In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege

I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.

But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege

I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.

But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege

I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.

But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Comforting reassurance was once the work of the church. Now it’s increasingly being sought from the machine

A few summers ago I attended two funerals in a week.

One was for a man who was atheist and had lots of worldly success. The second was for a woman who was Catholic, raised three children and lived a much quieter life.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die …

Comforting reassurance was once the work of the church. Now it’s increasingly being sought from the machine

A few summers ago I attended two funerals in a week.

One was for a man who was atheist and had lots of worldly success. The second was for a woman who was Catholic, raised three children and lived a much quieter life.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die …

Comforting reassurance was once the work of the church. Now it’s increasingly being sought from the machine

A few summers ago I attended two funerals in a week.

One was for a man who was atheist and had lots of worldly success. The second was for a woman who was Catholic, raised three children and lived a much quieter life.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die …

Lilian Greenwood condemns Conservative ‘mixed messages’ and promises a system that works for everybody

• UK politics live – latest updates

Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.

Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.

Lilian Greenwood condemns Conservative ‘mixed messages’ and promises a system that works for everybody

• UK politics live – latest updates

Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.

Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.

Lilian Greenwood condemns Conservative ‘mixed messages’ and promises a system that works for everybody

• UK politics live – latest updates

Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.

Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.