I have never felt more conflicted about watching a World Cup

The most divisive World Cup in history is finally under way, so in less than a month we’ll almost certainly be able to pinpoint this as the moment football truly jumped the shark.

Are FIFA fit and proper persons to be running football? That’s the first question we should be asking of a World Cup former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has already labelled “a mistake.”

This is the same Blatter who FIFA have twice banned from having anything to do with football until 2027, of course.

He was recently acquitted of his latest round of corruption charges in a Swiss court, despite the FBI likening FIFA under Blatter’s leadership to “a criminal cartel.”

So Blatter – who long assumed he’d be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize rather than ever face criminal charges – is hardly the paragon of virtue we should be taking moral guidance from.

Nor is Gianni Infantino. The latest FIFA president is cut from the same cloth as Blatter – his remarkable press conference speech to open the tournament was so out of touch with reality, you’d almost have to question his sanity.

But ‘delusional’ has long been the watchword of FIFA. They lost touch with reality long ago.

(Photo by Alexander Hassenstein – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

And the lesson they’ve received this week from an authoritarian Middle Eastern regime would be darkly funny if it hadn’t come at the expense of thousands of everyday fans.

FIFA’s last-minute decision to ban the sale of alcohol inside World Cup stadiums – allegedly under pressure from the Qatari government – might be the epitome of a first-world problem.

But it’s one that highlights the utterly shambolic organisation of this World Cup.

After years of telling anyone who’d listen you’d be able to buy a beer at the 2022 World Cup, FIFA’s decision to backtrack – two days before kick-off – shows who really holds power.

And that’s an important point to note for a vastly more important reason – one that has serious ramifications far beyond whether fans can get plastered when Wales takes on England in Al Rayyan.

In the build-up to the tournament, FIFA always said same-sex couples should feel safe to attend games in Qatar.

But are they? How on earth can we trust the governing body to vouch for visitors’ safety when they can’t even get beer sales over the line?

And the astonishment with which some locals have reacted to the sort of routine events you’d expect to see from the world’s biggest sporting event – like a simple TV cross from a public place – suggest there could be a few more interesting cultural clashes around the corner.

The furious reaction from Qatari organisers to the suggestion that locals were being paid to act as supporters of competing nations is another indication of that.

It’s not the alleged deed that seems so bleakly comical, but rather the fact that after inviting the world’s media to the most popular event on the planet, local organisers seem incensed by the notion of journalists asking any questions about it.

Still, most of this will be forgotten as soon as the football starts – which is no doubt what organisers are hoping for.

We can thank FIFA for holding an international tournament in the middle of a European season that robs us of the likes of Karim Benzema, Sadio Mane and, tragically for Socceroos fans, Martin Boyle.

But the stadiums will be full and the sober fans will be well behaved, and in the end Brazil or France or maybe a new name like The Netherlands or Portugal will lift the trophy.

And we’ll all try to forget that more than 6500 workers allegedly died building the stadiums, or that LGBTQI fans have been made to feel like pariahs, or that we’re watching a World Cup from one tiny Gulf state when this should have been a celebration of pan-Arab unity.

I’ll watch the Socceroos. I love my national team too much to mount a boycott.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that for the first time since watching my first World Cup in 1994, I’m not looking forward to watching any of this.