It looks like I might have a problem. I might not be able to make my Great Aunty Joan’s 105th birthday party. She’s going to be devastated. You see, just as we can always rely on day turning to night, my sister turning up late, and England losing on penalties, we’ve also always known that the football World Cup takes place every four years, in June and July. My family unfailingly plan their birthday celebrations, weddings and funerals around it.
But now Great Aunty Joan’s party is under serious threat. It’s in the diary for November 2022. When not only her party, but also normal world order, looks set to be turned upside down. It will be World Cup time. Yup, Qatar 2022 World Cup time. Or it will be if certain members of the football community have their way.
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“A lack of respect for the world we live in.”
That was the damning assessment Barcelona head coach Gerardo Martino had for the widely-expected transfer of Wales star Gareth Bale to his side’s archrivals Real Madrid.
As manager of one of Spain’s two footballing giants his role almost dictates that verbal provocation is aimed west to the capital, but it’s not just the Catalan faithful who would have been sympathetic to the Argentine’s rhetoric. FULL POST
Five talking points for the second half of the Formula One season
1. Will the tire talk stop?
If Formula One’s tire manufacturer was a football manager surely they’d have been sacked by Christmas? It really is last chance saloon for Pirelli, having cashed in their chips before the mid-season break.
F1’s up-and-down relationship with its tire manufacturer is nothing new, but it reached a new low in the first half of this season.
You wondered whether Pirelli would have been better off sticking to calendars. FULL POST