Boycott the World Cup properly, not diplomatically

The attempted assassination by assailants unknown on the Skripal family in Salisbury, England, has prompted the kind of decisive political action that the Russian annexation of the Crimea, the country's mass-murderous involvement in bombing Syrian rebels, the suppression of domestic dissent and gay rights, and its state-sanctioned blanket cheating at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics was unable to provoke. Yes, some countries will be boycotting the 2018 World Cup.

Not an actual boycott, though - just a symbolic one. Rather than withdrawing their teams, countries are apologetically deciding to keep their official delegations at home. So, politicians on a free jaunt to watch some football are sacrificing themselves. The retreating refugees of eastern Ghouta will surely be impressed. And just imagine the hurt of the Russians when they see that the Icelandic

Calling on fans to boycott the next two World Cups

Eric Cantona shows us a sign

A few disparate but powerless voices have been calling on fans to boycott the next two World Cups on the grounds that both Russia and Qatar are serial violators of human rights. I am one of a very small handful of people I know who is refusing to watch the current qualifiers, and who will not watch a single World Cup game of any kind until the start of the qualifying campaign for the 2026 event.

Football’s authorities have always claimed, predictably enough, that they can not be involved in “politics”, as though human rights were a mere issue among others to be debated during electoral campaigns. As though sport exists in a cultural vacuum, never to be politically exploited by states wanting to present a phoney ceremonial façade of peace and national stability to the world at large.

Yet from Hitler’s 1936 Olympic propaganda triumph, all the way to Brazil’s World Cup and the Rio Olympics 80 years later, sporting