To wish David Beckham and Robbie Williams would just admit ...

[strawberriesplease]

They've taken the Qatar gig for the money and screw everyone else.

Beckham saying it's to support future progress and Williams saying people complaining are doing so on Chinese technology so it's hypocritical.

Just own it. You love the money so much, despite already having huge wealth, you just couldn't resist it.

Perfectly articulated by @ExhaustedFlamingo 😍

There definitely is a class element to the criticism. There always is with anything regarding football as it's seen as a working-class game. Every world cup there's similar people moaning about football being on TV too much and disrupting "normal programming" and claiming that they never watch a game and don't understand why it's shown.

Equally deplorable to go there IMO

however there is a separate argument wrt the World Cup because it was corruption that sent it there in the first place

@Florenz thank you

Another deflection from the footballers going. Hundreds of players and so on but we're going after a couple of people.

Just don't post negative comments on the BBC have your say comments as they're taking an extremely heavy handed approach to such things.

People here complaining would do the same thing.

Say if Qatar offered you 5-10 times your salary and I think it is tax free majority would move there.

Why? The priority of most people is their loved ones. If you see a path, where you can retire quicker, leave more money for your kids' people would do that. If the Saudi Royal Family offered to buy your house for double the asking price? What will happen? Most people 99 percent would sell up even though the people buying their house are questionable people (e.g. poor human right records)

Why do people do it? Because they only think of their financial freedom first. Nothing wrong with that but it is a fact.

But the current criticism is surrounding corruption and human rights violations by the host country. I don't see how there can be a class element to that?

Just to point out.
Half the world is off limits based on the treatment of the aggrieved parties.
Lgbtq.
Women rights.
Human rights.

The world is still very split on these issues, I think we in the west assume moral authority over these issues, others don't agree and are highly unlikely to acquiesce to western demands.

I personally wouldn’t have taken the money. Yes, someone else would have taken it, but I wouldn’t want that money in my pocket knowing where it came from.

Robbie Williams, Beckham, Lineker, etc. They all could have afforded to say no. They just don’t care.

@MollieMarie I've seen more threads & articles criticising David B then I have re the King & is bag of cash.

I wonder if the players will take the knee before each match as they have been doing.
Or will they show it or the fallacy that it is?

And TBH what more can you expect from a group of people that welcome rapists, wife beaters and abusers back into their sport?

his

I often think one of the advantages of huge wealth is choice. If I was super wealthy I could live a life more in line with my convictions, not the endless compromises we all have to make.

Beckham and Williams are both in that position, but their choice is more money. They’re embarrassing.

Who gives a shit?

You gave enough of a shit to post

One thing I do not understand why everyone is suddenly an activist when it comes to Qatar and why over 10 years ago when they were awarded no one said anything. There are a lot of issues in countries like South Africa, Brazil and Russia but no one batted an eyelid when they were awarded World Cups. The next World Cup will be in USA, Mexico and Canada. Look at Mexico, there are rife with drug cartel wars and USA was built on slavery and minorities are still treated poorly there (Mexicans, Black People) etc.. But of course nothing to look over here.

Israel is seen as progressive but if you look at the Human Right violations, they have done e.g., illegal settlements just show every country can be cancelled for something they do.

There’s a lot of selectivity and sanctimoniousness going on in this thread!

We could have all chosen to focus on the human rights abuses going on in Quatar at any point in the last ten years, but very few of us did. It’s the very fact that the World Cup is taking place there now which is focusing discussions such as this one, on all of its injustices and wrongdoings - whether we are witnessing a Danish journalist being shut down live on air or reading articles in the uk press about more hidden prejudices against women and the gay community - which are now being filmed, written about and discussed, across the world.

How many more mumsnetters and their families now know about human rights abuses in Quatar than they did previously? That in part is because of the World Cup.

The people that made the decision to hold the tournament in Quatar presumably were aware of these issues and considered countries even worse than Quatar when they made their final choice.

That decision having gone ahead, lots of different nations and their fans, will be landing in Quatar, and exposing that country and it’s people, to a small degree, to different customs and cultures. And a huge spotlight will be directed towards Quatar while that is happening.

Maybe some small good can come out of that? For sure, nothing is likely to
change if we all sit in boxes in our own countries and don’t move.

And when people say it’s all about the money … sure … it’s no good if profits go to nefarious purposes. (And let’s not get too comfortable in our own skin at this point, given uk arms exports to UAE and SA.). But football is part of the entertainment industry like any other trade, just like the old spice routes of old, or the current global exchange of widgets and car parts, and trade, imho, has always been an authentic medium through which peoples, and their differing cultures, can interact. And that’s not unremittingly always a bad thing.

Let’s be honest, how many of us, at this very moment, would be doing the laundry, running errands or sitting on our backsides, not giving a monkey’s arse about Quatar and it’s human rights abuses, if it weren’t for the fact that the World Cup is taking place there right now?

I do - it’s only football - totally didn’t need to be played in Qatar but the industry is corrupt and players are only in it for the money

No World Cup now in this home I can by pass every sport now from now on bliss, not watching live tv any more is great.

Generally speaking, an insular, oppressive country being exposed to different cultures and worldviews is normally a good thing for its people. Refusing their bid for their cup would not have effected change.

There were threads on that at the time.

The World Cup is a huge, worldwide event so of course it's going to receive more coverage and online comments.

Wtf??? And there is no classist element to this??

I agree. It’s boring now. It’s happening, get over it.

@LucozadeLill339 excellent post

This is very true