Qatar parks the bus

• Ireland beat England in the T20 cricket World Cup five days after knocking West Indies out.
• Paris Saint-German denied claims in the French press that Kylian Mbappe will earn £546 million gross over three years.
• Wrexham banned a player from wearing boots that displayed an abusive message about the Conservative Party.

Qatar’s emir showed no emotion but there was fury in his words. Next month’s 2022 World Cup hosts were, he suggested, fed up with moral condemnation.

A turning point was reached this week in Qatar’s method of dealing with hostility around worker deaths and LGBT rights. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke of an “unprecedented campaign” of criticism.  He claimed the country had addressed the world’s concerns “in good faith” and made changes, only to face “slander and double standards.” He questioned the “real reasons and motives behind it.”

So, no more Mr Nice Guy. Twenty-four days before kick-off, Qatar’s ruling clan are exasperated. Evidently, they thought disapproval would subside. Instead it’s gathering weight. A world distracted by other pressing matters had not turned its thoughts to Qatar 2022. Soon the event will be front, back and centre. Core disquiet on human rights is now locked into western coverage of the first Arab World Cup.

The emir’s “double standards” reference is revealing. Qatar’s elite talk privately of a contradiction in the UK devouring petrodollars for Heathrow, Barclays, Sainsbury’s, the Olympic Village and Chelsea Barracks while recoiling at a sporting event being staged in a Gulf state with which it has deep ties.

They will tell you it was the British who dreamt up the kafala system, which gives Gulf state companies and citizens control over the employment and immigration rights of migrant workers. The Qataris say they inherited a British construct, then dismantled it under diplomatic pressure as part of World Cup related reforms. It’s not clear how much of the kafala culture survives.

Qatar isn’t the first morally contorted World Cup.

• Russia 2018 kicked off four months after an entire British city – Salisbury – had been put at risk of poisoning when Sergei and Yulia Skripal were attacked with Novichok. Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to the nerve agent via a discarded perfume bottle. Russia had also illegally annexed Crimea and been blamed for the shooting down of flight MH17. London was the world HQ of Russian money laundering when royals and ministers declined to attend Putin’s World Cup. 
• In 1978 Argentina hosted the tournament under a military junta synonymous with a “Dirty War” and the deaths or disappearances of 30,000 citizens.
• If Ukraine can’t win the solidarity vote for 2030, as joint-bidders with Spain and Portugal, Saudi Arabia could force through another winter World Cup in concert with Egypt and Greece.

Moral relativism though won’t obscure the cold truths of next month’s jamboree.

• This week Human Rights Watch documented “six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment” of LGBT people by Qatar’s Preventive Security Department.
• Peter Tatchell was challenged by two uniformed officers and three plain clothes officials in Doha for holding up an LGBT protest sign. Reuters said Tatchell had his placard confiscated and his passport photographed – but was not detained.
• The foreign secretary James Cleverly told LGBT fans to show “a little bit of flex and compromise” in Qatar and to “respect” local customs – a line the Qataris have pushed in diplomatic circles. Labour called the comments “shockingly tone-deaf.”
• Sixteen Australia players released a video raising concerns about migrant workers and supporting the rights of LGBT people “to love the person that they choose.”

In March the Qatar 2022 chief executive Nasser Al Khater took exception to critical remarks by the England manager. Gareth Southgate, said Al Khater, “ought to pick his words very carefully.”  Qatari pushback, which was always audible, has now become explicit, and is likely to increase as scrutiny intensifies.

What seemed a good plan for future-proofing and reputation-cleansing is colliding with western scepticism, some of it late to the party. Hearts and minds isn’t a battle Qatar are likely to succeed in, but they’re still winning the global power game.

Editor’s note: Paul Hayward’s book, England Football, The Biography, tracing the 150-year history of the team, published by Simon & Schuster, is out now. Paul will be in the Tortoise newsroom on Thursday 4 November, along with Mark Pougatch and Sapphire McIntosh, for a special live event on the World Cup. Signed copies of his book will be available. Tickets are free for Tortoise members, and can be booked here.

Under the net

A Russian court has rejected the appeal of one of the world’s leading basketball players, the WNBA star, Brittney Griner, against a nine-year prison sentence. She has been detained in Russia since 17 February when a tiny amount of cannabis oil – legally prescribed in Arizona – was found in vape cartridges on her arrival at Sheremetyevo Airport. Griner, 33, plays for the Phoenix Mercury, is a two-time Olympic Champion, a WNBA champion,  a former ESPN female athlete of the year and an eight-time WNBA all-star, and was travelling into Russia to start her eighth season playing for a basketball team based in Yekaterinburg.

Russia has developed a habit of detaining Americans in order to gain the release of high-value Russian prisoners. For Griner, Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated he wants (among others) the release of Vadim Krasikov, an ex-FSB agent, who isn’t even held by the US, and who was arrested for the murder of a Chechen fighter in Berlin. For Griner this hostage diplomacy means indefinite detention in a forced labour camp.  US diplomatic efforts to free or at least repatriate her have been complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that have followed.

T20 vision

Anyone who saw India’s stunning fightback against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup might have asked: who needs The Hundred when 20-over cricket is so enthralling? India needed 31 from the last two overs when Virat Kohli unleashed his majesty. A maelstrom of sixes, wides and no balls took the game down to the final ball in front of a 90,000 crowd.

The Hundred had other reasons to flinch. While former ECB execs enjoy their £2.1 million bonus pot, the new chairman (Richard Thompson) and chief executive (Richard Gould) are “Hundred sceptics” from county cricket.

Gould said last year: “These new teams will exist for 33 days a year. They have no player pathways. No academy. No age-group teams. No regional community projects. They don’t have international venues. Our domestic clubs do so much: they provide focus and pride.”

The Hundred’s bulwark is a summer TV contract that runs until 2028. But all deals can be abandoned – if there’s mutual consent.

Crossed wire

The New England Patriots lost to the Chicago Bears in the NFL’s Monday Night Football game this week. Tom Brady’s successor at the Patriot’s quarterback position, Mac Jones, threw a costly interception which may have been caused by an extremely unusual interaction with a piece of sporting technology.

ESPN’s SkyCam, a robotic camera suspended above the pitch to give a multidimensional view of the play below, runs on four guiding wires attached to the stands. Some onlookers claim that the ball hit one of the wires, changed trajectory and fell to the Bear’s safety, not the Patriots receiver, its intended destination.

On social media fans have attempted to analyse the path of the ball in the image, and prove that the camera interfered with the throw. ESPN however remains adamant:  “This pass from Mac Jones did not hit ESPN’s SkyCam wiring. This video creates a false impression, but in reality the SkyCam wire was more than 15 feet above the ball and our SkyCam system followed all NFL protocols.”

Goals galore

2.83 – The average number of goals scored per Premier League game this season. If this carries on until the end of the season, it will be the highest average goals per game recorded since the league’s formation.

There are a number of potential reasons for this: 

• Defending has got harder with the advent of VAR. Jostling in the penalty area, tugs of the shirt, and the evolution of the handball rule all now favour the attacking team.
• Attacking has improved. As the graph below shows, there is a gradual trend in the number of goals per game since the turn of the century.
• The game has become more attacking overall. Consider the 2006-07 season that saw an average of 2.45 goals per game – the Premier League was a division coached by the likes of Aidy Boothroyd, Paul Jewell and Jose Mourinho. That style is out the window, while Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Graham Potter offer more expansive styles.

↑ High…

Aston Villa striker Danny Ings walked on to the Villa Park pitch on Sunday hand in hand with nine year-old Riley Regan and, like her, was wearing a noise-cancelling headset. Riley has autism and ADHD and relies on the headset to cope with loud noises, and the gesture was widely praised by fans from around the country. Ings had only scored once in 450 minutes this season going into their game against Brentford, and scored twice in the opening 14 minutes. “I feel I gave Danny his luck,” Riley said.

↓ and low
The women’s Rugby World Cup (RWC) has been going down a storm with record crowds and electrifying play, which makes New Zealand Rugby’s red-faced apology for scheduling the All Blacks men’s test match against Japan to kick off 40 minutes before their women face Wales in the quarter-final all the more “disgraceful”. The RWC set-up meant, irrespective of seedings, the Black Ferns were always likely to play the second-slot match tomorrow unless they didn’t qualify from the pool stage. NZR’s response was that they “did not take into account the Rugby World Cup” schedule, admitting it “wasn’t ideal” for fans. Quite. So either NZR didn’t expect the Ferns would qualify –  which would suggest ignorance of their firm number two ranking and previous World Cup wins – or their support for the women’s game is not as genuine as professed. NZR are working with national broadcasters to make it easier to watch both matches but it’s done little to quell the anger of fans and government ministers. New Zealand v Wales kicks off at 7.30pm local time and 7.30am BST on ITV.

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Paul Hayward
@_PaulHayward

Additional reporting by Andrew Butler, Phoebe Davis, Luke Gbedemah and Sara Weissel.