Dave Kidd: Qatar just isn’t a ‘proper’ World Cup… they’re supposed to be about fun but this will be as dry as a desert

WHITE rabbits, white rabbits — pinch, punch, it’s the first day of World Cup month.

So is everybody excited? No? Me neither.

Just 19 days to go until the greatest sporting show on Earth and the absence of World Cup fever is striking.

If anybody is truly up for the tournament in Qatar, then I haven’t met them.

Many of the reasons are well-rehearsed — the corruption of the voting process, the human-rights abuses of the Qatari regime, the deaths of thousands of migrant workers involved in the construction of  stadiums, the fact that LGBT people and unmarried couples are unwelcome.

Then there’s the unsuitability of a tiny nation hosting such a huge event — the lack of affordable hotel rooms, as well as £15 pints — if you can find a beer at all.

But even if you’re fortunate enough not to be going to Qatar, there is a marked lack of enthusiasm.

This weekend, I attended two Premier League matches and heard many supporters groaning about the imposition of a seven-week break in the middle of the domestic season.

That was aside from the depressing sight of Bukayo Saka hobbling out of Arsenal’s victory over Nottingham Forest, giving England a World Cup scare — a reminder that the crammed schedule means many players finding relatively minor injuries robbing them of career-defining moments.

Physically and mentally, players are struggling to be ready for what should be the pinnacle of the sport.

FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS – BEST NEW CUSTOMER OFFERS

For supporters, too, summers are for major tournaments and winters are for the regular matchday rituals of watching your football club home and away.

Nobody wants a World Cup shoehorned into November and December.

And remember this, when Fifa’s sleaze-ridden bosses voted for Qatar it was sold under the lie of a summer tournament.

I’ve been lucky enough to cover five World Cups — and have considered these tournaments not just as career highlights but also as life-affirming experiences.

I’ve looked forward to every previous tournament but not this one. Nor is any other journalist I’ve spoken to.

Of course, none of us want or expect you to play us sympathetic tunes on tiny violins.

But several supporters I know who have regularly attended World Cups and European Championships — to  follow England and also to enjoy matches as neutrals — have never even considered going to Qatar.

Too expensive, too joyless, just not a ‘proper’ World Cup at all.

And those who would have been watching from the UK anyway, will not be able to enjoy all the usual communal beer-garden rituals, as the temperatures plunge. Aside from the magnitude of the actual sport, attending a World Cup usually feels like you’re part of a global melting pot, a carnival of humanity.

It’s bloody good fun. While I’ve covered some extraordinary matches at those five tournaments, football is only part of the experience.

My first World Cup was spent in South Korea, based in the party district of Itaewon — the scene of the horrific tragedy which saw 154 people crushed to death this weekend.

Back in 2002, that was a hedonistic place, supporters from dozens of nations thrown together for a month-long fiesta.

Not least because the host nation was gripped by mania as their team enjoyed a shock run to the semi-finals.

South Korea’s matches still rank as the noisiest I’ve ever attended.

The street parties which followed, the most ecstatic.

And in the southern port city of Busan, we drank until dawn and ate octopus curry in a fish market in an attempt to sober up. This was the life.

Four years later, there were Munich’s beer gardens in a blazing-hot German summer, as England’s WAGs stole the show up in Baden-Baden.

In 2010, the first African World Cup, visits to Soweto and the glories of Cape Town (where Fabio Capello’s England stank the place out).

Then in 2014, it was kickabouts on Copacabana beach in Rio, as the home of the ‘Beautiful Game’ played host and England went out in five days.

And Russia. Despite its dreadful leader, what a wonderful nation.

St Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities on Earth.

Moscow, with its grand architecture, even the subway stations like art galleries. In unsung Nizhny Novgorod, there was craft ale and congas and karaoke.

And nobody who went to Russia in 2018 will ever forget the Peruvians — determined to make the most of their nation having qualified for the first time since 1982.

You simply could not move for Peruvians, in every street and every bar, in every host city — and long after Peru had been knocked out.

Qatar will bring none of those joys. Of course, corruption and human-rights issues will rightly grab most of the negative headlines.

But one of the worst things about this World Cup will be the lack of freedom to have authentic, impromptu, unrestrained fun.

Just be glad that you’re not going.

EMERY QUERY

UNAI EMERY snubbed Newcastle last season only to accept the less-appetising job of managing Aston Villa.

Some of that had to do with timing — Emery’s Villarreal were enjoying a run to the Champions League semi-finals last term.

But still, for a  manager with such a fine European pedigree — winning four Europa Leagues at Sevilla and Villarreal — to accept a job where there is  little hope of even  qualifying for Europe seems strange.

With Newcastle having turned England’s Big Six into a Big Seven, it will take a minor miracle for Emery’s Villa to even qualify for the Europa Conference League during the length of his three-and-a-half-year contract at Villa Park.

KLOPP KOPS IT

WHEN Liverpool were beaten by struggling Leeds, it was their first Premier League defeat in front of an Anfield crowd since April 2017.

Jurgen Klopp’s men have played in three European Cup finals in the 5½ years since.

Given that home advantage ceased to exist during the pandemic behind-closed-doors era, when Liverpool lost six in a row at Anfield, that stat is a meaningful one.

But having failed to win an away match in the league this season and with their Kop fortress having now been stormed, Klopp’s glorious Liverpool reign is officially on the slide.

WILL A THRILL

EDDIE HOWE’S salvage job on the Premier League careers of Joelinton and Miguel Almiron has rightly been lauded.

But perhaps even more remarkable is Marco Silva’s ability to revive a 34-year-old Willian.

The Brazilian looked like an overweight has-been at Arsenal a couple of years ago but is now dominating top-flight matches for Fulham.

ALL GREEK TO ME

I WAS fascinated to hear, when England faced Greece in the Rugby League World Cup, that the sport had, until recently, been banned by the Greek government with players having to stage clandestine matches at midnight under fear of arrest.

Apparently this occurred because of political wranglings over the governing body.

Which is a shame, because I’d hoped for a Greek president with an irrational hatred of Eddie Waring’s commentary who had outlawed rugby league on a bizarre personal whim.

THERE was plenty of noise around Graham Potter replacing Gareth Southgate as England manager before he left Brighton for Chelsea.

Southgate may not be fashionable right now.

But, unlike Potter, he doesn’t think Three Lions ace Raheem Sterling is a wing-back.

THE week’s least surprising comment? A PR email which read: ‘Sam Allardyce: I’d back myself to win the World Cup with this England squad’.

Because whatever Big Sam failed to achieve in management, it was never down to a lack of self-belief or an ability to blow his own trumpet.