Gay Australian footballer Josh Cavallo says World Cup shouldn’t be going to Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.
Australian Football
Josh Cavallo
22 May 2018
World Cup in Qatar should stay in Europe, not Qatar.
When the World Cup goes to Qatar, something I will never know, it will be to a football show for the elite of humanity.
The very idea will be to prove to the world that it is possible to bring football to the middle-classes and people of colour, and that it is possible to do it without any sponsors, in spite of the fact that sponsors are the lifeblood of this industry.
World Cups are great television.
But I do not believe it should go to one place in the world where there is a law which criminalizes the lives of gay people.
I do not believe FIFA is that kind of a society.
World Cups are for the people.
World Cups are to unite the people.
I do not believe this is the right move.
I do not believe the IOC, which I am representing at the Commonwealth Games, is that kind of a organisation.
I do not believe the Australian Football League is that kind of a sport’s governing body.
Australia is a great nation, filled to overflowing with the very people who are being denied the right to a place in the global tournament.
It would be a great thing if an all-Australian team were put together.
If we were to beat England in the final, I think if we were to beat Japan, Australia would prove that world football could be a truly equal opportunity sport.
This World Cup in Qatar would do nothing except unite the world in a beautiful way.
It would be a great thing if our side won.
It could be our only chance to show that football can unite the world.
The problem is, the Qatari system is completely different to ours.
It is a system that has been around for a long time, a system which does not want any of the other leagues around the world to take a piece of the pie.
They are trying to keep the Qatari system as it was in 2002, before Qatar began their world-famous push into football and began