Please read this sentence and try not to laugh after doing so: “Any instance relating to an apparent restriction of press freedom is of concern to Fifa and will be looked into with the seriousness it deserves.”

That was the response by international football’s governing body after a BBC crew was arrested in Qatar for daring to act like journalists.

This is the press freedom-loving Fifa that frustrated The Sunday Times during its award-winning investigation into how Qatar came to be awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

This is also the organisation that spent 18 months investigating, “with the seriousness it deserves”, widespread claims of corruption involving the Qatari bid and declared itself squeaky clean after seemingly ignoring the bulk of its chief investigator’s detailed report.

So I think we can imagine the likely outcome of Fifa’s “investigation” into the arrest of the BBC team and, incidentally, the arrest and interrogation of German journalists the week before.

Clearly Fifa and Qatar deserve each other. They appear to share the dubious distinction of opposing the exercise of press freedom.

After the detention of the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Mark Lobel, with his cameraman, driver and translator, the best excuse Qatari officials could advance was the crew had been guilty of trespass.

In what other country would an instance of (alleged) trespass involve the deployment of eight cars, the frisking of a media team by a dozen members of the security forces, the confiscation of their equipment and hours of hostile questioning by intelligence officers?

As Lobel discovered from his interrogators, he had been under surveillance throughout his time in Qatar. “They had actually photographed my every move since I arrived,” he said.

His arrest was no accident. It was the culmination of an operation designed to prevent the BBC — and all journalists — from delving into the plight of migrant workers who are building the World Cup stadiums.

Lobel was, to quote a BBC spokesman, “engaged in a perfectly proper piece of journalism”.

What joins Fifa and Qatar in unholy matrimony appears to be the belief that journalists should know their place.

For Fifa, that means reporters sticking to covering football matches and no more. For Qatar, it involves restricting visiting reporters to sanctioned, showcase tours in which their activities can be monitored.

Laughably, Qatar’s head of communications, Saif al-Thani, said: “We deeply regret that [Lobel] was unable to report the real story, which is that the government and the private sector are making significant progress in efforts to improve the lives and the labour conditions of guest workers in Qatar.”

If that is the case, if Qatar has nothing to hide, then why was Lobel being covertly photographed? Why was it necessary to arrest him? Why was his crew’s equipment not returned to them?

No wonder Human Rights Watch described the arrests as “jaw-droppingly awful PR” and, doubtless, the London-based Portland Communications, which acts on behalf of the Qatari government, will be tackling that matter in discreet calls to journalists.

Meanwhile, don’t hold your breath as you await Fifa’s “investigation” into these incidents. I imagine a forthcoming statement about there having been a “misunderstanding”.

How many more of those will occur as reporters from across the world take an interest in freedom-loving Qatar and its links with Fifa?

Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London, and writes a blog for the Guardian