Suzanne Harrington: Qatar hosting the World Cup is a huge step backward for the beautiful game

"...for every step forward football makes – the ongoing mainstreaming of women’s football, the anti-racism message baked into the Premiership – there is a step back."

"How has such a beautiful game been poisoned by greed and corruption this ugly?"

Like millions of people everywhere, I love football. Apart from Bake Off, it’s the only thing I watch – 90 minutes of drama, without ever needing to know the plot, or which season it is. Sometimes turgid, sometimes leaping-off-the-sofa-screaming. The pure man pantomime of live games – the booing, the euphoria, the hilarity. You’re getting sacked in the morning, sang 30,000 Brighton fans to the team’s former manager Graham Potter, who defected to Chelsea in September, only to lose 4-1 to Brighton on Potter’s first trip back to his ex-team’s home ground. It was glorious. Life-affirming in ways I can’t even explain.

Football IS glorious. Detractors say it’s 90 minutes of players rolling around pretending to be hurt – the opposite of rugby, where they spend 80 minutes pretending they’re not – which is true, but this just adds to the red card/free kick/winning goal in the 94th minute drama. You come out of a game spent, exhausted, hoarse, either with elation or despair, and then it’s over, until the next one.