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You do wonder if Blatter will be invited by the Qatari's to attend, I'm certain FIFA won't want him around.
It's getting close now, we've had an email from Egland supporters club saying rude gestures and swearing is not in Qatar culture and we may be asked to stop singing songs that contain swear words. Lets hope nobody starts a Mexican wave at the England games as that normally ends up with lots of gestures and swearing when it gets to the England section
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11-11-2022, 13:18
(11-11-2022, 11:37)Stairs Wrote: Anyone here going?
Yes, me.
I've tickets for England's group games plus conditional tickets all the way to and including the final.
We've also tickets to see Spain v Costa Rica, Uruguay v South Korea, Coatia v Canada plus South Korea v Ghana
So 7 games over 9 days kicking off the day after we arrive with England v Iran and ending with Wales v England. After that is dependent on what England do, accommodation and flights booked to cover all outcomes. Half of me wants us to go all the way (I can dream) and the other half of me wants us knocked out in the group stage just so I can save a small fortune.
For all that is wrong with this tournament I am really looking forward to meeting and mixing with fans from other countries and continents and I do like a bit of winter sun and the other bonus is I'm not at work
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I've loved the world cup since i was a kid but i can honestly say i have no interest in this at all, FIFA have been an absolute disgrace and Qatar having the tournament is a scandal. Even by blatter and platinis levels of corruption this takes the biscuit.
Whole thing leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
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Whilst it was right to stop holding it in Europe or South America every other 4th year, with the occasional sojourn to the land of Coca Cola, even Sceptic Bladder is now admitting (sort of) how corrupt, sorry, wrong, he was to hand this to Qatar. It fits with nobody's season of ay consequence anywhere in the world. The dung beetles in the desert won't watch this one let alone the families of those that died building stadiums that will be sand blasted into oblivion in the next ten years.
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While I agree it was totally stupid (and probably corrupt) to hold the World Cup in Qatar, money talks and always has and always will.
I've been in Tunisia and Egypt, where their idea of health and safety equipment is a baseball cap and open-toed sandals, as well as Qatar, where ALL displays of public affection are "banned" - not just the LGBT+ community, whose lobbyists would have you believe it's just them. Having said that, on our visit we saw a couple of young male Arabs walking down the street hand in hand.
Good luck, Wakey, and all the other British football fans. All you need to do is respect the local laws and customs and you will be fine. It should be surprisingly easy.
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What we as fans do and how we react makes no difference. I don't feel enthusiastic, but you can't successfully boycott from thousands of miles away. England won't win it or come close. Interest here will peter out though TV coverage will desperately attempt to stir up our enthusiasm for watching better players than our own. The sports wash will at moments look like working, but we won't forget those from Nepal who died exploited and alone, or the gay people who continue to be locked up for being born that way, or the women whose lives are limited by the existence of men ...... Qatar can buy a few Kenyan athletes and Brazilian footballers, but it is still determined to be Qatar and we all know it.
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I drown slugs and snails in this piss poor excuse for beer. At this price, I'd be pumping it back out of the dead ones.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/202...p-in-qatar
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Unfortunately, the price of the beer is what it is.
I like a drink as much as anyone and normally like to get 4-5 pints down me before kick off on a Town match day, so I'll probably still have 2-3 pints pre match whilst I'm out in Qatar. The main reason for that is that I've kind of resigned myself from finding anywhere else to drink in Qatar. Lots of hotels are block booked for Teams/fifa and and Sponsors so that narrows a lot of options down. Many others are doing walk ins but the prices of a boozy Friday lunch has gone up 4 fold. So that leaves me with pre match and Fan festival pints.
Won't be so bad though, I've cut my drinking right back these days, Monday to Thursday it's either Soft drinks or Alcohol free beer to give my liver a rest although I will be breaking that Habit on Holiday
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16-11-2022, 19:01
(This post was last modified: 16-11-2022, 19:04 by Devongone.)
I was always a lover of the World Cup, but as football has become a globalised business and even once obscure African and South American players became highly paid stars in European leagues, the glamour and excitement of it began to wear thin. Even the style of play has become homogenised. Watch Cameroon for a free-flowing attacking style and you get to watch a well-drilled and parsimonious European defence. The Brazilians still retain a race memory of their rhythm, but dress the teams in different strips and drown out the commentary, and how long would it take you to identify which teams were involved?
Now any sport's World Cup simply has to be held in a country with plenty of available money. When it wasn't, as in South Africa's case, the Chinese had to intervene and build everything. Ideally the host has to have a strong supporter base and its own established professional league system, but money was the only consideration in the case of Qatar.
Where would I like to see a World Cup held Mr Blatter? I'd like to see a joint bid from Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland. There are big clubs in the North East of England, Glasgow has two already, Aberdeen could be made into one, a huge new stadium would do Belfast no harm and hey perhaps a spiffy new Stadium built without cheap, exploited labour in Edinburgh would show off a beautiful city when hosting the final, AND REGENERATE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL TOO. How much more exciting would that be than Wembley and tired, bulging old London? Maybe Scandinavia could come together and follow on in Europe and how about the former tiger economies of South East Asia coming together to share their expertise and organisational skills. I'm too old to see it, but we can't just follow the oil money can we - see how it has drained the magic into a slurry of human misery.
The game will only remain beautiful if we treat it with care. If you take it to somewhere that doesn't care, that hardly plays, and doesn't love it what do you expect to happen?
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