The fans paid to be the cheerleaders of this World Cup will not be receiving their promised daily allowances.
The beer that was supposed to flow freely has been turned off at source. The rainbow armband protest was crushed by an iron fist and the threat of suspensions.
So one question remains. What would happen if, by 8pm local on November 29 – or maybe even 6pm four days earlier – there was no more Qatar at the Qatar World Cup?
What promises might be reneged upon then? What welcome mat might be hastily rolled up and put away?
Sunday’s defeat in the opening game – the first for any host nation – was a sobering experience, even in a country that is, ostensibly, dry. Locals were pouring out of the stadium even before the second half and there was eerie quiet, save for celebrating Ecuadorians.
Fans are now enjoying the World Cup – but when hosts Qatar exit, will they roll up the welcome mat? What promises might be broken? And how long before FIFA outstay their welcome?
The beer that was supposed to flow freely has been turned off at source by the authorities
The rainbow armband protest (right) was crushed by an iron fist and the threat of suspensions
The rest of the world might have suspected Qatar were a poor football team, but that won’t have been the version sold to the nationals, with World Cup ambassador-stooges such as Samuel Eto’o and Tim Cahill queueing up to predict not only will the hosts make it out of their group, they will defeat England to reach the quarter-finals.
After VAR had ruled out Ecuador’s third-minute goal for an offside barely detectable with the naked eye, it was possible to see how that might happen, but Qatar steadfastly refused to throw the decision-makers a bone and lost anyway. There are some levels of ineptitude to which there is no solution, even technological.
When the hosts fall in any tournament it invariably suffers. Yet some exits hurt worse than others. England’s group stage departure from the 2015 Rugby World Cup was brutal, but there were enough surviving Britons, exiles and tourists to see the competition through.
Four years later, Japan were removed at the quarter-final stage of the same competition by the uncompromising South Africans, but by then there were only three games remaining – not including the dreaded third-place play-off – and their progress to the last eight was already considered a triumph.
World Cup ambassador-stooges such as Samuel Eto’o (right) and Tim Cahill are…