As Anglo-Russian relations grow ever more fraught it seems a good moment to consider just how upset Russia will really be, how deep its pit of anguish, if Prince William and other members of the British royal family refuse to attend the World Cup.

There are some clues here. By an odd coincidence, the day after the World Cup final at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium is also the exact 100-year anniversary of the Russian government-sanctioned murder of the country’s own royal family.

It was on the night of 16 July 1918 that tsar Nicholas II, the tsarina and their five children were taken by drunken gangster-soldiers of the Bolshevik army to the basement of the house in which they were imprisoned and beaten, shot and stabbed to death, their bodies dismembered and burnt in a field.

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The twist, of course, is that these murdered royals are also Prince William’s direct relations on two sides. Welcome to Russia, your highness.

No nation has a monopoly on acts of brutality, which history suggests are pretty evenly shared around. The point is simply that, all things considered, Russia ranks pretty low on the list of obviously royalist nations; that it seems unlikely Russia is already tearfully cancelling its industrial-scale union jack bunting orders, burning its Wills-and-Kate cardboard mask reserves, inconsolable at the loss of the chance to witness, first hand, Meghan’s sassy summer style. But then, it was inevitable the World Cup would be among the first objects gathered up in a hurry by British politicians keen to give a sense of leverage, of something that can still be done.

There have been some bizarre notes in this. Stephen Kinnock MP has suggested in parliament that Theresa May should ask Fifa to postpone the World Cup until next year. Just picture, for a moment of light relief, the gathering howls of helpless, stomach cramping laughter in the halls of Fifa house as Mrs May’s urgent fax is torn from the machine. Gianni? Are you still there? Those noises. Are you in pain, Gianni?

It is hard to imagine a more comically naive suggestion, or a greater misunderstanding of British influence in the sporting world. But then the Kinnock Postponement is at least familiar territory, shot through with the same delusional loss of scale that has often marked English football’s interaction with the wider world.

Gareth Southgate is an encouragingly capable England manager but he still approaches each squad announcement, each meaningless double-header, with the funereal self importance of a man convinced English success or failure is in some way the defining note of all human endeavour, sighing and wincing and pronouncing names like “Danny Welbeck” and “Jake Livermore” with a note of husky courage, as though reading details from the suicide note of a much-loved head of state.

Southgate had the good sense this week to gloss over the next stage in all this, the idea the English FA might boycott Russia 2018 altogether. This possibility has been raised by the prime minister. And there is a lobby out there that maintains to attend the World Cup would be to offer an endorsement to a dubious regime – unlike, say, going to Brazil four years ago (and good luck with all that in Qatar).

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At which point it is necessary to take a stand, to resist what would be not only a terrible idea but also a deliberate act of misdirection. Let’s be grown up about this. England abandoning the World Cup would have no effect whatsoever on Russia’s foreign policy. It would instead be a way of managing domestic expectation, of giving an impression of action, and of getting out of doing more politically difficult things.

Sporting boycotts have had an effect but the world has changed. We are inextricably linked in so many ways. How absurd to boycott the World Cup when Russian money and influence is still utterly bound up in our economy, legal system and politics; when Russian wealth, legitimate and occasionally questionable, is hungrily consumed by the great sluicing global laundry that is the London property market.

Whereas if the government really wants to take action, and indeed to involve football, a far better place to start would be applying some moral due diligence to the wealth pumped into ownership of our football clubs, indulging but not limited to Chelsea and Arsenal, to investigate the propriety of how some of these transformative fortunes were amassed and administered and spent on our sovereign soil.

Should happen: won’t happen. Either way, to pull out now would punish Russia, a nation that does care about prestige and seats at the table, but it would also punish sport in this country, those who compete and support and feel inspired by the spectacle.

Prince William, the president of the Football Association, probably shouldn’t go. Some fans will stay away, which is a shame in itself. But in the end messing with the World Cup only makes sense if we’re going to do this properly, not as a sop or a show, or a note in a wider game that disregards the basic human contact, the intangible engagement of international sport.