As the emir of Qatar draped a bisht around Lionel Messi, it closed a year when the veil actually slipped for football.
It was forced to confront so many realities it constantly tries to obscure, in service of the great show, but that it isn’t actually equipped to deal with. The repercussions from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ended what one European official described as football’s “game of pretences”, with that all part of the same international programme that involved the 2018 World Cup, the consequent need for fossil fuels only strengthening Qatar’s position for the most controversial World Cup ever held.
