The Prince of Wales took to social media to officially kick off the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
Prince William entrusted his good wishes for both the England and Wales teams to two tweets, one in English and one in Welsh.
His Royal Highness wrote: “Wishing the very best of luck to Wales and England’s they kick off in the FIFA World Cup today. Looking forward to watching! W.”
The Prince’s ties to football have recently come under intensified scrutiny during a visit to Wales; when he was asked which team he would be supporting during the tournament, the Prince of Wales replied that he would be happy to support both.
However, his reply was enough for the part of the Welsh population who question the monarchy to raise their heads and start debating whether it makes sense or not to have a Prince that doesn’t exclusively support just their football team.
It has to be reminded, though, that the Prince of Wales has been President of the England Football Association since May of 2006, which would make it pretty uncomfortable for him to be forced to suddenly stop supporting the team of which he is President.
Over the past few days, rumours have begun circulating that the Princess of Wales would soon become involved with the Welsh football association to compensate, something that already happened for rugby (although in reversed roles – Prince William is the Royal Patron of the Welsh Rugby Union, while the Princess of Wales is patron of the Rugby Football Union, which governs the sport for England), but so far nothing official has been announced.
There had been rumours in the past couple of months, even before the death of Queen Elizabeth II made him heir to the throne, about the Prince of Wales flying to Qatar to watch England compete, but it soon became clear that, unless special circumstances would make it more appropriate, the many controversies surrounding this edition of the World Cup made it inconvenient for him to do so.
