Who really won the Qatar World Cup? Spoiler: It wasn’t Argentina

The Qatari regime, of course. Football beat human rights by about 6-1 in this game, and it was cheap at the price

The greatest World Cup final ever was football’s exhilarating parting gift to its host, the state of Qatar. The Qatari government – ie the royal family and its advisers – had lavished some $200bn dollars and more on building a soccer metropolis, a soctropolis if you will, in the desert.

Towering hotels, modern, air-conditioned stadia, even its own underground mass transit system. All they needed to make it complete was some decent football and some of the greatest players of all time to do their thing. Mbappe, Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and the rest all obliged.

Morocco made its own symbolic breakthrough. Croatia, Japan and South Korea left some markers for the future. There was the right balance of upsets (Saudi Arabia beating Argentina) and the very best squads made it to the last rounds. The final went to penalties, but it felt right, for a change. England? Fulfilled expectations – put it that way.

Overall, Qatar 2022 was a compelling competition; a feast served sometimes three times a day. Gianni Infantino, boss of Fifa, called it “the best World Cup” ever, and it certainly helped repair Fifa’s tarnished image and usefully distract from some of Infantino’s more eccentric remarks at the start of the tournament.

But who won the 2022 World Cup? The Qatari regime, of course. It was $200bn very well spent. No one is now talking about the crushing of human rights there, the persecution of the LGBT+ community, women treated as second class citizens or the appalling abuse of migrant workers. We shouldn’t forget that a British foreign secretary asked his fellow citizens visiting Qatar to be a bit less gay, but that’s pretty much what James Cleverly did. We shouldn’t forget that the Qataris colluded with the Iranian ayatollahs to track and identify dissidents amount the Iranian fans who travelled to support their clearly distressed team, playing bravely under duress.

There is some disturbing suggestons that the Qataris bribed members of the European parliament to promote their cause (which also suggests that an imperfect understanding on the part of the Qataris about where power lies in Europe). Nor should we allow the deaths of a still-unknown number of migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka working on the tournament in Qatar, since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, to be forgotten. People from all over Asia and east Africa are, frankly, treated as modern slaves by too many of their Qatari employers, the cruelty laced with racism.

But it is all overshadowed, isn’t it, by other dramas and controversies? By France’s heroic fightback from being 2-0 down at half-time in the final. By the magic of a Richarlison opening goal. By the perennial underperformance of the mega-talented Belgians. By some dodgy refereeing. By Harry Kane launching his own space exploration mission.

And so we forget whatever it was we learned  in those earnest documentaries and investigative stories that went out in the run-up to the tournament, when there weren’t any highlights to show or borderline hand-ball calls to kick around and Ronaldo’s tears were yet to fall on the Portuguese dressing room floor. I don’t think I’ve heard Gary Lineker, Gary Neville or even Gareth Southgate mention human rights lately.

The Qataris were right. Football beat human rights by about 6-1 in this game, and it was cheap at the price. The energy crisis has left this tiny statelet richer than ever, and the billions expended are trivial when compared to currently inflated oil and gas revenues. Qatar 2022 easily ranks as the most successful sportswashing exercise in history, easily outstripping the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the 1980 games in Moscow, the Beijing Olympics of 2008, and the days when apartheid South Africa was allowed to host rugby and cricket tours.

It’s not often said now, in the warm messianic glow of Messi, but it needs repeating. For all of the spectacle and all the good the 2022 World Cup did to promote the beautiful game in those few corners of the globe it hasn’t yet conquered, we should never hold the tournament in a place such as Qatar again. That was world football’s real own goal.