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The Rest is History.

. . . . . . . . Growing up as a football crazed little boy in the 1970s and 1980s I adored the World Cup. I zealously collected the Panini stickers, painstakingly

circled the fixtures in my parents' copy of the Radio Times, and watched Gog-eyed,

a Zico, Socrates and Maradonna pirouetted across our television screen.

Sadly, today it is simply impossible to look forward to Brazil's carnival of football

with the same innocent enthusiasm.

The greatest sporting exhibition on the planet has become a bloated monstrosity.

Far from embodying the Corinthian virtues of athletic excellence and fair play,

the World Cup has become synonymous with corporate greed, institutional corruption and the widening gulf between the international super-rich and the downtrodden masses.

That Dominic Sandbrook was a top historian,

herumpthing in the Daily Mail before the World Cup in Brazil

in 2014 and the top historian was, of course, yourself.

It was beautiful prose, Tom, not just beautifully written I think very very thought-provoking

But I guess just laughing scornfully I will I will Dominic Dominic Dominic our last week we finished our sweep through the world cup in our last episode in Argentina in 1978.

And you could say that that, there was a lot of corporate greed there.

There was certainly quite a lot of institutional corruption.

And you know, they, the Argentine government were busing

shanty people out to shantytowns,

but we know where they weren't playing fixtures.

...