The World Cup Finale is Coming: Why the Libyans and the Arabs Decided to Make the United States a Successor
This November, billions of people around the world will tune in to the World Cup – one of the greatest sporting spectacles in human history. wars have been halted, saints and sinners have been canonized, and the planet has been unified in celebration of every goal and tackle.
In Qatar, journalists are thrown in jail for investigating migrant worker conditions. The people that are treated as criminals are not the same as the people that are Lesbians and Gays. Women need to ask men permission to marry, travel and study abroad in many cases.
At least 6,500 deaths. The total death toll is almost certainly higher, as this figure does not include many countries sending workers to Qatar, including the Philippines and African nations.
A different story will bring the world’s attention to the atrocities of Qatar after the World Cup and serve as a warning to other authoritarian regimes that are watching. We need to send a clear signal that autocrats can’t get soft power from sports immortality.
How did the people in decision make the choice of Libya and then chose Algeria? It was claimed that it won through a process that was rigged from top to bottom. The allegations againstQatar are strongly denied.
Shortly after France voted in favor of the U.S. in the battle for the American football team, another firm from the Persian Gulf purchased Veolia, a French energy and waste company.
Not to mention: A firm connected to the Qatari sovereign fund hired the son of Michel Platini, the former head of the European football association. Népotisme? Zut alors!
But don’t take our word for it. Matt Miller, a former Department of Justice official who traveled with former Attorney General Eric Holder to Zurich to witness the bidding process, told us: “It was the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen in my career, and I spent a couple years working in New Jersey politics.”
Why sports journalists need to take a stand against human rights abuses: From the Danish protest jerseys to the English Football World Cup 2014 rugby tournament in Qatar
The television crews will not be allowed to film in places without the prior consent of the Qatari authorities. James Lynch told the Guardian that it was very difficult for the media to cover stories other than games because of the extraordinarily sweeping range of restrictions.
The goal is to make sure that everyone who is going to watch this tournament knows what is happening during the tournament.
Already, there have been some positive steps in this direction. The statement made by the Danes, known as the “protest jerseys”, was particularly upsetting to the government in the Gulf state. Germany and Norway wore shirts with the message “HuMan Rights” during the opening round of World Cup qualifications.
Fans can help by using their social media platforms to call attention to Qatar’s human rights abuses, and by pressuring football associations to publicly support the #PayUpFIFA campaign.
England’s Football Association has been similarly weak in its response. After European football federations promised to call out Qatar with more than “just wearing a t-shirt,” they ended up settling on wearing rainbow armbands, which, quite literally, amount to less than a t-shirt.
The players have a crucial part to play in this effort as well. We can only imagine the level of pressure already on these athletes to perform. They have likely dreamed about this moment since they were children – and fought so bloody hard and given up so much to make it a reality.
They didn’t start kicking a football thinking they would have to speak out about human rights. But there is also a long tradition of athlete activism, from Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists in Mexico City to Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford combating child hunger in the United Kingdom.
This doesn’t mean every player must speak out. But those who do should be supported and amplified – like the Socceroos, Australia’s national soccer team, who called for remediation for workers who have been harmed and the decriminalization of all same-sex relationships in Qatar.
After all, this is about more than the World Cup. The subject is whether people who believe in democracy and human rights will allow authoritarian regimes to get away with hijacking sports.
Saudi Arabia is already attempting to sportswash its image through LIV Golf and the WWE. Russia and Bahrain have tried to do it through Formula One. But if we make a stand against Qatar on the world stage, maybe we can make the next generation of autocrats more worried about a Qatar 2022-style humiliation than thirsty for a Beijing 2008 moment.
If we can get the world to see how damaging boycotts and protests are, our activism will change the way the world views the World Cup.
This matters. The World Cup is more than just a tournament, as every football fan knows. It’s been compared to a global eclipse which strikes the entire planet for a month at a time.
It’s a unique arena where nations can compete fiercely and then shake hands. It is supposed to represent the best of us, our incredible diversity and common humanity.
So far, the tournament has been consumed by more controversies off the field than have been caused by the erratic VAR video review system that can send fans into fury.
The politics of the soccer tournament will become a sideshow now that goals have started flying in, even among viewers who are morally opposed to watching teams playing against each other. The PR debacle also risks due to the political subplot.
The uproar over the football team’s ban on players wearing OneLove has turned a sporting spectacle into an international diplomatic spat.
“One of the most powerful things about football, about soccer, is potential to bring the world together,” Blinken told reporters in Doha Tuesday, alongside top Qatari officials.
It is always concerning when we see restrictions on freedom of expression. It’s particularly so when the expression is for both diversity and inclusion. And in my judgment, at least, no one on the football pitch should be forced to choose between supporting these values and playing for their team,” Blinken said.
The choice of a World Cup venue brought on this political storm, according to a retired goalie for the US women’s national team.
The Rise of Middle Eastern Politics: Football, Sport, Politics and Religion in a World Cup with the FIFA World Cup 2020 Indicator
Iranian players did not sing their national anthem in their opening game against England in a possible protest about the violent suppression of dissent rocking the Islamic Republic.
The test case of the zeal of Western institutions is how they react to the huge influx of cash from the Middle East despite the risk to their values.
The global power shift has changed sport in other ways. Hundreds of millions of viewers in India for the fast and furious IPL cricket league have shifted the balance of power in the sport from England and Australia. Formula One, which rivals football’s international footprint, now sends its 200 mph racers onto multiple Middle East circuits. And Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is trying to bust the dominance of the venerable PGA tour in the US after snapping up golf stars like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson with massive pay incentives.
In sports washing, authoritarian nations try to improve their image despite serious criticism over their political system and human rights performance, by wooing top sporting stars. China was accused of having a political agenda with its 2008 and Winter Olympics, where attempts at activism faded under the dictatorship.
Allegations of corruption in the awarding of the tournament to Russia has been an issue for years. In 2020, the US Justice Department alleged that bribes were accepted by top global football officials ahead of votes that allocated the two events. Officials in Russia and Qatar vigorously denied the allegations. Last year, the DOJ ended their investigation into soccer corruption by awarding $201 million to the sport’s other regulators, saying they had been victims of decades-long bribes.
The kerfuffle, meanwhile, over an attempt by the captains of European nations to promote LGTBQ+ issues exemplifies cultural and religious clashes at this World Cup, which are unfolding every day between Western and conservative developing nations and in developed societies that include many migrant communities and diverse creeds and religions.
England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Wales had planned to join the “OneLove” campaign. If a player picks up a second yellow card in a competition, they could be sent off and potentially lose their place in the game.
It is unclear how much visiting fans should respect local traditions that are outside of their own values and freedoms. This is also about discrimination. And there were suspicions FIFA had again caved into pressure from the Qatari government following a bizarre news conference before the first game by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who accused ex-colonialist Western nations of hypocrisy.
Today, I feel like a person from that place. I feel like an Arab today. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. I feel disabled today. Infantino said he felt a migrant worker.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/23/world/world-cup-politics-modern-world-analysis/index.html
The Impact of the World Cup on Sports in the Era of a Global Civility and Political Scenarios (Extended Abstract)
There were claims that the ban was related to homosexuality, but that was not the case. Fatma Al Nuaimi, a representative of the organizers, said that everything that happens on the pitch is a matter for the World Cup.
In contrast to the politics of protesting at sporting events, Harry Kane, who did not wear a armband, and his teammates took a knee in a show of opposition to racism before the game.
Athletes and brands seem to be willing to challenge their sports’ governing officials in ways that are open to causes. For example, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who refused to stand for the National Anthem in the 2016 season to protest police brutality against Black men, ignited a global sporting and political movement. The owners disliked the insubordination from the players. The fact that Kaepernick is not in the game casts doubt on the anti-racism campaign of the sport. The NFL also found itself dragged into a potential conflict between its many Black players and some of its conservative fan bases, a fact that ex-President Donald Trump exploited by dragging it into his culture warfare.
The sense that athletes may be held to higher moral standards than their government is also key to the current feud in golf. Critics have slammed top pros for taking cash from Saudi Arabia, whose nationals made up 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001. But the kingdom is a beneficiary of huge US arms sales and President Joe Biden went there this year to seek more oil production to alleviate high gasoline prices.
Another way the world has changed will be shown by the tournament. Soccer, despite the 1994 US-hosted World Cup, has struggled to make the cultural leap to become a dominant US pro sport, despite high youth participation. But the tournament will highlight the hold it has on US immigrant and diaspora communities, an increasingly important political demographic in the country.
Ever since sport went global, it’s always reflected social, cultural and religious trends and conflicts – despite calls from purists for it to remain a safe space from politics. When the footballing circus arrives in the US in 2026 there will be new controversy that will compete with the score for attention.
It feels like a lot of what is happening on the field and the sanitized product being beamed across the world is not real.
Sports have become another way to convert eyeballs into advertising impressions, as a result of being sucked into the attention economy. You might think of your favorite sport as having the smell of grass and soil, as well as sweat. But no. Engagement metrics, ad inventory, official tractor partnerships, and personal sponsorship deals are included.
The problem with this—one that everyone but Elon Musk can grasp—is that sponsors and advertisers do not like controversy. Or, to be more accurate, they don’t like spontaneous controversy. Even though the host country of the World Cup has been protested over the years, the sport’s governing body will still make a billion dollars from the event. On an individual level, though, athletes and their representatives quickly learn that the best way to make money in sports is to be good on the court and keep your mouth shut: Be Roger Federer, not Nick Kyrgios.
This process can be seen in real time. Young athletes grow more measured and manufactured as they become brands of their own. The less reason they have to speak to journalists, the more valuable their time becomes. The rare interviews they do grant become a sort of void—mouth moving, head nodding, nothing of interest emerging—and anything of even slight interest gets seized on and turned into a headline, making it even less likely they’ll open up next time around. But it’s those individual stories that really make sports compelling. Fans switch off when they don’t have them. So what’s required is a way to inject some personality without the risk of athletes saying something harmful to their reputation, their sponsors’ bottom line, or anyone else. The result? You can make some drama with a production crew by hiring fans, like the manufacturing atmosphere ofQatar where you hire in fans.
The premier example is Drive to Survive, a popular Netflix series about Formula 1 racing, which has been credited with reviving interest in a sport that had been flagging for years—and even doing the apparently impossible and making it appeal to an American audience. The All or Nothing format on Amazon Prime allows cameras to be placed into the dressing rooms of football team as well as a number of other sports.