I decided to boycott the 2022 World Cup long ago and haven’t watched a second of the footage.
“Boycott” might not be the right word since I’m simply choosing not to watch the games. Of course, I was never a significant factor in economic terms. Yes, I bought a couple of jerseys back in the day, but mostly I was an enthusiast that watched as many games as possible. My love affair with the World Cup started in 1974 when I was an 8-year-old in Germany. Our team won, and that was something not to be missed.
Unfortunately, I was too young to remember the 1966 or 1970 World Cups.
Since then, I have been really into it. Being German meant you usually had plenty of skin in the game. The team often made it to the semifinals or the final and even won in 1990 and 2014. If Germany dropped out, I’d pick another team to support. Generally, I always wanted the best teams to win and had a lot of sympathy for most of the other contenders as well – as long as they didn’t cheat, went for the bones of their opponents, or were too theatrical. I played soccer for many years myself and never had any tolerance for these behaviors.
Over the years, FIFA has changed from a particular interest club where a few people conspired to rule the world of soccer and moderately line their pockets to a massive powerhouse. FIFA’s primary revenue source is still the men’s World Cup, even though the women have quickly become contributors as well.
FIFA disburses some revenue to soccer associations worldwide and can buy their support. Their president is highly criticized in Europe and North America. Still, he is about to win another term at the reigns of FIFA with the help of the nations that enjoy the warm rainfalls from the giant FIFA firehose.
FIFA has been corrupt for many years. Hosting a soccer world cup is a huge deal, and the people deciding where it would be hosted always played their cards well. The declaration of Russia and Qatar as hosts back in 2010 was unprecedented, though. This was done as a package deal. Russia had not occupied Crimea yet, so its nomination could be somehow justified. The nomination of Qatar stunned the world. How could a small country of only 300,000 without any soccer culture win such a nomination? Qatar had a clear plan to polish its image by hosting major sports events (“sports washing”) and getting involved in the global world of sports.
Yes, soccer is a major sport in the Middle East. The region should be considered to host the event. But the circumstances reeked of corruption at an unprecedented level.
Qatar has been criticized for being an unworthy host. It lacks proper civil rights for women and the LQBTQ community. It’s a dictatorship. An unknown number of foreign workers have died during the senseless construction of the eight world cup stadiums in the scorching heat. The survivors worked under extremely harsh conditions and received very meager wages.
Yet, no country in the world is perfect. We all have work to do. I would never decided to host a major sports event in a dictatorship. That’s my personal choice. I am in no position to criticize all of Qatar. Again we have work to do at home as well.
My real issue is with FIFA and how much the sport has been ruled by excessive money.
In the 1970s, the best players were still transferred to another club for a fee in the six digits. Johann Cruyff went from Ajax to Barcelona for 922k.
That became seven digits in the 1980s during Maradona’s time. His transfers from Boca Juniors to Barcelona for £3m, then to Napoli for £5m, broke the record in 1982 and 1984, respectively.
In 1990 we reached eight digits.
In 2001 Real Madrid set a new record with the signing of Zinedine Zidane for £48 million. The record stood for eight years.
That’s when things truly spiraled out of control. That’s when big oil and gas money entered the market.
Today Neymar and Kylian Mbappe are the two players with the most expensive contracts and transfer arrangements in the 100s of millions. They both play for the same club. Ironically it is owned and controlled by Qatar.
These numbers do not correlate in any way with our financial world. We did not add three digits to our salaries. Otherwise, a worker making $30,000 in the 1970s would make $30,000,000 today. Maybe this simple math can illustrate what’s wrong with pro soccer today.
FIFA has created this landscape and greatly benefits from all the money that today’s world soccer is flushed with. Somewhere in this process, they lost the following of many lifetime soccer fans. It feels like the sport has been taken from us.
Yes, it is still exciting to watch. The games have gotten faster. The players are more skillful. More nations are able to play at a truly competitive level, even though the usual suspects often still rule the main tournament.
Yet, I can’t ignore how appalled I am by the governing body and all the dirty money that controls the club soccer world. We’d need a complete restart to return to authentic club soccer and a more level playing field. That might not happen in my lifetime. At this time, I’m not sure if I can ever get excited about another world cup again. The next one is in 2026 here in the US. If the event started next month, my screen would also stay dark.
FIFA was pushed to make attempts to eradicate corruption (or at least lower it). Today the location of the World Cup is decided by a larger group of people, not just its executive committee. Yet, a president of very questionable character is still firmly in the saddle. You can quickly learn about his quarrels with the Swiss justice system and all his other flaws.
My suggestion:
The best way to overturn FIFA, IMHO, is to set up a competing entity. The European and American associations ought to unite and establish a new governing body. A World Cup without the nations from those continents is not worth much. Of course, this approach would require these organizations to come closer together and act in the sport’s interest. Currently, the approach to who owns the teams and financial regulations differ vastly. It would be a long way to get there, but it’s a vision worth fighting for.
Suggested reading:
whoiscall says: