I won't be switching off the World Cup I will be watching it like hawk, says Christa Ackroyd

From tennis at Wimbledon to more than a few Ashes Tests, from Rugby League Challenge Cup finals to world championship boxing matches, I also enjoy the final throes of the Ryder Cup on television and even the odd Grand Prix, when the championship is at stake. I was lucky enough to be in the Olympic stadium in 2012 as Usain Bolt won his 100 metres. I was privileged to witness Andy Murray take gold too.

But I have also relished the atmosphere at many a football match at Wembley and elsewhere. And I would not like to be in Qatar. I don’t like its principles and they can’t buy my acceptance of practices that should never be accepted. And I don’t like FIFA’s hypocrisy either.

But all that leaves me conflicted because I will be watching and, yes, I do want England to do well. In fact I want them to win. I just wish they weren’t playing in a country that, in my view, has scored a spectacular own goal if they think spending an estimated $250bn showcasing themselves on a world stage has put an end to any discussion surrounding the abuse of human rights by a host nation.

In fact just the opposite has happened. We are all now painfully aware of the issues. We all now know it is illegal to be gay in a country that is said to be paying 35p an hour to migrant workers, some of whom have died building those show-off stadiums. And whether the disputed figure of deaths is accurately 6,000, 600 or just six, life should never be viewed so cheaply or so abusively for what amounts to a few games of football.

As for FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s insistence that everyone is welcome in Qatar “regardless of origin, background, religion, gender, sexual orientation or nationality,” while that may be true for a few weeks, once the last ball has been kicked you can bet your match-day ticket if you are a gay Qatari living in fear of discovery, that abuse will continue the moment whoever wins is back on the plane home, no doubt drinking champagne and glad to be out of there. And talking of alcohol, this tournament is about far more than whether a pint of beer is banned or whether, should you be able to get one, it costs £12 or more. This is about people’s lives. Or even death.

As for that rambling speech by Infantino that he knows “what it means to be discriminated against and bullied” because as a child he was bullied because he had red hair and freckles. He succeeded in turning an awkward situation into one impossible to ignore. As did the last minute-ban on the captain’s One Love armbands when the English FA warned them two months ago that Harry Kane planned to wear one, along with captains from eight other countries. Offside FIFA. Again.

But are the English FA wimps for backing down when FIFA threatened sanctions, even match bans on players if they went ahead and wore their hearts and their support for the LGBGT community on their sleeves? No, they are not.

While they made their point forcibly it is not the job of every player or manager to turn politician and justify why they are there or who they stand shoulder to shoulder with. They are there to play football. And it would be hypocritical of me to say that should England reach the latter stages of the competition I won’t be cheering them on, wherever they are playing. In fact probably more so, now I know they wanted to do the right thing but weren’t allowed to.

Just because you are looking forward to us playing football as a nation, and playing well, doesn’t make you a bad person. The World Cup should not be being played in Qatar – end of. And for FIFA to justify it by suggesting that politics should never have a place in sport is as naive as it was to hope we just might not notice the abhorrent attitude to some sections of the community, including, I may add, women from the country that has tried desperately to buy our acceptance when acceptance was and is never an option.

Sport and politics have always been uncomfortable bedfellows because sport is powerful and has often been used to shine a light on prejudice and injustice. From Hitler’s showcase Berlin Olympics of the 1930s when famously victorious black athlete Jesse Owen showed up the evil of the Aryan ideal, to apartheid – South Africa banned from international competition in the 60s, 70s and 80s until it changed its ways and its president, sport and politics have always been interlinked.

Muhammad Ali, now considered one of the greatest sportspeople of all time, famously refused to fight in Vietnam and was stripped of his world title and pilloried for refusing to accept the role of a black man in a segregated society.

From the black power movement’s defiant gloved gesture at the 1968 Olympics to NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision in 2016 to first take the knee to highlight racial violence, sport has never operated in a vacuum devoid of politics.

Nor should it. That is why sport reacted swiftly to ban Russia’s sporting involvement following its invasion of Ukraine. Long may it continue to do so.

So well done, Qatar and FIFA. I may not be the biggest football fan in the entire world but you have succeeded in making me and millions more delve more deeply into how sport has changed politics and politics changed sport.

This has been a sorry start to a sporting tournament from the moment the FIFA president urged fans to “not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists.” Too late. Being gay isn’t ideological. Being an under-paid migrant worker who could die while being paid a pittance isn’t political. It is a travesty.

And so the Jules Rimet trophy, once gleaming, is at the moment looking decidedly tarnished. But please don’t switch off the World Cup in protest. Instead watch it like you have never watched it before. Only if the eyes of the world are fixed firmly on Qatar and FIFA will change happen. Make them squirm with every turn and about turn until they turn for good. Only then will football have earned the right to once more call itself the beautiful game.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​