Qatar: a stroll in the sand

What a sad joke the selection of Qatar is for the future of football.

After sterile walking pace games in various hot and humid climates in recent World Cup tournaments (with FIFA efforts to spice it up by unpredicateble plastc footballs)  it goes to a country that has temperatures around 45 degrees or more at the time it will be staged.

Let’s forget about infrastructure, crowd, and training problems and focus on the football. Solar powered power is projected to drive air conditioning that will maintain temperatures at 27 degrees. ( probably wildly optimistic). For those still reluctant to commit fully to Celsius, that’s around 80F.
The South African tournament was characterised in the main by its walking pace, passing from side to side of the pitch and back to goal, and extreme caution displayed by all sides, occasionally sparked into life by the Germans. No wonder the broader non-‘soccer’ devotees in the States find it difficult to get enthused about the game.
The Qatar tournament will do little to enhance the quality and attractiveness of football other than to those in the Middle East who will rise to it in patriotic fervour.