Fans enraged as BBC snubs Qatar World Cup opening ceremony

British football fans took to social media to express their outrage at the BBC's decision not show the 2022 World Cup opening ceremony on terrestrial television.

Instead, the British state broadcaster decided to air a pre-packaged discussion led by pundit Gary Lineker on human rights concerns surrounding the tournament.

"Now why the hell isn’t BBC showing the opening ceremony," said one fan on Twitter.

Is this the sort of thing from the opening ceremony that the BBC didn’t want people to see? Beautiful quotes from the Qur’an?#Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/nAY300r2Un

— 𝐹𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓂𝒶 𝐵𝒶𝓇𝓀𝒶𝓉𝓊𝓁𝓁𝒶 (@FatimaBarkatula) November 20, 2022

"Is this the sort of thing from the opening ceremony that the BBC didn’t want people to see? Beautiful quotes from the Qur’an?" asked one social media user.

Fans who wanted to see the spectacular display featuring performances by BTS, an appearance by Morgan Freeman and traditional Qatari dances had to tune in online, breaking from decades of broadcasting tradition. 

Oh wow...so it's deep. BBC are just not showing the Opening Ceremony.
So if England win the World Cup, will they reject the trophy since it was held in Qatar?

— Have Hope 🇳🇬 (@havehopehut) November 20, 2022

 Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also gave a speech during the ceremony, saying "how beautiful it is for people to put aside what divides them in order to celebrate their diversity and what brings them together at the same time."

Contrarian pundit Piers Morgan also shared his distaste at the BBC's decision to boycott the ceremony.

Outrageously disrespectful to Qatar that the BBC didn’t broadcast the World Cup opening ceremony, and instead put out more virtue-signalling guff about how awful it is. If they’re that appalled, they should bring home their vast army of employees & spare us this absurd hypocrisy.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 20, 2022