Ukraine and the World Cup

The last thing on anyone’s mind should be the Human Rights World Cup, which is due to be held in Qatar later this year. Quite why it’s near the front of mine when Vladimir Putin is targeting medical facilities in Ukraine, including maternity and children’s wards, I have no idea, but there is some method behind my thoughts about the utterly trivial.

For reasons best known to itself (money, I’d imagine), football’s governing body FIFA has a system whereby many countries qualify by finishing first in their respective qualifying groups. Others enter via a play off system, this time arranged like semi-finals followed by finals, the winners obviously appearing in the Human Rights World Cup proper. One of the teams supposed to be playing in the play offs is Ukraine, who are due to ‘entertain’ Scotland. Clearly, Putin’s murderous war has meant the games have been postponed. What should FIFA do?

One thing they cannot do is kick Ukraine out of the tournament. But what if the situation remains unresolved when the tournament is getting close? Whether a long war is still going on or Russia have turned Ukraine into rubble – or both – what does FIFA do?

The answer to that is somewhat complicated by the fact that in these circumstances, football is utterly irrelevant. At a time when Putin is murdering children and pregnant women, aren’t there more important matters to consider? Yes, of course there are, but maybe there is a small signal the world can make to Ukraine to show that we care about their people in every way imaginable?

How about scrapping all the play-offs and grant qualification proper to all the teams due to be playing in them? This will be one less thing, albeit a very minor thing, for people to concern themselves about. Then rejig the tournament, taking account of developments in Ukraine. If Ukraine cannot compete – and I emphasise again that football is all but irrelevant by comparison to what Ukraine is going through – then delay the whole tournament until such time they can. I know that on the face of it this might appear Russia has secured another small victory, but it hasn’t. Russia, I suspect, will never compete in another sporting for the unforeseeable future however their war against Ukraine goes on.

Another small win for Ukraine is that its people have something to look forward to. Looking at the footage emerging from Ukraine at the moment, the future is a long way from their thoughts. I just see it as a sliver of hope that one day peace will come for Ukraine.