporters can treat themselves to the trip of a lifetime without worrying about whether they will be punished because their choice of partner marks them out as a criminal. Not this year.
The tradition of hosting a World Cup in the summer every four years has been taken from fans
A general view of Lusail National Stadium which will host the 2022 World Cup final this year
This year, there is a blank where the World Cup should be because, more than a decade ago, in one of the most cursed and risible and dubious sporting decisions in history, a 22-man FIFA executive committee riddled with corruption, awarded their most prized possession to the repressive regime of the desert emirate of Qatar, where the average daily summer temperature is about 40C.
The decision felt like a bad joke then. It feels even worse now. Back then, of course, Qatar insisted it would host the tournament in the summer. The promise was part of its bid, a promise designed to defuse some of the incredulity at the idea of the World Cup being awarded to a nation roughly the size of Yorkshire.
The bid blinded us with science about how the heat would not be a problem because of high-tech air-conditioning.
'Each of the stadia,' Qatar's bid document said, 'will harness the power of the sun's rays to provide a cool environment for players and fans by converting solar energy into electricity that will then be used to cool both fans and players at the stadia.'
The promise of playing in June and July was garbage, of course. The tournament was won dishonestly on a whole series of different levels.
Five years later, to no one's great surprise, it was announced that it had been decided it would not be possible to host the 2022 tournament in the northern hemisphere summer after all and that it would take place in November and December instead.
Four years ago at this time, football fans saw France lift the World Cup trophy in Russia
It is the world's tournament and so the issue is not that the World Cup should always fit around the European game. The issue is more that not only was the bid besieged by allegations of corruption but it was also won on a false premise. Maybe even that is flawed logic: there are many who believe Qatar would have won even if they said they would play games on the moon. The FIFA of that era was the most venal sporting body on earth. Money was all that mattered.
The absence of the tournament this summer will provide another unwelcome reminder that the disease of sportswashing is accelerating its spread through so much of what we hold dear in our sporting lives.
Qatar, the UAE and, of course, Saudi Arabia, use sport to distract and the method is proving so successful that it is proliferating.
The World Cup - like Newcastle
