In no particular order: Argentina, Cameroon, Denmark, England, Germany, Morocco, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Senegal, & Wales.  It would be interesting to see Wales slip through to the second round.  What a great month ahead!

TIme to get the aircon on.


Also an interesting read : www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/world-cup-built-on-modern-slavery-stadium-workers-blow-the-whistle-on-qatars-cover-up-of-migrant-deaths-1234627582/

Its funny how much fuss is being made about it now, while all this "building" has been happening for years...

I mean, it’s nothing new. News articles have been written about the high death count of the workers for almost a decade. The big difference in the last couple of months are the new documentaries being released. I guess people need to see it to react.

Edit: Response to ubl, things don’t seem to work the way they use to on mobile.

Nevermind the sponsors of the competition...

www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/terms-and-conditions/modern-slavery-act.html

This sketch sums it up perfectly.

Although once the first ball is kicked a lot will be forgotten.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ck0nZx5DEiR

Out of interest, what would be enough to stop supporting your national football team D?

I guess if the majority of the players did, said, supported something that I personally thought was wrong.

Well, there you go, ruining the World Cup for me with all your Mindfulness. I think we can agree that corruption permeates all (I could say, 'pretty much all' if that is gentler) sports. If the sport has footwear and a ball, yep, they have probably been produced in some way, shape, or form by child or slave labor.

I post you the article of a friend of mine

ANOTHER (YET) SINFUL WORLD CUP



In a few days from now, football fans around the world will turn their eyes to Qatar. The reason; From November 20 to December 18, 2022, the 22nd World Cup, the World Cup in which the world's 32 best football national teams compete, will be held there. From the first moment that the venue of the particular World Cup was decided, at the beginning of December 2010, justifiable reactions erupted worldwide.

Qatar is a small Muslim country with extreme heat and temperatures that exceed 50 degrees in summer, which is why the World Cup will be held in winter. In addition, Qatar is famous for its outrageously strict legislation that prohibits, among other things, obscene clothing, gestures and considers homosexuality a "mental disorder". Understandably, the decision to host the World Cup in a Middle Eastern country - for the first time in history - brought a storm of protests:Organizations for human rights, labor unions, anonymous and named actors, national football federations, organized fans and several athletes publicly expressed their strong reactions which, however, were not able to bend the resistance of the World Federation.

But this time, FIFA, a confederation that has always been synonymous with corruption but whose astronomical profits act as a strong glue among its members, has been forced to pay a heavy price for its incomprehensible choice. Investigations were launched, huge financial scandals were revealed, arrests were made and Sepp Blatter, the powerful Swiss president of the federation for 17 consecutive years, was forced to resign. French weekly France Football revealed in January 2013 the existence of a secret dinner at the Elysee Palace on 23 November 2010, just ten days before the crucial FIFA vote.There, the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy met the current supreme ruler of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and the president of UEFA, Michel Platini. In all probability, the topic of discussion that dominated the table should not have been French cinema and Napoleonic campaigns, but some kind of "guarantee" on the part of Sarkozy and Platini to the sheikh about the result of the vote.

Qatar started building the new stadiums and the necessary infrastructure a few years ago. Understandably, the flow of migrants to Qatar has been uninterrupted. People from the poor strata of central Asia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and surrounding areas started coming to Qatar by all means to work and be paid some respectable daily wages. Qatar's laws, however, had no specific coverage for workers, and labor laws were at least deficient, if not infuriating. The continuous work accidents have not gone unnoticed by the few journalists who insist on doing their jobs:In February 2021, a Guardian report revealed that more than 6,500 migrant workers have been killed in Qatar World Cup projects.

The number is shocking and cannot go unnoticed by anyone. With what courage will you engage in football matches when there are thousands of dead people behind the fancy events? But the bitter truth is that cheap labor is used everywhere in the world, including Western countries that love to talk about human rights in all regions of the world except the USA and Europe.
The stadiums for the 2018 World Cup in Russia were also built by immigrants from Central Asia who lived there in not much better conditions than immigrants in Qatar. In capitalism things have been simple for centuries: You go wherever there is money but you are slow to learn what you need to do to get it.

At the same time, it does not make us forget that we all live in an excessively dirty world. The Western world that calls itself the "international community" and wags the finger at those who question it is full of scandals, environmental disasters, extreme economic inequalities, bribery, child pornography and everyday brutality. Every person in every corner of the planet has the right to demand respect and justice for all, but not everything is as innocent as it seems. I remember the united West being against the Beijing Olympics, some countries even threatened a boycott.After all, China successfully hosted the Olympics in 2008, and the laissez-faire political leaders of the Western countries, then on the fence, continue to not dare to mention how much they respect human rights in countries like "ally" Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the World Cup in Qatar is also full of dirt and many years before the cross. It hides at its core death and exploitation. However, it will not be the first sinful World Cup, and unfortunately not the last, because football has always been masterfully used by politics. For example, the wonderful Mario Kempes may have led the beloved Argentina to the World Cup in 1978, but it cannot be ignored that the Videla dictatorship was washed away internationally through the tournament held in Argentina.

The Argentina-Peru match that ended 6-0 still causes debate about how "clean" it was. Also, let's not forget the 1998 World Cup that took place in France and was won by the tricolors. Rumor has it that the schedule was set up so that France and Brazil would meet in the final, which also sparked talk of what did and didn't happen in the warm-up...

And the link in Greek I translated it with google translate

dimosvosinakis.blogspot.com/2022/11/blog-post.html#more

It's not just the migrant deaths that should concern people (understatement of the year). It's also the fact that homosexuality is illegal and persecuted in Qatar. And what does FIFA say in response to all this? "don't criticise them. Respect their culture." They have even banned the players from wearing armbands in support of LGB people. FIFA are disgusting. They are immoral and corrupt to the core.

The difference England have in this World Cup is the depth of the squad. Yeah, some great teams in the competition, but game by game, injuries and fatigue will take their toll, while it looks like England still have so many quality players on the bench.
Fingers crossed 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cld40jvA8j6