🇶🇦 World Cup Political Controversy Megathread

[Torrain]

The 2022 Qatar World Cup has been mired in controversy ever since it was announced. The use of modern-slavery practises in the building of stadiums, the crackdown on LGBT expression, bribery and match-rigging allegations and the intimidation of Western journalists - it's been a very murky affair.

Given how many stories have been produced over the past few months, I thought it might be good to have a single thread to put new developments in - in case there's any big news over the next month.

Today was the second day of matches, and included the first appearance of the Iranian team, who have pointedly refused to sing their own national anthem - which has led to the arrest of athletes taking a similar stance in the past.

[Silent Hunter]

Alas, not the first very murky affair. See Russia 2018 or Argentina in 1978.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well yes - and also Mussolini's Italy before WW2 - but this is on a new scale.

Qatar is also, unlike all those three examples, not a football country.

[Zinneke]

it is high time the European nations just pull out of FIFA or threaten to do so

[parochial boy]

The Winter Olympics this year were in Beijing. The last World Cup was in a Russia that had already annexed the Crimea, invaded Gergia and committed war crimes in Chechnya. The last two athletics World Championships were in Doha and gifted to Seb Coe's paymasters in (random village in) Oregon. The last Euro held games in Budapest, St Petersburg and Baku. The current F1 circuit is almost a parody when you look at where the stops are these days.

It is only in the last couple of years that any of this has really raised anything more than the most pitiful whimper of protest. So is it really anything of a surprise that the governing bodies behave with the intransigence that they do?

This is just the same western complacence that we've seen everywhere. With fiscal and economic policy, with selling of key infrastructure, with climate change, with the rise of authoritarian regimes. It's always easier to not do anything and keep your head down because it isn't broken yet. Until suddenly it is and suddenly it's too late because you were too short sighted and arrogant to have done anything about something that was entirely predictable all along.

The thing to remember here is that we are democracies after all - and we have the power to do something about these institutions, and that they have to obey our laws after all. And if that means putting Blatter and Infantino and Platini and Seb Coe in prison cells then all the better.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Though I note that this isn't a case where everybody has equal agency. Most major sporting bodies are headquartered in Switzerland, and minimising outside scrutiny and influence is a big part of the reason for that.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The Winter Olympics this year were in Beijing. The last World Cup was in a Russia that had already annexed the Crimea, invaded Gergia and committed war crimes in Chechnya. The last two athletics World Championships were in Doha and gifted to Seb Coe's paymasters in (random village in) Oregon. The last Euro held games in Budapest, St Petersburg and Baku. The current F1 circuit is almost a parody when you look at where the stops are these days.

You cannot completely separate an event from the government it takes place under, but all of these instances differ from Qatar 2022 in that they probably did not require the expansion of slavery at anything near this scale.

[Stranger in a strange land]

The Winter Olympics this year were in Beijing. The last World Cup was in a Russia that had already annexed the Crimea, invaded Gergia and committed war crimes in Chechnya. The last two athletics World Championships were in Doha and gifted to Seb Coe's paymasters in (random village in) Oregon. The last Euro held games in Budapest, St Petersburg and Baku. The current F1 circuit is almost a parody when you look at where the stops are these days.

It is only in the last couple of years that any of this has really raised anything more than the most pitiful whimper of protest. So is it really anything of a surprise that the governing bodies behave with the intransigence that they do?

This is just the same western complacence that we've seen everywhere. With fiscal and economic policy, with selling of key infrastructure, with climate change, with the rise of authoritarian regimes. It's always easier to not do anything and keep your head down because it isn't broken yet. Until suddenly it is and suddenly it's too late because you were too short sighted and arrogant to have done anything about something that was entirely predictable all along.

The thing to remember here is that we are democracies after all - and we have the power to do something about these institutions, and that they have to obey our laws after all. And if that means putting Blatter and Infantino and Platini and Seb Coe in prison cells then all the better.

There is of course a reason for this: it's MUCH easier to justify the massive spending required to hold an event like the Olympics and the World Cup in an autocracy, rather than in a democracy where people might (quite reasonably) ask questions about why public funds are going to building massive stadiums or subway lines leading there rather than say, building a ramp at an existing subway station so that someone's disabled aunt or grandmother doesn't have to risk death or injury to climb up to the platform.

In the same vein, corruption and workers rights abuses can be much more easily swept under the rug, citizens can be re-located, and the media space can be controlled much more easily so that only positive information (or at the very least mostly so) about the games gets out.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It is only in the last couple of years that any of this has really raised anything more than the most pitiful whimper of protest. So is it really anything of a surprise that the governing bodies behave with the intransigence that they do?

Even worse - it's only in the last couple of months. "By the way, they expanded slavery to do this," is usually an afterthought used to supplement arguments about homophobia, which in itself seems to have caused less consternation than the alcohol ban. Our societies have their priorities in completely the wrong order, and I wish our elites would be honest in admitting they'd be a-ok with the slavery so long as they could drink whatever they wanted and hit the sack with whoever they pleased.

[parochial boy]

Gianni Infantino who of course now lives in Qatar and apparently wants to move FIFA too, due to the legal issues he is facing in Switzerland. Point being that if even the timid reforms being made here are enough to trigger that, then no it isn't actually true to intimate that some individual countries have more agency. All the more when the sources of the corruption lie abroad and it would require a concerted collaboration to change things (for instance, the Premier League along with La Liga is easily the most economically powerful institution in football - the UK would have an enormous ability to change the way things work if there wasn't so much political pressure coming from the fear of anything that might damage the PL's brand).

There is of course a reason for this: it's MUCH easier to justify the massive spending required to hold an event like the Olympics and the World Cup in an autocracy, rather than in a democracy where people might (quite reasonably) ask questions about why public funds are going to building massive stadiums or subway lines leading there rather than say, building a ramp at an existing subway station so that someone's disabled aunt or grandmother doesn't have to risk death or injury to climb up to the platform.

Which is an often repeated but not entirely true point. These two world cup's were won against rival bids from (several) democratic countries. The next three summer olympics will all take place in democracies and as will the 2026 World Cup and there are at least two bids for 2030 from joint hosts that are all Democratic.

Qatar getting the World Cup is increasingly clearly quite intimately linked to a story of pretty blatant corruption and political pressure. As were the choice made by World Athletics about the hosts for it's World Championships. And with Russia in 2018 it was quite simply the case that the country's actions had not turned it into the pariah that it is now.

Even worse - it's only in the last couple of months. "By the way, they expanded slavery to do this," is usually an afterthought used to supplement arguments about homophobia, which in itself seems to have caused less consternation than the alcohol ban. Our societies have their priorities in completely the wrong order, and I wish our elites would be honest in admitting they'd be a-ok with the slavery so long as they could drink whatever they wanted and hit the sack with whoever they pleased.

Yes this is true, but at least we are now at a stage where there is broad social acceptance that the "sport and politics shouldn't mix" myth should be put to bed.

[Cassius]

Politics should be kept out of sport. The reason why Qatar shouldn’t have been awarded the cup (unlike Russia, which was guilty even in 2018 of similarly gratuitous abuses of Western sensibilities) is that Qatar is not a footballing nation and is situated in a terrible climate for football (Egypt would probably have been a better choice on those grounds in the context of the Arab world, although it’s unlikely that they would’ve had the babki to stage a tournament). If FIFA was to exclude every nation that didn’t fully adhere to Western sensibilities on XY&Z then half the world wouldn’t be eligible to compete in the cup.

[Lord Halifax]

Politics should be kept out of sport. The reason why Qatar shouldn’t have been awarded the cup (unlike Russia, which was guilty even in 2018 of similarly gratuitous abuses of Western sensibilities) is that Qatar is not a footballing nation and is situated in a terrible climate for football (Egypt would probably have been a better choice on those grounds in the context of the Arab world, although it’s unlikely that they would’ve had the babki to stage a tournament). If FIFA was to exclude every nation that didn’t fully adhere to Western sensibilities on XY&Z then half the world wouldn’t be eligible to compete in the cup.

Half he world doesn't tolerate what's effectively a modern form of slavery and deny citizenship to the vast majority of their population, that should always be a bridge too far. The Gulf states are every bit as terrible as apartheid South Africa, arguably worse.   

Politics and sports are intimately intertwined and always will be, so claiming they "shouldn't be" is either naive or hypocritical. 

[Middle-aged Europe]

It would be the best for everyone if Qatar were to become the final FIFA World Cup ever to happen. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

That doesn't mean that there couldn't be soccer world cups anymore. Just get FIFA out of it.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its actually quite unusual to see a "keep politics out of sport" take in the wild these days.

[Santander]

Half he world doesn't tolerate what's effectively a modern form of slavery and deny citizenship to the vast majority of their population, that should always be a bridge too far. The Gulf states are every bit as terrible as apartheid South Africa, arguably worse.

More than half the world does tolerate it, though. What you call "slavery" is the norm in Asia and Africa.

[Lord Halifax]

Half he world doesn't tolerate what's effectively a modern form of slavery and deny citizenship to the vast majority of their population, that should always be a bridge too far. The Gulf states are every bit as terrible as apartheid South Africa, arguably worse.

More than half the world does tolerate it, though. What you call "slavery" is the norm in Asia and Africa.

That's simply not true, and generalizing about two huge and diverse continents like Asia and Africa in that way is ignorant.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some football federations chatting about breaking away from FIFA because of this farce.

Chat is almost certainly all it is, for now - but that it is happening is itself significant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suppose one reason why all of this seems especially obscene is that no sport is as prone to grandiose Romantic self-mythologizing as football: so much emphasis on the idea that the sport has a unique and mystical beauty to it, that it shows the human condition at its most noble and so on. Always a little hard to square with quite how many cloggers and cheats have always played it at the highest level, but what usually looks like mild pompous absurdity looks nothing short of grotesque in the context of a tournament where thousands of bonded labourers died constructing white elephants in the wilderness.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Iranian players: refuse to sing the anthem as solidarity with what started as women's rights protests in their country, putting themselves in danger of revenge by an authoritarian government.
European players: back down from wearing an armband with the pride flag because they don't want a yellow card from the judge.
Gap of courage.

[CumbrianLefty]

Tbf its not the European *players* actually deciding this in most cases, but the gutless stuffed suits.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Tbf its not the European *players* actually deciding this in most cases, but the gutless stuffed suits.

Afaik, it's the Captains who were going to wear it, wasn't it? The players have power. If they won't play, there won't be a game. They didn't exercise it.
Not that the gutless stuffed suits aren't to blame as well

[Zinneke]

I suppose one reason why all of this seems especially obscene is that no sport is as prone to grandiose Romantic self-mythologizing as football: so much emphasis on the idea that the sport has a unique and mystical beauty to it, that it shows the human condition at its most noble and so on. Always a little hard to square with quite how many cloggers and cheats have always played it at the highest level, but what usually looks like mild pompous absurdity looks nothing short of grotesque in the context of a tournament where thousands of bonded labourers died constructing white elephants in the wilderness.

This is spot on. Its not just the absurdity of FIFA's corruption, the human rights abuses, the workers rights (which Qatar's more progressive elites are actually right to point out that the microstate probably has made more inroads than its neighbours because of this World Cup and the pressure to improve on it). It's also the fact that everything seems so fake and in poor taste, a lot like the ruling class of the country it is taking place in.

[Zinneke]

So, England fans wearing Crusader outfits...is it culturally insensitive or are the Qataris being softies?

[Torrain]

So, England fans wearing Crusader outfits...is it culturally insensitive or are the Qataris being softies?

Probably a little of both? I mean, the Qataris should hardly be treated as a protected class (given their record on *gestures broadly at everything in this thread*, and should have been prepared for a little crass behaviour from football fans. English fans will drunkenly cheer "Two World Wars and One World Cup" at even the sight of a German flag, so a bit of rough-and-tumble should be expected - if not necessarily encouraged.

But I can see why "we're here to pillage and fight, wearing the clothes of an opposed religious faction with a long history of invading the region" might be seen as a tad crass. Especially given Qatar was a British protectorate for much of the 20th century and only established full and finalised independence in 1971.

[Silent Hunter]

The Crusaders didn't really get that far east; great big desert in the way that isn't fully explored even now I believe.

But still, that's a case of insensitivity.