The World Cup has never been just a football tournament. Even if we don’t realise it at the time, it tends to reveal something about us. In Germany 2006, it was all about Baden-Baden and the WAGs: the shallowest point of that celebrity-obsessed age. For more romance and happier memories, go back to Italia 90. Pavarotti bellowing ‘Nessun dorma’, Gazza blubbing, Maradona weaving his magic, Roger Milla hip-wiggling the corner flag.

Italia 90 was the last gasp of the old order: modestly paid players with mullets and perms; heaving terraces; the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia playing their last tournaments. And yet also the birth of a glitzy new era: around the corner were Sky TV, the Premier League, all-seater stadia and – gradually, insidiously – money, money, money everywhere.

Gaudy, political, over-commercialised and crass, there’s been little of beauty in the run-up to this tournament

Gaudy, political, over-commercialised and crass, there’s been little of beauty in the run-up to this tournament

Which brings us to Fifa World Cup 2026, held in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Gaudy, political, over-commercialised and crass: even football’s hardiest boosters would concede that there’s been little of beauty in the run-up to this tournament. Perhaps that’s fitting for a World Cup hosted by Donald Trump.

Ticketing has been a fiasco of overpricing and incompetence, which will lead to unnecessary gaps in the group stage crowds. The Trump administration’s generally laudable attempts to restrain access to the US still threaten to spill over into secondary........

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