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[jackal2]

Just out of curiosity, how come this tournament has caught the public imagination so much in terms of a boycott?

Russia annexed a neighbouring country and shot down a passenger jet, and I don't remember fans calling for a boycott of the last World Cup.

China had the Olympics 13 years ago and you didn't really hear much about that.

You could find problematic issues with pretty much every country, especially the big ones (including the USA).

Fair point. International politics is a minefield. Few if any countries are without "sin" in the treatment of others or their own people, especially if you take historical actions into account as well as contemporary issues. Sometimes its a case of some countries just being smarter at hiding their depravity than others. And that's before you get into value judgements of what actually is "right" or "wrong", where opinion and interpretation can vary hugely depending on what part of the world you live and what culture you've been brought up in.

And besides, boycotting Russia or Qatar (or whoever) is only reacting to the symptom rather than addressing the cause. It is FIFA who are culpable for these suspicious decisions, so if fair-minded countries (whoever they are) are inclined to take a moral stance, it would make more sense for a massive number of countries - and more specifically their Football Associations - to withdraw from FIFA itself rather than boycott one particular FIFA event. If sufficient numbers of countries think the administration of football is corrupt and morally bankrupt, then they should set up an alternative governing body and literally deprive FIFA of its membership, power, influence and commercial income.