Vive la Coupe du Monde!

It's that time again, that glorious once-every-four-years occasion, when the football family comes together from all corners of the globe, to put on a carnival of colour, talent, and goals.  It's always an exciting time, to take an hour out to delve into the magazine guide, to look up different and exotic venues, and to find the perfect place to stick up the wall chart.  Nope, there's absolutely nothing better than a World Cup.

And yet, this time around, something tastes terribly sour.  The clouds have covered the sun, the vultures are circling, and there's a whiff of sewerage in the air.

It breaks my heart, but I can't bring myself to watch this World Cup.  To do so would, for me, be to justify - to vindicate - a Russian state whose behaviour on the world stage appals me, and a Russian leader whose Cold War-era outlook and aggressive stance I believe has no place in the 21st century.  To throw down one's objections, and to head into the tournament waving flags, cheering, and buying the products of corporate sponsors, brings with it a level of acceptance that I am not prepared to grant.

You can couple this with the other group of people who I deem worthy of a boycott - FIFA - for if ever the stench of corruption hung so thick around a place, it's at their Zurich headquarters.  FIFA will claim that it's bringing football into new territories in order to open the game up to new audiences, but flick this cleverly-positioned veil away, and you'll find a deeper, more remunerative, reason.  Just how did Russia - in amongst high-calibre joint bids from Spain and Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium, not to mention England - come out on top in the bidding process?  And how could FIFA have arrived at a decision to host their flagship tournament in a country where corruption in sport is rife; where racism is alive-and-well; and where, far from being discouraged, hooliganism is praised by members of Russian football's governing body.  It stinks, the decision to award Russia this World Cup stinks, and FIFA stinks.  But don't listen to me - let The Ugly Game tell you all you need to know.

So, what will I do instead?  I'm not prepared to go without my dose of football during a World Cup summer, so I've decided to go back in time instead, to re-live the best competition in my memory - France 98.  I've got the highlights DVD, the official guidebook, and other bits of memorabilia, so with a bit of creative thinking, and using this blog as a platform, I can still enjoy a month of brilliant football in the company of old favourites - Davor Suker, Alan Shearer, Carlos Valderrama, Dennis Bergkamp, and the real Ronaldo.  So join me, if you too have chosen to step away from the 2018 tournament, for a trip down memory lane - to the back streets of Paris, the waterfront of Marseilles, historic Lyon and everywhere in between.  The pre-tournament build-up begins on 6 June.  Vive la Coupe du Monde!

Painting by Parisian artist, Michel Delacroix