Last month was our fifth Teqball World Championships in Nuremberg, Germany.

The powerful gesture by the Iranian players in refusing to sing their national anthem and the furore over the rainbow armbands have made it a week to remember at the FIFA World Cup.

It is almost unheard of for the President of an International Federation in the Olympic Movement to be unseated after only one term, let alone one with almost unlimited resources, but that is what happened yesterday at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF).

The Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF), known as the "One Voice for all Sport", has been silenced.

The World Cup of upsets; I have heard Qatar 2022 described this way a number of times over the past few days.

Some years ago I slighted - sorry cited - the Eiffel Tower as a possible reason why Paris might not gain the 2012 Games for which they were then bidding.

The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games has the feel of a watershed moment for mass participation at major sporting events. As well as the well-documented ambitious Opening Ceremony plans along the River Seine, organisers are seeking 20,024 runners to complete a marathon on the same day and on the same course as the elite race.

Is it sad that the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) is to be disbanded? Yes.

Eight teams were set to wear a rainbow armband at the World Cup in Qatar before FIFA stepped in to forbid it.

Less than a week into the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and the chances of Doha winning its bid to host the 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games has already receded.

Back in his seventies heyday the charismatic American tennis champion Jimmy Connors memorably mused of Wimbledon: "You could stick rackets in the hands of two orang-utans and you would still sell out the Centre Court on finals day." True.

So, what do you know: 55 minutes into that extraordinary hour-long tormented, angry pre-World Cup vent by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, some hard, or hard-ish, financial information.

As Johnny Nash sang: "There are more questions than answers." And here is a question that many people have been struggling with over the weekend:

The opening match of the World Cup has become a huge spectacle with importance beyond the total sum of its parts and Qatar’s encounter with Ecuador is no different.