Rafalution

I posted this in the otf qatar thread i feel it has aged poorly. leading up to it starting and the opening weekend criticism was everywhere, but all my normal football sites have pretty much entirely turned to coverage and discussion about the games - with the odd post/article about rainbow bands or hats and thats it. the news seems to have moved on entirely from any issues around the fan zones or the beer bans or anything like that. definitely know a few people with the same change in attitude as marius about it (not having a go at them or him, i understand - its a world cup, life is **** for a lot of people atm, why should they not enjoy it).

Good on them.

2 england games and the last 20mins of arg v SA are the only things i've purposefully watched. wales v usa happened to be on where i was. agree with jd that i don't feel like i'm missing out.

They don't need to, they do it to the first one and that would be enough for the other 6 to not wear the armband.

Absolutely trash by GMB to get him on to speak about this - i've not watched the clip but i'm guessing they didn't push back on him on his own homophobia?

They don't have any weebs though, so they've got that going for them...

It's only going to get worse, isn't it.

It's the later, it's nearly always the later.

You don't think brexit was rooted in racism? You don't think policing in this country is institutionally racist?

I mean this is just absolute nonsense.

The whole point of the world cup and sports washing in general from the persian gulf states is setting themselves up for the energy transition. its not about people stopping buying their oil now, its about what they can sell in the future. they want to be hubs of international business and high-end tourism. a disastrous world cup where they go back on deals isn't going to help

It had not occurred to me that the only thing available would be Budweiser

It's less about this one and more about putting pressure on future ones. if advertisers see viewing figures drop they might think twice about the amount of money they'll bid for sponsorships if FIFA decide that some other country run by an awful, repressive, regime, is a good place to host a world cup Agree Qatar isn't that affected by non watchers, but they are affected by people talking about why they are not watching.

Shall we do some sportswashing? Yeah alright - let's make sure everyone knows what awful, bigoted, authoritarian, abusive and controlling arseholes we all are though Sure thing, boss!

It's awful, but they know it's awful and are playing into it. I don't mind it, it's a bit cringe but it's meant to be. 50/50. C+.

Best placed team from last tournament then. Or highest in fifa rankings. Russia vs Saudi Arabia and Qatar vs Ecuador - its not exactly top of the must watch games.

They really should have stuck with the defending champions for the opening game

I mean they went through European football academies because they were born in those European countries...

NO KETCHUP!

Okay? They've not executed 15,000 in one go though - estimates are it's a few hundred a year normally. It's quite normal to call for action against a state when they regress further, even if you weren't happy, but not doing much about it, with where they were in the first place. Are you also against Russia being banned from Fifa on the basis they weren't when they invaded Crimeia?

Foden or Sterling in for Wilson for me, and then Walker in against the better attacking sides. Are you playing Wilson wide in a front three there?

i'd rather watch exciting football and go out in the groups than watch boring defensive football and go further

Rice at RWB/RM, then Phillips there, then a front 3 with Rashford in the centre? None of it makes sense

Not hypocritical at all, that word is way too overused. You're allowed a cut-off point, and you're allowed to boycott one thing and not another, even if you think they are both bad. Doing something one time is better than never doing anything based on the fact that you didn't bother before. I mean you've basically constructed an argument that forces you to take no action, based on your own previous behaviour, as a cop out to having to do anything or think much about it. It's no different to saying something like 'well i never voted before because i thought they were all useless and i still think they are all useless, so it'd just be wrong for me to vote now.' They weren't previously threatening to execute 15,000 of their own citizens though

England generally underperform as a whole.