Boris Johnson has compared Russia's World Cup to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, with Vladimir Putin glorying in the event and manipulating it to sanitise his regime as Adolf Hitler did.
Well, as a flag-waving veteran of Beijing 2008, Boris would know.
While sport continues to deliver its biggest festivals to tyrannical governments such as China, Russia and Qatar and while politicians continue to stand idly by when it suits them, the spectre of 1936 will always linger.
A former general secretary of FIFA, Jerome Valcke - now disgraced, but aren't they all - admitted as much at a symposium five years ago.