Now, we all have to listen to a many-headed beast roaring in delight at least once a week

I’ve spent a better part of the World Football Cup not at home in Russia, but in Malaysia. I’d love to extend that stay if I could, just to be as far from the action as possible.

My standard answer to my Malaysian friends, who were unable to understand me: Wouldn’t you feel the same if a stadium was on your street?

I used to live in a quiet area of Moscow, in between five parks, until a huge modernist dark tower of a stadium had been erected just around the corner. There were mass protests in the neighbourhood, but to no avail. Now, we all have to listen to a many-headed beast roaring in delight at least once a week, and then watch all these huge crowds filling my street, blocked to traffic, on their way out.

I can’t help feeling that something is wrong about sports today. It used to be something entirely else, much more human-oriented, only a few decades ago.

Oh, I know that generally the World Cup is a glorious event, and that it’s a very good time to be a Russian now. The fans from all over the world are here, and they are having fun and telling everyone how they like my country. They really do, especially after becoming temporary victims of some traditional Russia-bashing and fear-mongering in the Western media. I am also surprised that our national team, unable to shine at many other global football events, has suddenly shown that it can play, after all.

There are about two dozens of foreign head of states and governments here, some of them engaged in very meaningful “football diplomacy”. It’s enough to mention the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, having a long meeting with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin.

The result is a huge revival of multiple plans and projects, many of which include some forms of North Korean participation — like pipelines and railroads, which just have to cross the northern territories of the peninsula on their way from Russia to South Korea. Watching all these high-level meetings definitely boosts your patriotic feelings.

I also know about the economic benefits of such tournaments. Russia’s direct investments into the enterprise is estimated by McKinsey & Co to be US$13.2 billion (RM53.13 billion). Which is “peanuts” compared to US$200 billion that Qatar is planning to spend on a similar event in 2022.

The incomes generated look to be around US$22 billion, according to a slightly optimistic estimate by a Russian financial analyst Global FX. That includes sales of tickets (up to US$6 billion), a crowd of tourists spending maybe US$5 billion, sales of media time (US$5 billion) and advertising (another US$5 billion).

We already know by now that China is dominating the World Cup. South China Morning Post said China is expected to contribute one third of the total advertising spent on the tournament in Russia, making it the biggest spender. Seven of the 19 corporate sponsors are Chinese, which is a record. Dalian Wanda Group Co Ltd is a top-tier sponsor, rubbing shoulders with Coca Cola Co and Visa Inc.

So, China is happy, even without being able to send a team to play, and everyone else is happy too. And I know that now is the wrong time to grumble against sports, especially in Russia. But I can’t help thinking that, once upon a time, sports were meant to be a very private occupation for everyone, it was meant for personal wellbeing and general fitness.

How has it evolved into a huge global money-making machine, with football stars migrating from nation to nation for huge fees? And how all these beer-drinking crowds filling the huge stadiums may symbolise health and harmonious development of a human being?

Likewise, do you really have to admire all those fake athletes with artificial-looking muscles, covered with blue tattoos, reading no books and looking generally dumb? They indirectly generate incomes for fitness centres, but also contribute to the general trend of “dumbing down” the human race (the term, coined by the great American writer Carl Sagan in his grimly prophetic book, The Demon Haunted World).

Again, I know I must be wrong about all that, you’ll surely tell me that admiration for the Big Sports drive people to excel in physical things, which is good for everyone. But let us get back to that stadium on my street. It has been built in the place of a small, very local old stadium, which had been opened to everyone around at certain times. Our sports teachers in school used to take the whole class there for lessons.

And now, there is that dark tower looming in its place — no school activities allowed — where all these uncounted thousands regularly idolise the living legends of the Big Sports.

• Dmitry Kosyrev is an author of 8 novels and a book of short stories as well as a columnist for 2 Moscow publications. Orientalist by education (Moscow University), he has a special love for Malaysia.