At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stepped onto the podium to receive the gold and bronze medals they had won in the men’s 200m respectively. As The Star Spangled Banner played, both athletes raised their gloved fists in a Black Power salute (illustrated). They did so at the expense of their careers (Australian silver medalist Peter Norman was also ostracized for his support of the Americans). They understood and accepted that effective protest is rarely a risk-free option.

Little courage has been displayed so far at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Earlier this week, football’s governing body announced that any captain who consummates a pledge to wear an armband ” Rainbow-striped One Love” on the pitch would be subject to a yellow card. The football associations of England, Wales and several other countries quickly caved, proving willing to take a position of principle only when there was no football-related cost. Qatari authorities, seemingly emboldened, began confiscating any items adorned with a rainbow design from fans.

At this early stage, the World Cup makes everyone involved look as good as one would expect: the hosts as overbearing crackpots, the guests as cowardly suppliants. We are such a distance through the looking glass that the main moral examples are the team representing Iran; the subtext of their decision not to sing the country’s anthem before kick-off was unmistakable and the risk they were running was considerable.

The idea that sport can be detached from politics has always been laughable, especially when it comes to international sport; it was for political reasons that Qatar applied for the World Cup. The Gulf state could have calculated that the benefits of soft power would outweigh the criticisms – Russia got away with it in 2018, after all. But people knew and admired things about Russia’s past, if not about its present. This is – Qatar Airways and Al Jazeera notwithstanding – Qatar’s bow on the world stage. They might have expected a different answer.

Andrew Mueller is host of “The Foreign Desk” on Monocle 24. For more analysis of the politics surrounding the World Cup, you can tune in here.