Alan Jacobs


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Barney Ronay:

It feels like a theme park. There’s always been this ridiculous corporate circus, but generally it intersects with a real sense of joy, and you monetise the joy. Here, there’s no joy, just monetising. You feel that this is a place that should in no world be staging this, until you realise: the World Cup is not a festival of football, it’s a travelling city state, a TV show sold to people who can pay the most money. You want a World Cup? This is what a World Cup is.