Qatar 2022 World Cup – Let the “party” begin

She still measures 40 centimeters, still weighs just over 6 kilos. And for four years, finally four years and four months, it has been the relative property of France. She is the World Cup. Competition created by Jules Rimet almost a century ago. And trophy revamped, even magnified, by Silvio Gazzaniga in the early 70s when Pelé’s Brazil won the winged cup at the end of a Mexican symphony like no other.

This November 20, 2022, it has never weighed so heavily on the shoulders of those who covet it. Because the World Cup which opens on the occasion of an unprecedented Qatar – Ecuador is a concept far from that which was originally thought of. And that has nothing to do with the season and this fall which has finally taken up residence in the northern hemisphere. Because the first World Cup in Uruguayan history took place in the heart of the southern winter. Because the South African edition, closer to us, also took place in sometimes cool temperatures.

Never have sport and politics, even decency and conscience, been so intertwined on the eve of the greatest sporting event on the planet. So yes, other appointments have, before 2022, carried an acrid taste in their wake. And very early. 1934 and Mussolini’s Italy were its first avatar. 1978 and the Argentina of Videla had taken a distant relay. These “examples” to remind us that Blatter’s gang – which offered the 2018 and 2022 editions to Russia and Qatar twelve years ago – and his worthy successor Infantino invented nothing and in the end only walked in the footsteps of their more or less distant predecessors. Except that the cynicism displayed around the event that interests us, at a time when few things escape the light, is a planetary first.

“Do not mix sport and politics”, which they repeat loudly when it suits them. However, if it is not the only one to dissociate deeds and words, FIFA has always done just that. And this World Cup is just the result. We will not recall here the past decade, the scandals, the victims of a World Cup organized at all costs, the ecological disaster and the serious restrictions of human rights in the country which will host the planet for a short month.

The original sin

Moreover, a small parenthesis: the original sin of this World Cup is not to have wished to open up to new territories. It was even a duty because America and Europe, if they remain natural hosts, can no longer be exclusive. The concern is to have done it here and above all in this way.

If we adorn ourselves with cynicism, in our turn and our scale, that of informed observer and attentive spectator, we suspect that the front will be diluted and thoughts will quickly turn to the game and that it there will be, all the same, pleasure on the grounds, even if one feels a particular embarrassment and not only at the armholes. You just have to see around us, every day: the pomposity that usually accompanies the World Cup has been left in the closet. From sponsors to broadcasters who are usually quick to point out that they have invested in a product that is dear to them, literally and figuratively, have so far kept a low profile.

A dream, anyway

Twenty years without winning is an eternity on the scale of the five-time Auriverde winner. Argentina has been waiting for this for much longer (1986) and dreams of taking revenge in 2014, for Lionel Messi and… thanks to him. La Puce should also play in Qatar for its last World Cup. Just like his friend Cristiano Ronaldo who also comes to forget his daily life. Replacing the everyday with the exceptional is pretty good.

Germany, which will eventually bounce back, Spain, which has undergone its transformation, England, very close to the European throne in 2021, Belgium, for a last generational dance, the Netherlands, for a first , arrive the sharpened appetite. We would have liked to add Senegal to this list. But the Teranga Lions find themselves somewhat toothless by Sadio Mané’s package. Like every four years, only one will remain. And that’s the only thing that doesn’t change this time.