It is a busy July of 2026 in the human activity of organised sports. This takes place on Earth, the spinning mass of rock held in place by the gravity from Helios, Sol, Bran, the Sun, and without this, and without the delicate zone within the atmosphere, there would be no organised sport taking place. These are facts and it is logical to state the obvious. However, so fortunate are we that gravity exists and the atmosphere permits activity, and organised sports have developed from the ‘western world.’
July 2026 is surely one of the busiest months in sporting history. Wimbledon courts are playing, so far no downpours have stopped play, here in middle Britain the Commonwealth Games are due to take place in Glasgow in a few weeks time, but really all focus has been on the World Cup 2026, which is football, and in Canada, the USA and Mexico. This is written in that order because Canada is the furthest north, then the USA stretching over a long geography, and Mexico the furthest south. Mexico is not on the equator but still, its southernmost point is only 14’N, which is pretty damn hot.
It occurred to this blog in hearing bits of news here and there on the airwaves about ‘the World Cup, that there are several strange things about global sport.
One is how it shows the strange constitutional situation of Scotland and England as different football teams, and only those two because Wales did not quality, but if they had, there would be the three as rivals over the pond (the vast Atlantic Ocean). Northern Ireland neither did qualify, and neither did Ireland as in Eire, so the media have only had Scotland and England to comment and commentate on.
Another strange thing is how the Tartan Army, travelling to coincide with its national team playing in the World Cup 2026, has no leader. No General, no Commander, no bugle call to charge. Instead the Army descends like locusts on the alcohol, drinks it dry, the media finds this funny, the Scottish media give much airtime to its Army without a leader, and the English roll their eyes, because that’s what Scots do. The English team are ‘still in’, and the Scottish team ‘out’. And the strange thing about the Army without a leader is just how much time the airwaves in Scotland gave to the criticisms of those troops on the disappointment of the manager Steve Clarke. How he ‘hadn’t delivered’ for them after they had travelled that far (and paid the extortionate costs as hostages to FIFA). What the Tartan Army expected is clear, that the Scotland team would win every match, and win the Football World Cup of 2026.This is not the way it went, and Steve Clarke made a clear public statement that he was resigning. The airwaves in Scotland were full of indignation and let down, while the airwaves in England merely noted it.
However this blog was thinking, there is an unspoken and undiscussed strangeness here, and that is ethnicity. A World Cup has humans from lots of regions of Earth all playing on the same pitch in the same city in the same climatic zone. Can it be said that the elephant on the pitch question of recent years, in football and other sports, has now become so obvious in the World Cup of 2026 that it must be stated? This blog is about facts, and it is stating here these facts.
Firstly the heat. Say the temperature in Miami, as Scotland lost to Brazil 0-3, was 33′ C, that’s 91 F, that’s hot. We here in mid latitudes of Britain have been suffering horribly in this heat wave, and certainly not running around. Only mad dogs and mad Englishmen and Scotsmen would go out in Miami heat, and certainly not play football. Further north, up from Stirling, of course it got a little cooler, but all up Britain, because of the abnormal heatwave no one was playing global football competitions. The Tartan Army (the Army with no leader) was much in the news with the effects of that alcohol, the sun, and the excitement of being at World Cup 2026. Many were ill, from the usual Scottish pastime of the drinking but in the heat (the French and Spanish sit calmly with a glass of wine and a glass of water in summer heat) but also from sunburn. We ancient Brits do not take the direct rays of Helios well in tropical latitudes, because we are designed to absorb those life giving and very beautiful rays of Light from way up north where Helios is never overhead.
Apart from the matter of different skin types, those with much melanin from Africa, middle East, and central Americas and those of pale complexions, which cause such different degrees of wellbeing in heat, there is also the simple bodily structure of different ethnicity. Now, this blog is well aware this gets into dodgy legal territory, it is very difficult to refer to ethnicity without raising some problem somewhere and wondering when the policeman’s hand on shoulder will come (in parlance of 50 years ago). However this blog deals with facts, and facts of the natural world, therefore real facts. Not social sciences facts. And when it comes to competitive sport there is a very big different between different ethnicities in bodily structure, bone length, muscle strength etc., even apart from that extremely difficult (but extremely basic fact) of skin colour and Sunlight. The match in which the Scotland team ‘failed’ its drunk Army supporters, and from which the manager simple said, ‘that’s it folks, I’m quitting’ (and quite right too because who should have to put up with such drunken opinionating?) and lost 0-3 to Brazil, has not been discussed in any real facts. The real facts are that a team of mostly black players, we’ll use the general term there just like white is a general term, were both more muscular than white football players, and – and – more bodily equipped to play in heat because of melanin in the skin and bodies way more comfortable in above 30’C heat.
Now it comes to England, awaiting the game against Mexico. This blog feels it necessary to raise this question because the England team has more mixed ethnicities with black players playing and white players playing, as shows the population of England. The heat is comfortable for black people, and the melanin in the skin protects against sunburn because it is designed to protect against Sunlight in order to balance life, health, and survival of its people. In Mexico the altitude has been the question, that those of any ethnicity not used to living and definitely not playing football, are severely disadvantaged. Unsporting tactics by Mexicans of drums, shouts, and all attempts to keep their opposite awake all night is easily solved by ear plugs. However this matter of humans from all over Earth playing extremely strenuous football in now worryingly unsafe climatic and altitude conditions, and in so many different physics playing together whether other sports clearly show the advantages like Ethiopians winning marathons, this blog is thinking that some kind of handicap needs to be in place. If the Scottish team had been awarded a handicap to Brazil of 4 goals at the beginning for Brazil to start on -4, then Scotland would have won the match, Miami would have been drunk dry, and the manager probably not resigned. For England to play at altitude, a handicap to Mexico could be also 4, so they start on -4, but with the superb strength and sporting beauty and fitness of black players in the English team, deduct 2, so Mexico start on handicap of -2. The match has not yet started, and the new variable of a big storm has so far not changed the kick off or prevented the match at all. In this year of 2026 at the Football World Cup this is a very good time to address that elephant on the pitch, and FIFA to set the precedent of the referee whistle to begin the match at England 2, Mexico 0. This is the year to address the facts of global sport.