Ok, I don’t want to be a d*** here, and by the time anybody reads this (if anybody ever does) the question will be moot: but shouldn’t FIFA have worried over the air quality in the New York/Northern New Jersey area well before the possibility of smoke from Canadian wildfires became a question? I mean, I have lived here all my life, I know how muggy and disgusting summers can be in this area, not to mention the goodly amount of pollution we suffer through. Holding the final match in a less populated, metropolitan area would have assured better air quality, smoke or no smoke.
Really, could the smoke from those fires really be all that bad for the players and audience at the final FIFA, when the air around here has always been dangerous?
Or did FIFA somehow set those fires to bring more attention to the match being held under such dangerous air quality conditions? None of us has to question how corrupt FIFA is. Is this just another ploy?
It’s the Saturday before the big match as I write and post this, and I doubt there will be any halt to the spectacle and traffic standstill that will happen tomorrow. There is simply too much money to be made here. This is the biggest, most ethnically diverse circus that’s ever come to town, a pat on the back for America, a seemingly full show of global brotherhood, a ranch dressing fueled extravaganza that will not be thrown off course by something as simple as breathing restrictions.
If we have learned nothing from the soccer matches we have just endured (yeah, sorry, I call it soccer) it’s that even in the face of some sure questionable ref calls, certain team FIFA organization bias and how popular this sport happens to be everywhere else in the world, here, the show must go on.
Take a deep breath and enjoy the show.
