To think the World Cup should be cancelled now?

[AnnaQuayRules]

Apologies if there's already a thread but I've looked and can't find one.

The (mens) Football World Cup starts in June, in the USA. Surely it shouldn't go ahead? Iran is one of the qualifying countries!

I can't see how the tournament should or could go ahead. AIBU?

Don’t be silly.

Absolutely not

Any large gathering, sports or otherwise, is surely a potential terrorist target?

No thanks, love it, you obviously done like sport.

Where have you seen that?

Iranus Interruptus

Of course it won't be cancelled. Neither FIFA nor Trump could give a fat rat's crack about death and war when there's $$ to be had.

And VAR! (I assume they will use it for the WC, though maybe they do it better for international fixtures than they do in the PL (or the SPL).

can you explain the Canadian bit? it doesn't make sense to me.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for violating the Human Rights Code by publishing hate speech and discriminatory content against 2SLGBTQ+ people.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/barry-neufeld-former-chilliwack-bc-trustee-pay-hate-speech-tribunal-2slgbtq-9.7098536

He had an opinion on humans not being able to change their chromosomal sex. His opinion was categorised as ‘hate speech’ and he now has to pay $750,000 in a fine.

This is just one recent example of many. Football (soccer) fans beware.

And for the love of of god, can absolutely nobody tell Trump that Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial is carved sitting between the fasces (fasci), symbols of Etruscan and Roman imperial power, which were turned into symbols of Italian autocratic supremacy in the 1920s and 1930s, and unfortunately sit ready to be re-subsumed into Trump’s American pretendy democracy.

@TheAutumnCrow "He had an opinion on humans not being able to change their chromosomal sex. His opinion was categorised as ‘hate speech’ and he now has to pay $750,000 in a fine."

BC has a history of being very much supportive of those who claim to have a different gender identity to their natal one, even when there has been no attempt to change in any way. This guy however seems, according to the news report, to have gone way beyond being just gender critical. Sounds like he deserved more than a slap on the wrist.

And please note that this is a thing particular in BC and not necessarily in the rest of Canada. Human rights (& lots of other things) are dealt with differently in each province.

And in any case I'm not sure what it has to do with football (or soccer even). Ongoing violence due to drug cartel conflicts is a concern. But I doubt there will be anyone protesting about gender/trans/equality rights outside the stadiums.

My biggest concern would be how many players, team support, fans get stopped and detained by ICE. I wouldn't be surprised by key players/individuals being targeted to give the US a better result than they deserve.

My biggest concern would be how many players, team support, fans get stopped and detained by ICE. I wouldn't be surprised by key players/individuals being targeted to give the US a better result than they deserve.

Very fair point relating to the US, @SmudgeButt.

Yes, I know about the joint hosting arrangement, hence my suggestion!

As ever, football is the sport that people demand take a stand on issues like this. The biggest tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slams is currently taking place in California and straight after that the second biggest will take place in Miami. I'm not seeing any demands for them to be cancelled. Later this year F1 will race 3 times in the USA and golf will hold 3 majors there and there seem to be no demands for those sports to take a stand.

Well, you have to hand it to him, he’s stopped 7 wars already! In his own head admittedly…

The WC, is always a huge target for terrorists, as are all major sporting and cultural events. Should we cancel them all?

You know Kabul is in Afghanistan right not in Iran?

if Russia is not permitted to host or take part in international sporting events, after being accused of starting an illegal war/ occupation in Ukriane, then the same rules should apply to the USA.

Trump's made it very clear that he's not interested in following international law, and that he was seeking to interfere in another country's politics.

(and bizarrely/ hypocritcally, claimed that he had to do this because the other country was being run by religious fundamentialist nutters...)

Separately there are the obvious issues likely to be caused by ICE's operations. Even if I was ahuge football fan, I wouldn't go anywhere near the place right now...

Yes of course I do. I was responding to @Crushed23 who talked about the streets of Kabul.

Because tennis is a minority sport in comparison, but more importantly, because people don't travel to watch it. 90% of the crowds at those tennis competitions will be Americans from the same state, so there's no comparison to the millions expected to travel for the world cup. There is no danger of thousands of tennis fans or even players being denied visas or detained.

And it is an issue for Formula 1. There's two Grand Prix due to take place in the middle East in a matter of weeks. There's lots of talk about it. Because that is also a big sport in comparison tennis.

Football and Formula 1 have huge audiences. Tennis, outside of a few events doesn't. Same for golf. So there will obviously be more discussion and politics around them.

Of course people travel to watch tennis! I went to watch tennis in Sydney when I was living in London, with a friend who travelled from Switzerland.

I wasn't saying that literally nobody travels for tennis! But to compare, the Sydney Olympic Tennis Centre's biggest court holds 10,500 people. The World Cup will be taking place across 16 stadia, the smallest of which holds 45,000! You can't possibly compare the number of travelling fans.