India, July 7 -- Has there ever been a football World Cup so large, yet somehow wieldy; full of beauty, but also ugliness; inhumane and tainted, yet truthful? Its venues, though ridiculously renamed, look spectacular on TV, heaving with spectators and jumbotrons. So what if the PA system plays Titanium on loop everywhere. Normally, the possibilities and drama of every World Cup match wipe clean the ooze that comes through before opening night. But no matter how watchable and cleansing the football in this World Cup, the ooze never stop seeping through.

The reason 2026 is a truthful World Cup is because its US leg has given every football, and indeed sports fan, the clearest images of the greed, cynicism and hypocrisy that still underpins...