It’s at least twelve years since Qatar won/bought their World Cup bid, Sith. I think if there were going to be questions raised about the ‘appropriateness’ of holding the competition in a country with such a poor human rights record (as I agree there should have been) it should have been done then. Raising questions on the eve of the competition seems a bit daft to me.

Agree with you about the time of year...doesn’t feel quite right to me...but I can see the point of commentators/summarisers actually being there rather than just watching on TV.