While there is currently no out top-class player, the number of sportsmen and women revealing their sexuality is increasing, and it seems inevitable that there will be at least one in eight years time.
Sepp Blatter said in a press conference, when asked about what gay people should do if they want to go to Qatar (as per the BBC), that they should “refrain from sexual activity.”īlatter clarified (or at least attempted to clarify) his statement afterwards, but that he felt the need to treat such a serious issue so flippantly speaks to his general attitude.Īpart from anything else, by 2022 we will, in all likelihood, have an openly gay international footballer selected to play at the World Cup. In a civilised world, those sort of attitudes should not be tolerated, never mind enshrined in law, but obviously FIFA does not take such concerns particularly seriously, if the attitude of their president is anything to go by. The argument about whether the second-biggest sports tournament in the world, after the Olympics, should be held in such a country should really end there. To say that isn't ideal would be quite an understatement. The bulk of the players at the 2022 World Cup, unless there is a violent power shift in the next eight years, will play for European sides, and a switch to a winter tournament will mean they have to start a season, stop halfway through and play what will be for many the most important competition of their careers, then go back and finish their domestic campaigns. UEFA is by far the most-represented confederation at the tournament, with 13 of the 32 nations from Europe, and many of the players from other countries have their day jobs there too.įor example, 30 of the 49 players called up by Brazil in the last year and 19 of the 23 in the last Argentina squad play for European teams. However, a large portion of the players involved will represent European clubs. Some have quite reasonably argued that not all the countries involved operate on an August-May season, so the disruption will only be to a few big and powerful teams that should stop whinging. Of course, this presents a number of problems, not least that the European leagues will have a two-month chunk taken out of the middle of their season. To combat the heat problem, the solution at present seems to be switching the tournament to the winter, when temperatures are much more manageable. However, the game is so much quicker, so much more athletic now, that this sort of heat is simply dangerous. Some may say that World Cups have been played in extreme heat before, and they have, not least in Mexico and assorted South American countries. Unfortunately, they didn't also pass on the sage wisdom that players should also probably breathe in and out if they wanted to stay running around.
Unlike in tennis, FIFA has no policy for extreme weather conditions at its tournaments, instead merely advising players to drink plenty of water. The effects of making people play sport in conditions like that should be obvious, but for an example of what might happen, one only has to turn to the Australian Open this year, when play had to be called off on several occasions after temperatures topped that 105 degrees, and Britain's Jamie Murray had to be treated for heatstroke, as The Guardian reported. Somewhat inevitably, these turned out to be unworkable, so if the tournament is to be played at the traditional, promised time of year, it will be in heat that averages 105 degrees Fahrenheit, as per Al Jazeera. When they pitched for the tournament, the Qatari bid featured all sorts of harebrained schemes, including air conditioning for the grounds and floating 'solar clouds' that would shade the pitch, as reported by The Daily Mail.
If they try that trick in Qatar, they could open up a cafe selling fried egg sandwiches to passing Brits, for the heat will, as you know by now, be absolutely unbearable.
#NEXT WORLD CUP TV#
Whenever a heatwave hits a Western country unused to such temperatures, an enterprising TV news crew will almost inevitably attempt to fry an egg on a car bonnet, or perhaps even the pavement.
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