The Tragedy of Brazil

Autocracy taints Brazil’s beautiful game, and the world’s joy in watching it.

The chatter surrounding the World Cup — sorry, the FIFA World Cup — has largely centered on the corruption and absurdity of holding the tournament in the dead of winter in the obscenely rich (and just plain obscene) autocracy of Qatar.

Whether Qatar is an improvement over the 2018 host, Russia, is open to debate. But the…