‘A brilliant reprieve, a unifying force’: America falls in love with World Cup

Packed stadiums, record TV viewers, and an outlet for joyous multiculturalism under attack by Trump – the tournament has taken the US by storm

There were plenty of reasons to believe the US hosting the World Cup would be a disaster.

In the year and a half leading up to the kick-off, Donald Trump had threatened to annex tournament co-host Canada, and to invade the other co-host, Mexico; he was at war with one of the tournament’s participants, Iran. Harsh travel restrictions were preventing fans from Senegal, Ivory Coast and Haiti from getting visas. Ticket prices were outrageous. Hotels weren’t filling up as promised. Fifa was introducing “hydration breaks” during games, allowing TV commercials in what appeared to be a shameless cash grab that threatened the flow of play.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/1xyJgn3

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The heartbreak of watching a parent fall for fraud: ‘Dad, this is a scam – have you given her money?’ | Naima Brown

The scammers my dad encountered were not sophisticated, my father suspended his own disbelief wilfully. But many scammers are sophisticated and they’re getting harder to detect Bomba wasn’t the first, but she exploded in our lives like a digital grenade. She’s not real, I told my dad – then in his early seventies. I was in Australia at this time, where I’ve lived for the last 13 years. Physically speaking, he was still in California – but within himself he was adrift in a rapidly sinking lifeboat, floating in a morass of debris primarily of his own doing. But it must be said before I go further: my dad isn’t the bad guy in this story. Not this time. At times, he was the bad guy in other people’s stories– but that is another story. If she’s not real, he countered, then how is it that we’ve spoken on the phone? That we video-chatted? I’ll admit that threw me. In most catfishing stories the catfish goes to great lengths to avoid video chatting. But my dad being the unreliable sourc...
Read more

Oil prices sink after Iranian strike on US airbase reduces fears of market disruption

Crude oil prices dropped by 7% on hopes that the conflict would not immediately disrupt region’s oil supplies Oil prices dropped sharply after Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on a US airbase reduced concern that the country was poised to strain energy markets by closing off a vital trade route. Crude oil prices sank by 7% on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dropping to $68.51, as the Iranian action on the Al Udeid base in Qatar raised hopes that the conflict would not immediately disrupt oil supplies from the region. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/YfVrHjP
Read more