Fifa begged us to stick to the football, so why are they making that so hard?

Fifa had ensured that the second matchday of the tournament would be all about them and the ruling powers of this place who control so much of the 2022 World Cup

CONTROVERSY: England's Harry Kane, centre, wearing a rainbow armband. Kane would have been booked had he worn the armband against Iran. File pic: AP Photo/Antonio Calanni

It’ll be a week on Wednesday since we touched down in Doha. A week is usually a couple of lifetimes at a World Cup. And yet as Monday turned to Tuesday in this place where clocks have been running on 5x-speed for a dozen years now, there was a moment of pause.

Fifa had ensured that the second matchday of the tournament would, much like the first, the eve and all the days before, be all about them and the ruling powers of this place who control so much of the 2022 World Cup. They’d stared down a group of seven European nations who, with the eyes of the world on them, blinked first.