BBC TV coverage for England versus Iran begins at 12:00 GMT and you can watch on BBC One, iPlayer and via this very page.

That also means lunchtime is approaching and I need to get in the queue for a sandwich, so time for me to hand over to Phil Dawkes to build up to the first of today's games.

With the Fifa World Cup in Qatar under way, and the newly built stadia, lavish hotels and transport networks coming to life, More or Less investigates just how much the Gulf nation has spent in the lead-up to the tournament.

Reports claim the figure could be as much as $220 billion - that’s more than Qatar's annual GDP, and more than 10 times higher than the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. At an an estimated $15 billion, this was previously the most expensive tournament to date.

With no access to Qatar’s accounts, and with very few official figures in circulation, More or Less has recruited some of the world’s leading experts in sports finance to crunch the numbers and to ask…is this really a $220 billion World Cup?

Listen to the podcast here.

In the office? Are you going to be able to watch England's game today and Wales' on Friday, when they plat at 10:00 GMT?

A survey by pollsters Opinium , externalfound that altogether nearly half of working fans will be allowed to watch the game during office hours.

Just over a quarter of fans said that their employer will show the matches live, while one in five will allow them to watch the football elsewhere.

Read more here about whether people will be allowed to watch the games at work

BBC Weather

Image source, BBC.

What will the weather be like for England and Wales' games?

It is very steady weather conditions in Doha right now and the forecast for kick off at 13:00 GMT is dry and sunny with a temperature of 27C.

For Wales fans a cool evening at home in Cardiff with a temperature of 7C, wind easing slightly and any of the days remaining showers clearing.

Quite a contrast to the warmth in Doha where the temperature at 7pm will be around 24C under clear skies with a light breeze.

BBC Radio 5 Live

More from Luke Tuffs, who is the former manager of Leatherhead FC and part of the LGBTQ+ community, speaking to Radio 5 live about several European nations' decision not to wear the One Love armband: "A protest can't just be a protest until it's an inconvenience and at the end of the day, it is just a yellow card.

"It's only a yellow card. How many yellow cards does Harry Kane get for mistimed challenges and things like that? Probably not that many, through his career and I think it would have made it an even stronger message if we carried on.

"You would absolutely be walking on a tightrope and I do understand that as well, as a manager, it would be a concern. But at the end of the day, you've said this means a lot to you and you are representing a lot of people. I was one of the people that said we actually still need to go to Qatar.

"We should go because football brings joy to millions, brings hope to millions and millions of people so we absolutely should still go, but what we should be doing is that the good part of all this means that we can make a stand as well but now we've been unable to make that."

Graymanuk: This feels like lack of conviction from the FA - do they support "One Love" or not? The whole team and the staff should wear the armband and make the referee book them. There's an opportunity to do something bigger than football here.

Tom: Ridiculously late notice on One Love. Get the 3rd choice keeper to start with the armband- take the yellow and sub them off. Maximum publicity, minimum disruption (other than losing a sub) and the chance for a player unlikely to get a game to become a legend.

As Iran prepare to face England at the World Cup, Iranian fans in Doha tell World Football in Qatar why they plan to boo the national anthem and don’t care if their team loses.

Mass anti-government protests in Iran have been met with a fierce crackdown in recent months.

Listen to more on the World Football podcast here.

BBC Radio 5 Live

England, Wales and other European nations will not wear the OneLove armband at the World Cup in Qatar because of the threat of players being booked.

The captains of nine countries, including England's Harry Kane and Gareth Bale of Wales, had planned to wear the armband to promote diversity and inclusion.

Luke Tuffs is the former manager of Leatherhead FC and is part of the LGBTQ+ community, he tells our colleagues at Radio 5 Live “We should be doing it on a yellow card”.

Luke thinks “it’s an utter disgrace,” he believes “it would have made it an even stronger message if [England] had carried on”.

“Being LGBTQ+ is not a political statement, it’s the way you’re born...I was one of the people who said we should go to Qatar because football brings joys to millions and hope to millions of people,” Luke says.

Reflecting on the decision Luke says, “we represent all of our communities and this is something that is really important to us…I’m very disappointed if we don’t do anything”.

Alex Howell
BBC Sport in Qatar

Very impressive inside the Khalifa International Stadium.

Image source, PA

Wales fans staying just outside of Qatar are on shuttle flights to the country ahead of their game with the United States tonight.

Some are already here and getting in the matchday mood with several hours to go until kick off.

Image source, EPA

Dan Roan
BBC Sports editor on Radio 5 Live

It’s an absolute fiasco – we are just three hours from kick-off in England v Iran in Doha and it’s taken until now for any kind of decision to be made. It’s remarkable.

On the one hand I think the FA will come under heavy criticism for caving in today to Fifa and I think many people will be very sad that it appears that Harry Kane will not be wearing that armband.

I think they feel it would have made a very strong powerful statement had he done so and had the FA defied the pressure and the threats that Fifa had given them because I suppose many argue it’s all very well staging a protest when it suits but when it’s inconvenient that’s the true measure of that gesture, that display.

But on the other hand the FA would argue that this is unprecedented, that they were expecting a fine and that’s what happened in the past, when they’ve worn poppies for example and that they were willing to defy Fifa on those terms.

But when the goalposts were shifted – and when the threat of a sporting sanction, a booking, was raised they clearly had some sympathy for Kane in particular because that was a different matter. I think some will say that the fault therefore lies not with the FA but with Fifa.

How can it be that on one hand the president, Gianni Infantino, talks of anti-discrimination, of the hypocrisy of certain media in the West when it comes to scrutinising Qatar but on the other hand isn’t prepared to allow players to simply wear an armband that is simply against all discrimination?

It’s incredible that we’re this close to kick off and it’s only now that we have real clarity.

Image source, EPA

Andy Cryer
BBC Sport in Qatar

In the media room at the Khalifa Stadium and alot of the talk is about the news that England, Wales and other European nations will now not wear the One Love armband. The post match news conference is going to be very interesting...

Phil McNulty
BBC Sport chief football writer in Qatar

Iran fans were out in large numbers on the Metro journey to The Khalifa Interational Stadium and they were in confident mood, looking forward to seeing how Carlos Quieroz's side match up against England.

Were they going to win? They seemed to think so and why shouldn't any nation be upbeat about their chances on the first day of a World Cup campaign.

Andy Cryer
BBC Sport in Qatar

The traffic is building piling into the abundance of car parks as more and more Iran fans start mulling around the stadium.

A few England fans wandering around but you get the feeling Three Lions supporters will be in the minority.

Oh, and it’s hot…. really hot. They reckon it will in the mid to high 20s at kick-off. I don’t envy having to play football in this.

Image source, BBC Sport

Rangers have sacked Giovanni van Bronckhorst after a year in charge, with the Ibrox club nine points adrift of Celtic in the Scottish Premiership title race.

The Dutchman took over in November 2021, guiding his team to the Europa League final and lifting last season's Scottish Cup.

However, after recording the Champions League's worst ever group stage campaign and falling further off the title pace, Van Bronckhorst's 12-month tenure is over.

Read more here

Jack Murley
BBC LGBT Sports Podcaster on Radio 5 Live

Image source, PA Media

If you’re Harry Kane and you can risk a booking and miss the World Cup final by wearing this armband, you can see why he wouldn’t necessarily do it. The flip side to that is what’s the point of a protest if it doesn’t actually make a splash, if there are no stakes to it.

Just say Harry Kane did do this and he got booked and he passed it on to whoever and whoever and they all got booked and they all went around again and all got a second booking and were all sent off.

It’s not as if players do not have power and influence in this situation but it’s a difficult one to ask them to exert on the biggest stage of their lives.

The question really should be why have they been put in this situation on the day of the game? Fifa have known for months and months they wanted to wear this armband – why are we only having this conversation now?

We’ve now got to a point where Fifa has spent years saying this World Cup is for everyone. They’ve now essentially said that if you wear an armband that symbolises that it’s OK to be gay, you’ll get booked.

Fifa has a lot of explaining to do about how those two things marry up and I think it’s going to be a very difficult conversation for them to have. There will be a lot of LGBTQ+ people that are not only entirely unsurprised by this decision but also absolutely furious.

It feels like a gut punch to me that a symbol for who you are being OK can get you booked at football's greatest tournament - that is an extraordinary place to arrive at in 2022.