FOOTBALL WORLD CUP: A SPECTACLE LIKE NO OTHER | Sunday Observer

FOOTBALL WORLD CUP: A SPECTACLE LIKE NO OTHER

27 November, 2022

It is not the Olympics. The Olympics is about mass participation. It is top shelf football action only for the very best and the World Cup to go with that billions of people look forward to no matter where they are. In palaces and in prison cells, kings and queens even popes, in refugee camps, on the streets, in shopping malls, rich or poor, black, white, yellow, brown and no one knows how many.

The football World Cup is unlike any other spectacle in the world epitomising the appeal and quality of sports competition followed with intense passion. All over the world people who live in countries that fail to qualify have their favourite teams they want to see lift the trophy.

Football is a uniting force that cuts across all cultures and borders and is truly the one sport that can be called global. All over the world millions of children, girls and boys, have taken a fancy with a passion for football from as young as five years or even less.

In Sri Lanka, Brazil usually gets top billing to win the World Cup while there are others who support a country like Germany. But whatever country Sri Lankans support, the football World Cup makes everyone look forward to the action it provides on the field of play.

Not so long ago in 2016, a boy as young as five years in war ravaged Afghanistan was so passionate about football and the great Lionel Messi that he made a Number 10 jersey worn by the Argentine superstar legend out of polythene or plastic to show his love for his idol.

The story went viral and Messi himself presented a specially autographed shirt to the boy named Murtaza Ahamadi that symbolised how truly global and uniting is football that knows no distance and borders.

But little Ahamadi had the best day of his childhood when he met Messi in the flesh in December that same year in Doha, Qatar the venue of the World Cup 2022 courtesy of the United Nations children’s welfare provider UNICEF where Messi is its Goodwill Ambassador.

Callistus Davy

Comments