Nairobi, Nov. 26 -- It has been a revealing couple of weeks as football fans around the world find their outrage at whatever they find outrageous about either FIFA or Qatar. Even factoring in the Covid-19 pandemic, I don't know what they have been doing with themselves these past six years. Considering their surprise at basic information, I don't even know if they qualify to be called "fanatics," which is where the term "fan" came from in the first place.

I have a casual awareness of football and even I had plenty of time to be horrified when FIFA awarded the World Cup to Qatar. For residents of the Swahili Coast, Arabia is not some distant or exotic land. We wake up to the sound of the Muezzin, we eat biryani on Fridays, we have picture...