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To be a football fan is to be aware of a constant moral queasiness when it comes to the game. And the World Cup has long been the arena where such issues play out. Qatar is hardly unique. In 2018, after all, Russia were the hosts and the event was beset by questions of corruption and racism and homophobia. Go back further and there is no shortage of examples where football found itself in hock to dictatorships, most notably in 1978 when the brutal junta that ruled Argentina used hosting the World Cup as a means of giving itself legitimacy. It became a propaganda coup, to the horror of the families of the Disappeared.
