The attribution process for international sporting events like the FIFA World Cup is best described as escapist theatre for the credulous. Actors and audience agree to engage fully with a shared fiction.

But every so often someone breaks character – in this case, the governments of British Columbia and Alberta.

They quite rightly want nothing to do with world soccer’s governing body, which an FBI investigation revealed in 2015 to be a chronically corrupt organization, or with the one-sided deal FIFA is proposing so that Canada, the United States and Mexico might enjoy the privilege of spending millions of dollars on a successful joint bid to host a few World Cup games each in 2026.

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The real mystery is that anyone still takes FIFA’s calls.

By this point, no public office-holder on the planet can plausibly claim ignorance of the perils of handing sacks of money to FIFA, or to the International Olympic Committee, for that matter.

There are peer-reviewed studies, books and hundreds of experts to explain why it’s a foolhardy move to pay for tax breaks, new infrastructure and open-ended security costs, or to suspend labour laws for the benefit of organizations made infamous by their inability to find a bribe or inducement too indecent to accept (and not for lack of effort).

Yet the governments of Canada, Ontario and Quebec – and the mayors of Toronto and Montreal – ostensibly remained on board when World Cup “bid books” were released this week amid rumours the fix is in for Morocco (this is called “driving up the price”).

Presumably this is related to the fact Canada had 818,940 registered soccer players in 2016, more than 60 per cent of them in Ontario and Quebec. Some of them really like the World Cup and also vote regularly.

Let’s be serious. If we need to boost our international profile, there are smarter ways of doing it than hosting a World Cup or Olympics (looking at you, Calgary). And the best part is they don’t require the suspension of disbelief.