A curious and disturbing story emerged from the Netherlands at the start of the week: that 50 handpicked Dutch fans had been engaged by the Qatari World Cup organisers as a kind of undercover PR army. They are getting their flights, accommodation and match tickets paid for and in return, they will be expected to make happy noises about the host nation on social media and — this is where it gets really creepy — report it to the organisers when they see negative social media coverage.

In other words, they are kind of going as spies.

Yesterday, however, The Times revealed that it’s not just a group from the Netherlands. Indeed, why would it be? There are 40 England fans on this “Fan Leader