The World Cup ticket scandal has, predictably, descended into a theatre of the absurd. As Fifa faces a British-led investigation into pricing practices that would make a Victorian railway baron blush, one cannot help but draw parallels to the final days of Rome: a decadent empire oblivious to the crumbling foundations beneath its feet. The beautiful game has become a grotesque carnival of corporate greed, where the common fan is priced out of the very spectacle that bears their passion.
The British, with their peculiar genius for moral indignation, are now leading the charge. But do not mistake this for virtue. It is the same nation that gave us the East India Company and the enclosure movement: a history of commodifying joy for private gain.
The probe will likely produce angry headlines, a few sacrificial lambs, and then business as usual. For the real scandal is not the price of a ticket but the spiritual bankruptcy of an institution that has forgotten the muddy pitches and working-class terraces from which it sprang. As for the fans, they will continue to pay, because they always do.
That is the tragedy. That is the farce.
