THE Rugby League World Cup has now come to an end and Australia, a great sporting nation, did remarkably well.

They won both the men’s and the women’s finals at Old Trafford but England secured a victory in Manchester Central for the wheelchair competition.

Everyone can be proud of the quality of the performances and, the spirit in which the games were played and anticipate the sport getting a boost in support around the country.

I rarely talk or write about sport but, with so many international competitions going on at the moment, I think now is a good time.

I know that some politicians use sport as a device to humanise themselves but I believe that there is too much politics and too many politicians in sport.

One of the great things about the Rugby League World Cup is that it was all about inspiring sport rather than dismal politics.

By contrast, football seems only to be about politics at the moment. Admittedly, listening to BBC Radio 4 to hear about sport skews the coverage but surely the BBC ought to be able to just talk about the abilities of our sportsmen and women without immersing themselves in politics in every moment.

Listening to the BBC recently, I was none the wiser about England’s prospects of success or which teams to look out for.

If the England footballers and football leadership cared about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer + people then why are they even in Qatar in the first place? Most of these things are illegal in Qatar.

Apparently, the England captain was going to wear an armband to connect himself with these causes but was threatened with a yellow card so the Football Association decided he should not wear it.

We increasingly see former footballers take up political causes as enthusiastically as they take money from the Qatari Government.

There is something weird about former footballers using their position to virtue signal but it is just as weird for anyone to listen to them. Someone being a reasonable defender is not a natural steppingstone to being a respected philosopher.

From the Olympics during the Cold War to playing football today, sport should be about bringing people together rather than being a political opportunity.