I hate the idea of this World Cup in Qatar-but I'm still watching

I must have been 10 when I went to a football match with my parents and realised that the game resonated far beyond the field of play. 

- Mihir Bose

The game was at the Cooperage Stadium in Mumbai and we had gone to see East Bengal, a legendary Indian team, play in a cup competition. The team had been formed during the days of the Raj to represent the Hindus of East Bengal. This was where my father had grown up, amid much luxury, our family being part of the rich Hindu minority that dominated East Bengal, where most of the population was Muslim.

All of this was lost in 1947 as a result of the partition of India when East Bengal became East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and millions of Hindus left. My father, who had made Mumbai his home, knew he could never go back. Watching the East Bengal team that Sunday afternoon was his way of connecting with the land he always regarded as home and whose loss he mourned. As East Bengal won, my father's spirits lifted.

Like my father, millions will be supporting their teams during the Qatar World Cup for reasons that go far beyond 22 men kicking a ball for 90 minutes. They will do so, despite the World Cup being held in a country with a dreadful human rights record and whose treatment of migrant workers is appalling. I am under no illusions, having visited Qatar, met the migrants who built the stadiums and seen their dreadful living conditions. But, despite that, I was in front of my television last Sunday when Qatar kicked off the competition.

At every professional level, the game is no longer the pleasant weekend activity of my youth. It is now a sordid marriage between money and football's power barons, with the fans used as pawns to preserve the myth of the beautiful game.