The cup is four years away, perfect time for FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, to undo formal agreements with Moscow while giving another host every opportunity to provide for the entire infrastructure. Stadiums take up to two years to build; airports need to be upgraded; a range of hotels must be secured, as must the capacity for domestic rail and road transportation to cope with an influx of hundreds of thousands of fans.

As sponsorship contacts are being scripted and haggled over, a passionate drive is in place by pro-Ukraine opponents of Putin to organize a boycott of companies that will sponsor a World Cup in Russia. How long before those companies, which include Anheuser Busch, Visa, Kia Motors, and Sony, start to press FIFA for a change of host?

The World Cup is quite unlike the Olympics, where every nation has a right to participate. Qualification is exacting, and a majority of the teams that do qualify are from the West. The Asian powerhouses are Japan and South Korea, and the West African nations who tend to comprise Africa’s contribution to the roster are not beholden to Putin. Mustering a coalition of disapproval for the World Cup should be much easier than it would be for an Olympiad.