Beauty and the beasts converge

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

So, how are you enjoying it so far?

The World Cup, I mean.

Not so much if you're an England fan like me, but otherwise most would agree that the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet is living up to its billing.

Surprising that a Chronicle poll showed 49 per cent of readers were indifferent to the shindig in Brazil.

I can only suppose everyone else in town was too busy enjoying bite-sized chunks of the action (with apologies to Luis Suarez) to bother voting.

Before kick-off, Brazil was hit by protests from workers, students, the poor (the usual suspects) about the obscene amount of money spent on stadia for the tournament and how the rich elite, the politicians, the corrupt companies (the usual suspects) had their snouts in the trough.

Then the governing body of the world game, Fifa, rolled in with Don Corleone (aka Sepp Blatter) at its head and they saw the real thing - snouts in the trough, Champions League style.

Yet as the competition progresses, along with the host nation, the protesters have drifted away. Obvious really - they're watching the football.

In Brazil, the game is a religion. And if religion is politics in funny clothes, and politics is war without bloodshed, then association football - to give it its original name - is religion, politics and war. But with a round ball.

Some of the soccer politics began in Brazil with its longstanding Fifa president, Joo Havelange, who taught Blatter most of what he knows about feathering one's own nest. Havelange clung to power for 24 years and introduced bribery as a sport to football and the Olympics.

As for war ... the 1970 World Cup qualifier, Honduras against El Salvador, saw the match give way to hostilities of a more lethal nature.

On the subject of the lethal (and I don't mean Neymar's right boot), the World Cup got its own martyr in 1994 when Colombian defender Andres Escobar was shot dead after he scored an own goal, causing his team to be eliminated by the United States. It was a result which cost big-time gamblers a lot of money - and Escobar his life.

Which begs the question: If football is so corrupt at the top that Qatar can buy the World Cup; and if it can inspire such violence; and if it is full of over-paid cheats - and people like Suarez - why is this religion followed so faithfully by millions around the world?

Football is a simple game, so it is universal; its origins are working class, so it is the people's game; and it is "the beautiful game" - sublime, mesmerising, tense, exhilarating and with its own special magic.

And it unites people all over the world; it is a global currency of comradeship among fans and players.

Only a few years ago, Iran was part of the "axis of evil". Now it's a bunch of swarthy, rather primadonna-ish, but not untalented players with hair gel.

In 1966, the World Cup came to England ... and so did North Korea, a mysterious nation we knew nothing about (they hadn't even made the "axis of evil" in those days).

Pak Doo-Ik and co played some lovely football, eliminating Italy on their way to folk hero status in the cold northeast of England, where they were based.

The people of Middlesbrough, where they played their group matches, took them to their hearts. They couldn't pronounce the Korean names, so they called them "us".