The International Federation of Association Football, better known as FIFA, was sure to come up with a fatuous slogan for the World Cup in Qatar: "Soccer unites the world." An official promotional video shows Argentine Lionel Messi and Brazilian Neymar pronouncing the words in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively. But is it true that football unites the world?
Of course not. It doesn't even unite nations. In Brazil, supporters of future former president Jair Bolsonaro (who is supported by Neymar) have taken over the national team's green and yellow colors, to the anger of supporters of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is backed by the coach. of the team, Tite, and their striker Richarlison.
The idea that sporting events unite the peoples of the world is an old obsession, dating back to Baron Pierre de Coubertin and his invention of the modern Olympic Games in 1896. Sport, in the opinion of the Baron and of an endless succession of sports officials, should transcend politics, international tensions and any other discord. FIFA also subscribes to the fantasy of a world without politics where conflict is confined to the field of play.
But in reality, the decision to host this year's tournament in Qatar, a minuscule Arab petromonarchy with no football history or evidence of much local interest in the game, is a political decision. The country's ruling emir craved the prestige of a global event, and Qatar had the money to buy it. FIFA officials with voting power are said to have received thick envelopes. And FIFA collected a significant amount for the concession of broadcasting rights to Al Jazeera, the TV channel financed by the Qatari state.
FIFA was clearly not overly concerned by Qatar's poor record on human rights, abuses of migrant workers and anti-gay laws, any more than international sports officials have been concerned in the past by even more questionable venues. Let's not forget that the last World Cup was played in Russia, which was already under international sanctions. And the 1936 Olympics took place in Berlin under Hitler.
But the fact that tiny Qatar, the first Arab country to host the World Cup, has so much influence shows just how much power has changed hands of late. And FIFA, like the International Olympic Committee, always bows to the power of money and has banned European players and dignitaries attending the event from wearing "OneLove" armbands. This was so because it was considered that this expression in support of the right of people to love whoever they want, however they want, is a political statement; and FIFA cannot allow politics and sport to mix.
But power, can; and he does. He has made no objection to Iranian, Saudi or Qatari enthusiasts expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause by waving the Palestinian flag in stadiums. So while Dutch sports minister Conny Helder had to content herself with wearing a tiny "OneLove" pin, the Qatari official sitting next to her wrapped an ostentatious Palestinian ribbon around his arm.
Only the German team openly protested against the ban on expressing support for sexual freedom, covering their mouths in a group photo. FIFA promptly told them to desist, under risk of serious consequences. Any criticism of human rights violations in Qatar was immediately met with accusations of racism, backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who reminded Europeans of "3,000 years" of Western imperialism. It was also forbidden to wear T-shirts with the words "woman" and "freedom" so as not to irritate the Iranian theocracy, which at home is being challenged with these slogans.
Of international unity, what has been said. But just as striking is the lack of national unity. It was interesting to see so many Iranian women attend their national team matches bareheaded. Even more notable was the fact that demonstrators in Tehran and other Iranian cities, protesting against the regime's attempts to appropriate soccer victories, celebrated when their team lost to the United States (no less).
Most notable was the refusal of the Iranian players to sing the national anthem before the opening game against England. But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard warned them not to repeat this courageous defiance in support of the demonstrations in Iran.
Then came the extraordinary defeat of the young German team, which had tried to defend its position. Like most teams, the German team is multi-ethnic. One of their players, İlkay Gündoğan, is of Turkish descent. The best midfielder, Jamal Musiala, has a Nigerian father. And the main German supporter, Antonio Rüdiger, is a Muslim and his mother is from Sierra Leone.
When the team failed to advance to the knockout stage (only because Spain lost to Japan), conservative analysts in Germany blamed it on a lack of traditional German fighting spirit. Members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party went so far as to say that this lack of spirit was a result of the players' interest in wearing the woke "OneLove" armbands. Even before this World Cup, the multi-ethnic national team came under fire from right-wing circles for not being truly German.
One of the ironies of modern soccer is that national teams stir passions in a kind of carnivalesque reenactment of patriotic loyalty. For this reason, national leaders like to wear the colors of the soccer team. But overall, the players are teammates at clubs all over Europe, speak multiple languages and are often great friends off the pitch; little apt to represent this kind of chauvinism. They are members of a wealthy and cosmopolitan elite, the kind hated so much by right-wing populists.
So in a sense, soccer stars are united, even if the World Cup does not unite anyone else. But it is understandable that FIFA has chosen that slogan. "Money moves the world" would have been a bit too blunt.
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Translation: Stephen Flamini
Ian Buruma es autor de The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, From Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit (Penguin, 2020).
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
www.project-syndicate.org
