How England Were Nearly Denied The 1966 World Cup

In 2017, during the bidding process to determine who would host the 2026 World Cup, FIFA President Gianni Infantino addressed the travel bans introduced by US President Donald Trump's administration which targeted several Muslim-majority nations. Infantino made FIFA’s principles clear: "Any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup."

 

In response, the US administration guaranteed that all athletes, officials, and fans would be permitted entry without discrimination.

 

FIFA stood by their principles in 2018, ensuring that players, officials, and supporters of competing nations had unfettered access when the World Cup was held in Russia. The hosts had to suspend their usual visa rules for the tournament and foreigners with tickets were allowed to enter visa-free, using a scheme called ‘Fan ID.’ In a move to placate their sponsors, FIFA insisted that Budweiser was the only beer that shops close to Fan Zones and stadiums could sell on match days.

 

In 2022, hosts Qatar made several concessions to keep FIFA happy and retain the right to stage the World Cup, including permitting alcohol sales within designated stadium perimeter zones and in official fan sites, suspending their strict stance on public displays of homosexuality by guaranteeing that rainbow flags and LGBTQ+ symbols would be permitted in stadiums, and waiving their traditional visa requirements for the visiting supporters from many countries.

 

In 2023, FIFA again stood by their principles and refused to allow a host nation to dictate who should be permitted to enter their country for a tournament. Malaysia had been awarded the hosting rights for the FIFA U20 World Cup, but when Israel qualified, Malaysia - which has the largest Muslim population in the world and does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel – announced that they would not allow the Israel team to enter the country. FIFA promptly stripped Malaysia of their hosting duties and the tournament was moved to Argentina, where it had been due to be played in 2021, but had been cancelled due to Covid.

 

FIFA’s principles became more flexible before this year’s World Cup, however. The US denied entry to Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, citing alleged "links to suspected members of terror organizations" as the reason; Iraq’s team photographer was denied entry despite having a valid visa; thousands of Moroccan fans with tickets were reportedly refused entry; members of Iran’s backroom staff were denied visas, and Ghanian player Thomas Partey had his visa application refused by the Canadian government.

 

In the matter of Trump v FIFA, FIFA blinked first. In a complete contradiction of Infantino’s 2017 statement a spokesman said, "FIFA is not involved in the immigration processes of host countries, including the adjudication of visas. The host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and is admitted into the country."

 

Given that the tournament was days away from starting when these matters arose (even though a number of them had been foreseen), moving it to another country or cancelling altogether were not viable options, but FIFA’s stance in backing down from their previous position was as disappointing as it was inevitable. With the 2026 tournament expected to achieve record revenues of US$8.9bn (£6.6bn), FIFA adopted the Groucho Marx approach to principles – if you don’t like these ones, we have others – because principles are one thing, but profits are another.

 

It is probably not widely known – I admit that until recently I was unaware of this – but in 1966 England was close to being denied the right to host the World Cup before a compromise was reached.

 

In documents released by the National Archive in 2010, it was revealed that the British government debated denying visas to the North Korean team. Following the Korean War in the 1950s, Britain did not officially recognize the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a valid state and officials feared that hosting a communist "enemy" state would severely damage relations with South Korea and the United States.

 

Internal Foreign Office memos suggested that "the simplest way to solve the problem might be to refuse visas to the North Korean team." FIFA made it explicitly clear that if any team that had qualified was denied entry, England would lose the World Cup immediately. Desperate to save four years of preparation and massive financial investments, The FA begged the government to back down and ultimately, concessions were made.

 

Although the government refused to let the team use its official acronym of "DPRK,” they allowed them to compete using the name "North Korea." To avoid playing the DPRK anthem, the government convinced FIFA to play national anthems only before the tournament's opening match and the Final.

 

Ironically, the political manoeuvring backfired in terms of keeping North Korea low-profile as they became hugely popular with English fans, pulling off a sensational 1-0 win over Italy in Middlesbrough. In fact, the people of Middlesbrough took the North Koreans to their hearts so much that when they reached the Quarter Finals, an estimated 3,000 locals travelled to Liverpool for their game against Portugal, where they stunned their illustrious opponents by racing into a 3-0 lead inside 25 minutes before losing 5-3.

 

Sometimes, despite the machinations of the bureaucrats, football finds a way.

 

 

 

 

War Of The Words

It’s 7am, it’s darker than it should be for this hour in early June, it’s raining, and the temperature hasn’t reached 16°C yet. A couple of days ago it was over 30°C and brilliant sunshine – no wonder we Brits talk about the weather a lot, there’s always a lot of weather to talk about. It also explains why, despite the disbelief of many Americans, we don’t really need to bother with air-conditioning in the UK.

 

If it wasn’t for the weather, I guess we’d be talking about the BBC even more than we do already. The BBC is variously, too woke, too left-wing, or too right wing, and the licence fee should definitely be abolished (or not).

 

Nigel Farage is platformed too much – or not enough (according to Farage himself, who would abolish the licence fee purely on the grounds that he hasn’t been invited on Desert Island Discs yet). I suggest that perhaps the BBC invite Mr Farage onto Desert Island Discs, but with usual presenter Lauren Laverne replaced by Victoria Derbyshire, who can quiz him on his £5m pound donation from Christopher Harbourne and his house in Clacton between his musical selections.

 

In a similar vein, Restore Britain – the one-man band political party that is Rupert Lowe following his split from Reform – would defund the BBC in the unlikely event of him forming a government because he took exception to jokes about him and Elon Musk made on Have I Got News For You.

But these are mere trifles. The BBC’s biggest failing is, I’m sorry to say, the decline in their radio comedy output, especially radio sit-coms. I grew up listening to shows like Hancock’s Half Hour, The Navy Lark, The Clitheroe Kid, and The Al Read Show. In more recent times I’ve enjoyed programmes like Clare In The Community; Alone; Welcome To Our Village, Please Invade Carefully; Double Science, Reluctant Persuaders, and more, many of which I’ve not only listened to on the BBC Sounds app, but have been to see being recorded.

 

Sadly, there’s now a dearth of new sit-coms on Radio 4, where the comedy output seems to consist mostly of sketch shows in which the content is to a large extent, created by the listeners themselves, and panel shows – some quizzes, some not. To my ear, many of these shows are unfunny and self-indulgent (other listeners may disagree, but that’s my opinion and the only one that counts). Recently however, I’ve been to see the recordings of a couple of these shows and, while they might not quite reach the lofty standards of BBC comedy output in years gone by, they were at least funnier and more engaging than I had expected.

 

Best Medicine is a panel show hosted by comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean. In each show the guests have to make a case for what they think is the ‘best medicine,’ which could be anything from a groundbreaking treatment or invention to something as simple as a state of mind. The two recordings I saw were funny and informative, but a problem with this type of largely unscripted show is that while the recording runs to over an hour, they have to be edited down to the 29 minutes that ends up being broadcast, losing some of the vitality of the original in the process.

 

Another show I’ve recently seen recorded is Unspeakable, hosted by Phil Wang and Susie Dent. Guests – who included Mark Steel, Cariad Lloyd, and John Culshaw in the recordings I saw – suggest new words for the Unspeakable Dictionary. Mark Steel’s rant about ‘nonouncements,’ – for example, the often superfluous and unnecessary announcements one hears on trains – was not only hilarious, but also completely, undeniably true.

Unspeakable also asks guests – and audience members – to nominate words that they would like to see removed from the dictionary, words that are over-used, or are just generally annoying, the sort of words that make one wince. Which got me thinking about words (and phrases) that give me the ick (there’s one for starters). Unsurprisingly, a lot of these have been gathered from social media.

 

First, research. I have no problem with the word per se, more with the context in which it is so often used. “I’ve done my research,” people say, by which they mean they have watched a number of YouTube videos made by members of the tin-foil hat wearing brigade that support their point of view, using dubious and highly selective facts and figures that conflate correlation and causality.

 

Curated: Literally, to carefully select, organize, and present a collection of items, information, or media. Fine if we are talking about a museum curator, painstakingly gathering a collection of artifacts and exhibits, but it’s rather pompous to use it in the context of compiling a Spotify playlist.

 

Side hustle: It’s an extra, usually part-time job, or a hobby that can be monetised, not some edgy, slightly shady practice. The expression has become so legitimised that even HMRC use it when talking about how income from sources other than a person’s main income is taxed, but it still irks me.

 

The next three fall into the same category. The math ain’t mathing; explain it to me like I’m five, and make it make sense are all used on social media sites (especially Threads) when someone doesn’t understand the subject at hand. First, the math ain’t mathing, with which I have a number of issues. Firstly, it’s maths, not math and secondly, mathing is not a word you will find in standard dictionaries and long may that continue to be the case. Explain it to me like I’m five is a request for an explanation without any confusing, grown-up words, often of a highly complex subject that could not, under any circumstances, using any form of words, be explainable to a five-year-old. Please, let’s say what we mean, i.e. “put this in simple terms that a layman would understand”, rather than insult everyone’s intelligence with twee expressions like this. Make it make sense: this tends to be used when a logical explanation of something complex or contradictory is required and while that may sometimes be a valid need, it often says more about the user’s inability to grasp the concept than the statement they are referring to. There’s more than a touch of the Dunning-Krugers about these three expressions, the logic of which usually runs along the lines of “I’m an intelligent person, but I don’t understand this, therefore it must be cobblers.”

 

Then we have I was today years old when I learned (insert subject). Gosh, this one I find truly infuriating. If you mean, I only learned today whatever it is that you learned recently, then say “I only learned today” otherwise it sounds infantile.

 

Finally (before I exceed my word count and your patience), there is "Tell me you (insert subject) without telling me you (insert subject)." Often this is a reply to a comment, opinion, or statement that the responder finds asinine or ill-informed, as in “Tell me you haven’t read Moby Dick without telling me you haven’t read Moby Dick.” I suppose it’s less blunt than saying “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” but I find it mawkish and patronising.

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter. (That’s another one!)