OFFSET YOUR WORLD CUP TRAVEL WITH GREENERTRAVEL
Date: 19th June 2026
Take my seat
By Donld C Stewart
Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled, a migrant worker. Who can forget four years ago when Gianni Infantino defended the Qatar World Cup in a speech which was described as bizarre. It was bizarre because he was attempting to defend the indefensible. Qatar was, still is, one of the most illiberal countries that you could imagine and was hosting an event of tremendous prestige. That prestige rubs off on the host country.
Mind you, where else could you send the World Cup that would be equally discriminatory? Russia, perhaps? Italy in the 1930s? Oops, done that.
Infantino made the claim that he was not around when the Qatari World Cup was awarded. True.
So too were missing 10 of the 22 members who made the decision to award it. They had been found to be unsavoury in one manner or another. His defence of the 2022 Qatari World Cup, before it had begun, had some traction. What was lost in translation was that he was suggesting that he, as a ginger child being brought up in Germany where his German was poor was also bullied and therefore knew what minorities were suffering in Qatar. He wanted us to realise he understood but did not agree with the others who were critical of the tournament, especially those who criticised the care of Qatari and immigrant workers, of people of colour, the illegality of sexual expression within the country and the treatment of people of alternate abilities.
It was the precursor to just telling us to “chill”.
Infantino has a tin ear. He missed the point that migrant workers were dying and homosexuality was an offence; he faced no equivalent discrimination after all, nobody has banned gingers … yet.
And so, to 2026, and consideration of the Peace Prize to Donald Trump which continued Infantino’s avowed policy of engagement rather than confrontation as the tournament began the build-up but now, we are here.
Of course, Infantino knows that giving the World Cup to Qatar was not going to lead to a more liberal regime, nor that the FIFA Peace Prize would lead to a more beneficent and less war mongering Trump presidency. Nobody held their breath.
And so, to this World Cup, and with the history of FIFA and Infantino, they are in the midst of justifying some of the lesser decisions in the largest World Cup ever with 48 teams and over a hundred matches spread across three countries in a feast of football that should set the heather as well as the world alight.
In Scotland, we have engaged with this tournament in a way that I haven’t seen since perhaps 1978, when we got a little bit ahead of ourselves. This time round, we’re not ahead of ourselves, but we are at our ain Boston running out o mair than Tea Party!
But when I tuned into the opening game with Canada playing Bosnia Herzegovina, what caught my eye?
Seats.
Unoccupied seats.
Infantino has defended the visual representation of the opening games in the World Cup telling everybody that the reason why you could see empty seats was because people were standing in the concourse. Such a brazen health and safety breach where exits for people to file through in the event of an evacuation seems to be lost in Infantino’s defence but his defence also doesn’t wash.
Standing in the cooler concourse area is understandable in the red-hot heat of the USA just now. The possibility that, like in the Euros Final at Wembley a few years ago that supporters without tickets stormed into their game against Croatia is concerning.
Bit it is his and FIFA’s lack of understanding that is difficult to understand. Claiming that if you dropped the price of the seats they would be bought up by conglomerates and then sold on secondary sales sites with the profit not coming to football does not wash.
By all accounts that’s already being done.
That type of activity is legal in the US and there is nothing to stop somebody taking a $1,000 ticket and selling it for multiples of that. There’s also nothing to stop somebody taking a $1 ticket and selling it for multiples of that either. Profiteering will always happen.
How do you limit it?
Infantino claims making the tickets so expensive means profiteering from them is not worth anyone’s time. It’s the equivalent of not raiding a millionaire’s house because the local SPAR has less to offer.
I’ve written before and will no doubt write again about the fact that this game which was founded on the back of working-class people coming out of factories to enjoy leisure time. It has gone so far away from being a working-class sport that it is almost unrecognisable from its origins.
No amount of airtime for Three Lions on their shirts sung with verve and vitality on terraces when England play will reestablish football as a sport for the masses. The very thought might make FIFA officials drop their overpriced prawn sandwich delivered by some Michelin star chef in the bleachers if anyone loses their head, whilst running on the pitch to remonstrate with thin air.
The World Cup 2026 is shaping up to be a spectacle. We might not have any ore empty seats, but we need to have less pontificating from the FIFA pontiff, Infantino and more done to make things affordable. It needs the ordinary punters because if it continues to lose its heart and soul it will eventually damage your product. More seats at affordable prices is lost this time round, learning it is a mistake is an opportunity that should not be lost.
photo Providence Tartan Army
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Tags: oor Donald, Scottish fans, Tartan Army, World Cup