‘We’re going to be in an unreal, mad World Cup time zone’: Kelly Cates on presenting in Salford at 2am

BBC TV and radio host on sportswashing, the brilliance of watching Argentina up close and why Donald Trump won’t be able to hijack the football glory

“Before every tournament there are always concerns,” Kelly Cates says as she approaches her fifth World Cup as a television and radio presenter. “There’s always something everybody’s worried about. This time I worry about the humidity and the altitude for the players and there are political concerns, obviously.

“But there are also concerns that it’s not going to feel like a World Cup. In the US, they probably see that as a good thing. They probably see it as: ‘We’re going to make it better.’ Whereas we’re looking at it from a more traditional point of view, thinking: ‘Why are you going to change something that’s so amazing in the first place?’”