I genuinely cannot believe what I am watching at this World Cup.
The greatest football tournament on earth is being dragged towards becoming a bloated American-style advertising production in which the actual match is treated as only one part of the entertainment package.
The water breaks are bad enough. Where extreme heat creates a genuine danger to players, their welfare must obviously come first. Nobody sensible would argue otherwise.
But scheduled interruptions should never become convenient advertising windows disguised as concern. Football is supposed to flow. Its tension, momentum and emotion are built through continuous play. Every unnecessary stoppage chips away at the fundamental character of the sport.
Then we come to the prospect of a half-time break lasting around half an hour.
It is beyond parody.
It is cringeworthy, embarrassing and utterly grotesque.
Half-time has always served a clear sporting purpose. Players recover, receive treatment, listen to tactical instructions and prepare for the second half. It is not an empty space waiting to be filled by celebrities, concerts, dancers, fireworks, sponsors and an endless parade of commercial nonsense.
The match is the show.
The players are the stars.
The football is the entertainment.
The belief that a World Cup match somehow requires a Super Bowl-style production in the middle of it is an insult to the sport and to every supporter watching it.
A half-hour interruption would destroy the rhythm of the contest. Players would cool down physically and mentally. Momentum would disappear. Supporters would be dragged completely out of the match and forced to sit through a manufactured spectacle they never requested.
It would reduce the World Cup final to a platform for advertising.
That is not innovation. It is vandalism.
Football cannot be allowed to become Americanised in this way. That is not an attack on America or on American sports. Their traditions belong to their games, where repeated stoppages and lengthy entertainment breaks are already part of the structure.
Football is different.
Its continuous nature is one of the reasons it became the world’s game. Its drama develops naturally. Its tension does not require artificial enhancement. Its biggest matches do not need a concert shoved into the middle because executives are terrified of allowing 15 minutes to pass without selling something.
Yet FIFA appears willing to rip apart the basic structure of football for another commercial opportunity.
That is what makes this so disgusting.
FIFA is supposed to protect the game. Instead, it increasingly behaves like an organisation searching every corner of football for something else to monetise.
Every pause becomes potential advertising space. Every tradition becomes negotiable. Every boundary can be moved when enough money is placed on the table.
The World Cup already generates extraordinary wealth, but apparently that is no longer enough. The half-time interval must now be stretched, branded and sold. The game itself must bend around the demands of broadcasters, sponsors and entertainers.
Nothing is sacred.
Not the rhythm of the match.
Not the physical preparation of the players.
Not the concentration required at the highest level.
Not the experience of the supporters.
Not even the most basic traditions of the sport.
This is pure greed masquerading as progress.
I know this is not Celtic-related, but it matters to every Celtic supporter because it concerns the future of the game we love. Once this abomination is accepted at a World Cup, it becomes easier to introduce elsewhere.
Today it is a half-hour show during the World Cup final.
Tomorrow it could be scheduled commercial breaks in European matches, increasingly prolonged interruptions and competitions redesigned around television advertising rather than football.
That cannot be allowed to sneak into our sport.
Supporters cannot simply shrug their shoulders and accept it as inevitable. Football has already surrendered far too much to corporations, broadcasters and governing bodies that view fans primarily as consumers.
There has to be a line.
A 30-minute half-time break should be that line.
I am sickened that FIFA has allowed the World Cup to be used as a testing ground for this nonsense. It is a betrayal of the sport’s identity and an admission that those running football no longer believe the game itself is enough.
It is more than embarrassing. It is an abomination.
Football belongs on the pitch, not in an advertising executive’s presentation.
The World Cup should represent the highest expression of the sport. Instead, FIFA is threatening to turn it into the most expensive commercial break on earth.
