Qatar - the World Cup of restraint?
It’s hard to feel sympathy for Sepp Blatter very often, but reading this morning’s papers, I felt a little. The Belfast Telegraph reports that the FIFA president laughed off concerns that gay fans might experience problems at the 2022 World Cup, which is to be held in Qatar (there's even an illustration for Bobballs and his phwoaraway Tottygraph !). Homosexuality is illegal in the Middle Eastern emirate, which operates Islamic law. Blatter’s advice to gay supporters is ’refrain from sex’ during the World Cup. Predictably he’s being pilloried for this tongue in cheek remark, but he has a point. There are a hundred reasons why Qatar is an inappropriate venue for a World Cup and the prohibition on homosexuality is just one of them. FIFA, sponsors, TV and embassies will no doubt all be lobbying the Qatari authorities to apply Islamic law leniently during the tournament. Still, the fact is that things are done differently there and all sorts of supporters will ...