Well, the “world” is at it again, assuring that one of the two most successful, avaricious and corrupt sports corporations in the world, FIFA (Federation International de Football Association. The other is, of course, the IOC - International Olympic Committee) has already begun sucking most of the air out of all the sports coverage throughout the world, and will do so for the next four weeks. We can see it here in Canada (our team, as everyone must know by now, played and lost a close one in its first game, to a world power house) the hype is going strong. Along with the media attention, which probably rivals that of the Russian War against Ukraine and the machinations of the odious Trump, this SOCCERPALUZA will be pulling in an obscene amount of the world’s money. It’s business as usual.
This World Cup was awarded to Qatar not because the country is in anyway a sport superpower, not because it was easy to get to, or because it had a wonderful climate (it has the reverse). Let us be clear, it was as they say, “a business decision” and like many such decisions in a capitalist world where profit is the only real standard, it involved intentions and practices that ooze with corruption. We have known for decades that the world of international soccer is tailor-made for corruption. It is not the only one; the difference between the International Olympic Committee and FIFA is that the IOC tries to pretend to care. FIFA strong armed a delay of the World Cup to the winter, to a country that is really too small, and where repression is part of the system. Qatar is one of those nation states that allows little or no press freedom,1 criminalizes homosexuality and subjugates women. The only rationale for choosing to be in the desert during the heat of the summer was the cash.
The 250,000-300,000 Qatari “citizens” are, of course, not part of the ridiculously, poorly paid gangs that have built the opulent venues for the world cup. This slave-wage work was done by migrant workers from Africa, the Philippines and especially South Asia. The same migrant workers whose co-workers have died building stadiums and infrastructure. Though the Qatar authorities won’t give specifics, human rights groups estimate the number of workers to have died during construction to be around 6,500. One gets the impression that the organizers of the building effort had read Fredrick Engels’, “The Condition of the English Working Class”, not as a condemnation of brutish capitalism in the 1800’s, but as a blueprint for managing labour. Bruce Arthur (2022) points out, “It is said Qatar spent more on this World Cup than the combined cost of every World Cup and Olympics before this one, even given the $135 billion (U.S.) or so that China and Russia spent on the 2008, 2014 and 2022 Olympics”. Rather little of it has been spent on the imported labourers.
As an attempted response to the criticism, just before the festivities got underway, the world was treated to a cringe making, rambling diatribe delivered by the president, and chief bloviator for FIFA, Gianni Infantino. He opined, in effect, that all those critical of Qatar, and by extension FIFA, were ignorant racists and bigots who know nothing of the history of colonialism, the munificence of the Qatari government or the many good deeds of FIFA itself. He even had the gall to whine that he personally understood genuine oppression because he had been a red headed child in Italy who had undergone abuse for having red hair. He then had the hutzpah to compare himself to LGBTQ+ people and migrants (McDaniel, 2022).2
The fact is that this is a World Cup, like others, “only more so”, that was built by corruption, venial politics, exploitation and repression, Capitalism at its most raw and brutal. As we know, these qualities are not new for FIFA. But in this particular go round they scream out for specific attention. Sadly, as the games work their way to the final, less and less time will be devoted to the venal and grotty actions that were, and are, at play. The focus will be on the so-called “beautiful game”. But only partly! In the end the foul odour of Capitalism’s greed and cruelty will remain. On Sunday, the matches began (the Canadian team played on Wednesday) and with all the fanfare and hoopla that attends these things, it will be business as usual. The media will no doubt cover up the majority of the cruel, vile and rotten context in which they take place, though that certainly will not, and cannot, change any of it.
Resources
Arthur, B. (2022). “Qatar bans alcoholic beer at World Cup stadiums. What other promises won’t be kept?” Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/sports/worldcup/opinion/2022/11/18/qatar-bans-alcohol-sales-at-world-cup-stadiums-what-other-promises-will-now-be-changed.html?rf. November 18.
Gambrell, J. (2022). “Blinken criticizes FIFA for threatening yellow cards to players wearing ‘One Love’ armband at World Cup”. Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/article-blinken-criticizes-fifa-for-threatening-yellow-cards-to-players/. November 22.
McDaniel, J. (2022). “FIFA head rebuffs critics, says ‘I feel’ like gay people or migrants”. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/19/fifa-world-cup-infantino-qatar/. November 19.
1 The CBC has, among other outlets, reported that one Danish television journalist was roughly treated by Qatari security who for good measure threatened to break his camera as he was shooting on a city street. 2 On Sunday the FIFA hard men threatened that any team that attempted to wear arm bands on the field in support of LGBTQ rights (as some teams and players had planned, at any game would be “booked”, that is, given a “yellow” card signifying an infraction, which would place them in imminent danger of being expelled from the tournament. They all gave in. (Gambrell, 2022). There were team actions involving the Iranian and German squads in the last few days. The Iranians refused to sing their national anthem before their game. On Wednesday the German team posed with each of them having his hand over their mouth symbolising the Iranian repression. These of course, though laudable, were not related to the dismal circumstances of the FIFA/Quatari games.
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