Footballing sideshow

In the 2002 FIFA World Cup, one Guardian feature chastised the world for having its attention diverted from growing tension in the Indian sub-continent between Islamabad and New Delhi.  Hyperbole followed upon hyperbole, with the writer suggesting it was closest the world was to nuclear war for 40 years and that there was widespread racism through apathy if a few million died out of populations of hundreds of millions.  Well, ultimately, there no war, let alone a thermo-nuclear one, while I'm sure the writer went on to great and glorious things in the 'left-erati'.
Now, in 2014, ferocious jihadists are on the march through Iraq and although the World Cup is on, this corner of the Middle East is always the first item on the news.  These death-cultists have executed 1,700 prisoners who they had captured from the disintegrating Iraqi army.  This is callous and thoroughly despicable but possibly also rational, in the same way that a hard-pressed Henry V at Agincourt ordered troops guarding captured French nobleman to kill them, so the guards could join the close-fought fray.  The jihadists are only a few thousand in number and with their disregard for life reasoned why did they need gaolers - yet it is comparable with the worst excesses of the Khmer Rouge.
What was odd about the pictures was how many of these army 'personnel' were in western football shirts.  Were they caught in their barracks unawares?  Were they trying to blend in to the civilian population?  It seems clothing designed to outrage western-loathing jihadists, whether they belonged to the army or not.  Thus 'Nani' (in Manchester United garb) and 'Ibrahimovic' (in his Barcelona phase) were executed.  One Bosnian journalist said one thing the peoples of the fissiparous nation could agree on was that players like Ibrahimovic, who opted to play for Sweden instead of representing the country of his birth, were guilty of treason, but Sweden not qualifying for the World Cup and Bosnia-Herzegovina making it seems apt punishment for Zlatan at least.  The Iraqi 'Ibra' inspired deserved none of his.