Why it’s every gentleman’s right to hate the World Cup

Woe is me, fellow gentlemen – I’m British, and it’s World Cup time. For many (even most) of my peers, this is cause for excitement, excessive television consumption and the kind of patriotic fervour usually reserved for royal weddings and wars. For me, it means four months of crowded pubs, obnoxious singing on the tube and excommunication from every conversation.

While I’m fairly apathetic towards football, I loathe the World Cup. I spend the intervening four years dreading it and the duration locked in my flat with the blinds pulled shut and television unplugged, waiting for it all to end.

I cannot be alone, there must be other football-fatigued gentlemen out there who rue the grim orgy of corruption, foul sportsmanship and agonising boredom FIFA inflicts on humanity twice a decade. But such antipathy should not be a source of shame: it is every gentleman’s prerogative to hate the World Cup.

THE PROBLEM WITH FIFA, First, let’s talk about the organisers. FIFA is an organisation so thoroughly crooked, it’s a wonder its headquarters don’t collapse with every gentle breeze.

The recent debacle over Qatar’s bid for the 2022 World Cup was a perfect example of FIFA’s moral bankruptcy. Not that the Brazilian World Cup has been free of controversy, with widespread protests at the government’s decision to foot FIFA’s bill. Hardly surprising, given the erection of stadiums that will be next to useless in less than a fortnight’s time and the fact that the World Cup is rarely profitable for hosts.

You could argue that none of this institutional idiocy tarnishes the competition itself. It’s a silly argument, but I’ll indulge it for a moment…

A GENTLEMAN DOES NOT BITE, Even die-hard footy-fanatics must admit; there is little honour in this game of yours. Fights, fouls and fake injuries play out like a particularly violent Monty Python sketch. Watching this as an outsider, all I see are thugs in brightly coloured lycra and daft haircuts pummelling and chewing on each other like a bunch of rabid clowns. Frankly, it’s a shameful display.

Flicking the channel to Wimbledon reveals a truly genteel affair, with none of the ridiculous outbursts, feuding and physical altercations that mar team sports. When things aren’t going well for world class tennis players they humbly admit defeat. When things take a sour turn for footballers of a similar calibre, they sink their teeth into the nearest Italian. Spot the difference?

Not that I entirely blame the players – in fact I have a degree of sympathy for the stress and pressure to which they are subjected. Combine this with the heat and humidity of South America in July and it’s little wonder that managers are calling in the shrinks.

Of course, this lack of sportsmanship isn’t confined to the pitch. The spectre of match fixing lingered over the World Cup before the first whistle was even blown, forcing FIFA to swallow its pride and collaborate with bookies to prevent international criminal syndicates from making a packet on illegal betting markets.

A REQUEST TO FANS: JUST STOP, Finally, if fans are the lifeblood of any sport, I’m going for the jugular.

Being a footy fan in the UK is like being a freemason. Being ‘in’ the cabal can potentially jumpstart your social life and career, as well as providing instant common ground with pretty much every taxi driver. And may God help the uninitiated. While the seasonal assaults of league football are bad enough, the World Cup is a one-way ticket to total social exclusion, with every conversation, night out and work function dominated by the sport.

This goes without mentioning the human drama. I’m not saying that football fans take the sport too seriously, but when England crashed out of the tournament, domestic abuse incidents in Britain increased by 38%. In general, defeat begets aggro, meaning the outcome of a match can be the difference between a safe journey home and a terrifying rush to the bus stop.

NOT THAT I’M BITTER OR ANYTHING…, A fellow anti-football activist published an article years ago, lamenting the assumption that men are biologically programmed to fall in love with the ‘Beautiful Game.’ The writer’s buddies were incredulous when he owned up to hating the sport, saying: “‘the only men you’ll find who don’t like football are the ones who weren’t picked for the team at school.’”

Okay, there might be a grain of truth to that. I can’t entirely justify my antipathy towards football. To my mind it’s little more than 90-minutes of overpaid ballerinas pretending to fall over and occasionally – very occasionally – vainly attempting to kick a ball into a net. It’s not for me, but different strokes for different folks.

However, the FIFA World Cup is a different matter entirely. This fetid carnival of everything heinous about competitive sport should be shunned, not celebrated. If you feel the same way, know that you are not alone. And if you are a football-lover, all I ask is that you scratch the colourful surface to see the rot concealed at the core of FIFA’s gaudy soirée.

It won’t make you any less of a man.