“Do you think it was worth 6,500 deaths so you could enjoy some footy?”
This is the question I asked one of my in-laws four years ago, following the last World Cup, when I had finally reached an appropriate—or perhaps inappropriate—level of inebriation at a family Christmas lunch. The relative in question hadn’t just watched the footy, but indeed, traveled to Qatar to do so. Sportswashing working as intended, death toll be damned (and, as it turns out, easily swept under the rug).
His answer was predictably
indignant and defensive, “Of course it was worth traveling to support my country. And besides, if you had such a problem with Qatar hosting the World Cup, why didn’t you object before now?”
Of course I had objected, long before the first kick of the 2022 World Cup. Many people did.
No one fucking listened.
It didn’t matter that Qatar made no sense from a sporting perspective: both the level of the Qatari National Team and necessity of changing around the entire global footballing calendar should’ve been dealbreakers. It didn’t matter that Qatar had a terrible and oppressive human rights record. And the 6,500 migrant workers who worked and died in horrible conditions—often working 12 hour days in 50 degree celsius heat—to build the World Cup stadiums from scratch, clearly didn’t matter either.
The 2022 World Cup went ahead as scheduled. FIFA got their tournament, and the world could celebrate the player who dominated world football for the better part of 15 years—arguably the best who ever laced up his boots—Lionel Messi, get his crowning achievement.
“When you have a very strong head of state who can decide, as maybe [President Vladimir] Putin can do in 2018… that is easier for us organisers than a country such as Germany, where you have to negotiate at different levels.
“The main fight we have [is] when we enter a country where the political structure is divided, as it is in Brazil, into three levels – the federal level, the state level and the city level.
“[There are] different people, different movements, different interests and it’s quite difficult to organise a World Cup in such conditions.”
Oh, we’re sorry that democracies make it more difficult and complicated for you FIFA. I guess we should just give in to the global rise of autocratic and fascist regimes, and shut up and enjoy our footy then, yeah? Of course, this is not a new sentiment for FIFA, they have been cozy with despicable and corrupt regimes since the beginning, but since 2018 they have really embraced this approach.
Now, I guess the 2026 World Cup has kicked off. Or so I’ve heard. I won’t be watching. And neither should you.
Once again, there are a litany of reasons why the US, Canada, and Mexico shouldn’t have been chosen as hosts. And once again, all of those obvious and justified complaints have fallen on deaf ears.
Let’s start with the fact that FIFA has once again decided to expand the tournament. The last time the US hosted in 1994, the tournament consisted of 24 teams. Then it was 32. And now it’s 48. I’m sure there are many nations thrilled to qualify—many for the first time. But let’s look at some of these teams and their global rankings: of the 48 teams, 17 of them are worse than #40 in the FIFA global rankings, some markedly so. Indeed, 4 teams have rankings lower than #70: Ghana (73), New Zealand (85), Curacao (82), Haiti (83).
Does the tournament, from sporting and entertainment perspectives, really benefit from having so many objectively poor teams involved?
Of course, more teams means more games. More games means more money from broadcasting rights. And this is just the latest example of football eating its own tail, increasing the number of competive matches to absurdity; quality of play and player welfare are of no concern to football’s global governing body, FIFA.
To name just a few recent examples of this trend: UEFA increased the field of teams qualifying for the Euros from 16 to 24. The Champions League increased the field from 32 to 36—now with 8 “league” matches instead of 6 group matches, and an extra qualifying round before the knockouts, too boot. Confederations have introduced “Nations Leagues,” thereby reducing the number of friendlies, and increasing the number of competitive fixtures. And FIFA expanded the Club World Cup from 6 teams to 32.
Instead of being a governing body that looks out for the health of the game and the health of its best players, FIFA is presiding over a massive expansion of games and tournaments, which is hurting the quality of play and putting players at risk. The top players are being worked to death, forced to play on different continents, in different time zones, with barely time to rest and recover, let alone get over jet lag.
Speaking of jet lag, let’s talk about the braindead decision to not just have one or two co-hosts, but three. And not three small countries, but Canada, the US, and Mexico: AKA the entire fucking North American continent. Teams and their fans are having to cross borders, cross time zones, and cross thousands of kilometers, often with little or nonexistant public transportation to get from A to B.
Let’s, for a moment, look at Boznia & Herzegovina (ranked #64, by the way), who start their group play in Toronto, then go to Los Angeles—3500 km and 3 hours’ time difference away—for their second match, before concluding in Seattle, another 1600 km away.
Absurdity doesn’t begin to cover it.
Finally. Last but not least, let’s talk about the current US regime.
Ever since Donald Trump took office and his administration began his brutal, xenophobic, and bigoted crackdown on immigrants (legal and otherwise, and as it turns out, US citizens as well).
Predictably, the Trump Administration’s anti-immigration policies have already created problems that not only threaten the players and fans from other countries, but also the sporting integrity of the competition itself. It would be nice if FIFA cared about any of those things, actually.
For months there were concerns that Iran’s National Team would even be allowed to participate, with fears that they would be unable to travel to the US being allieviated only this week. Regardless, several Iranian officials linked with the national team have been denied entry.
The US also denied entry to a Somali referee, Omar Artan, for “reasons” (such as being black). And, because there are multiple ways to make non-white people suffer, they also interrogated Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein for 7 hours upon his arrival in Chicago. I hope they learned through their questioning how he had the audacity to be not white.
Additionally, ICE agents will be at World Cup matches. I’m sure they’ll handle themselves with restraint and not pose a threat to traveling fans from non-European countries.
This is all from the first week of the World Cup. Further incidents are not just likely, but inevitable.
It didn’t have to be inevitable though, did it?
In fact, FIFA has threatened to—and followed through—on removing hosting privileges from countries in the past for a variety of reasons. One especially relevant example is from the 1966 World Cup, in which England hosted and won (and never let us forget it since). The UK government wanted to deny entry to the North Korean National Team. FIFA responded by stating unequivically that if a team was denied entry, the World Cup would be hosted elsewhere.
That’s right. FIFA had more moral courage and clarity 60 years ago than it does today.
I understand why many of you would want me to shut up and just enjoy the World Cup. Part of me wants to as well. Some of my all-time favorite football fandom memories come from watching the World Cup.
I also understand the sentiment that boycotting the World Cup will be a fruitless endeavor in the end. However, the only power we have over FIFA is our attention. If we collectively turn away, collectively boycott the World Cup and other FIFA competitions, we can make a sizeable dent in their viewership numbers. Without viewers, broadcasters can’t charge companies as much for advertisements. If broadcasters can’t get as much ad revenue, they can’t pay FIFA exorbitant fees for broadcasting rights.
If enough people turn away, it will hurt FIFA’s bottom line. And as we know, FIFA only cares about money. It doesn’t care about sporting integrity. It doesn’t care about protecting the players. And it certainly doesn’t care about protecting the fans. FIFA even tried to ban fans from bringing water bottles into stadiums, a real two birds with one stone moment for the governing body: endangering fans while making a buck.
There are many things we can do to put pressure on football’s governing bodies between tournaments. And we should. But for now I’ll simply be focusing my attention elsewhere. And you, dear reader, should join me.
