Colm O'Regan: Despite FIFA, some head honchos, and our absence, the World Cup deserves a wall chart

England's Harry Kane (second right) scores their side's second goal of the game during the FIFA World Cup European Qualifying match at the Air Albania Stadium, Tirane. 

I'm probably too old to do a wall chart. But it’s tempting. Round about this time of the year, every four years, a child aged between six and 86 thinks about obsessively recording every single match of the World Cup on a wall chart.

The template might come from a newspaper — ask your parents, kids, what they are. Or in the case of this child, it might have done it in marker on old election posters from the glory years of Fianna Fáil (four candidates in Cork North Central!).

Ninety-six years of football’s grandest tradition, and it still gets you. Even when you don’t want it to.

This year feels different. There are 108 teams taking part, and STILL we couldn’t make it. FIFA’s president now makes Sepp Blatter look like Malala. He handed a mar dhea peace prize to the leader of one of the host nations.

A man who starts wars just so he can say he ended them and still can’t end them. Where the rule of law is being eroded daily and the country is now in danger of becoming a pot of gold to be looted Mobutu-style by the crime family that runs it.

But should it feel that different? We’ve watched the World Cup when it was hosted by some right langers. Qatar is all clean footpaths and tall buildings, but 6,500 workers died during stadium construction. 

We would have desperately liked to have qualified for the World Cup 2018. In Russia. Yes, that Russia. Who already at that stage had annexed Crimea, sent its soldiers into Donetsk and Luhansk, shot down a civilian airliner with 298 people on board, and was radioactively poisoning people in English cathedral cities.

There would have been wall charts regardless of Putin.

Scotland secretary Douglas Alexander attends a reception on behalf of the English and Scottish Football Associations and the diplomatic missions of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in central London.

There were wall charts pinned to some antique Irish wallpapered walls for Argentina 1978. The hosts were a military junta that was, at the literal moment of the tournament, throwing dissidents out of planes into the ocean.

We called it the Beautiful Game. Mario Kempes, the Argentinian player, was celebrated on the cover of Sonas (the iconic magazine for 5th and 6th class children published by Folens, whose founder, Albert Folens, well … let’s just say he had a past.)

Why is unease now different? Because in our north-west-hemisphere-centric world, it’s other countries are ‘mad’. Not the home of Magnum PI. Not the home of USA 94 where the biggest risk faced by Irish fans was sunburn and collapsing with laughter every time a local offered you a ‘ride’. 

And also, long ago, you could pretend not to know things about the places you went. That’s unavoidable now.

As for the too many teams — we’re not there, but Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan will be there for the first time. DR Congo is back, for the first time since before Datsun became Nissan. The travelling fans from faraway places will get awful grief getting in, but those watching at home are unlikely to be boycotting the telly.

Haiti is in the midst of a gang-led coup. They could really do with the distraction. Curaçao is about twice the size of the Cork City Council area. It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to them. 

Despite it all, it’s still a joyous occasion for countries that don’t get to appear on the world stage except when viewed through a Western news filter as being "over there".

An occasion of unlikely pairings. Scotland versus Haiti. In a world of oversupply of football, Scotland versus Haiti feels like it’s from 1982. Players with perms and wobbly, oversaturated colour TV. Player questionnaires in a Shoot! annual. Favourite food? Steak and chips.

So, despite FIFA and some of the hosts’ head honchos, and our cruel absence, if any of my children decide to do a wall chart, heavily suggested, aided, and abetted by me, I won’t stand in their way.