Yes. ‘Abusing the cup? It was ever thus, the upside is a festival of popular internationalism’
‘How do you solve a problem like Qatar?” Even Julie Andrews belting it out is perhaps not a terrace anthem yet but certainly what fans, and non-fans, have been pondering the last few years – a debate due to reach fever pitch (sic) as the tournament opens next Sunday.
Treating Qatar as simply the latest World Cup to be used as a political platform, and to observe there is nothing remotely unusual about this, would be a start.
At the 1934 World Cup, in Italy, Mussolini’s blackshirts explicitly used the Italian national team to build support for fascism, winning their home tournament, and winning again in France four years later, the first team to win an away World Cup.
Harold Wilson declared after England’s 1966 win: “Have you noticed we only win the World Cup under a Labour government?” That was one old Labour pledge that has stood the test of time, more’s the pity. In 1973, the Soviet team were expelled from the tournament for refusing to take part in a qualifying play-off against Chile following Pinochet’s coup. Chile, on the other hand, were welcomed to take the last place as a result. Or the last tournament, Putin’s World Cup, just four years after his annexation – aka invasion – of Crimea, while this time all Russian participation has been banned.
Qatar using and abusing the World Cup – it was ever thus. This is the downside of football as the one truly global sport. Yes, rugby (both versions) and cricket (all versions) have their world cups but they’re not truly global, are they? These are sports fundamentally framed by empire, with the odd other international hangers-on who can score upsets but never get remotely close to the latter stages of the tournament. The winners of football’s World Cup are a likewise select few from Europe and South America, but the teams that make it to the semi- and quarter-finals come from every continent, every corner of the world. This is the upside, a World Cup as a festival of popular internationalism.
I’m lucky enough to have gone as an England fan to four World Cups, including Asia’s first, Japan and South Korea 2002, and Africa’s first, South Africa 2010. Never mind – well, actually I do mind, a lot – that England didn’t come close to lifting the trophy, the experience was unforgettable.
Yes, it’s a holiday of privilege but being there is also inextricably mixed with, despite the unfamiliarity and the differences, what we share as visitors with our hosts, the love of football. That’s what Qatar should be about: the first Middle Eastern World Cup, good; the first in a majority Muslim country, good. But of course, we all know it won’t be about that – and that is a huge loss, barely recognised.
To boycott or not to boycott? Let’s be brutally honest: it’s a non-question. England exit in ignominy at the group stage and the boycott will be unstoppable. Wales march on triumphantly to the knock-out stages and there’s a tidal wave of Welsh solidarity with their team. Because when it comes down to it, for the next four weeks any moral gymnastics can be reduced to four words. Love football, not Fifa.
• Mark Perryman is the author of books including Ingerland: Travels With a Football Nation
No. ‘To watch it would make me complicit. A passive approver of homophobia’
I support football. I’ve loved it since I was a child, when I’d sit in front of Match of the Day every Saturday night with my grandad. I’m a lifelong Liverpool fan and spend my weekends (and many week nights) shouting and arguing with a television set. When the World Cup rolls around there are dizzy levels of anticipation and by this stage I’m usually poised and ready, the rest of my life cleverly rearranged around a very crowded fixtures list.
This time, however, I’ve decided not to watch.
I never imagined I’d say this, yet with Fifa choosing to hold the tournament in Qatar (a decision Beth Mead, Arsenal and England forward, describes with heavy understatement as “disappointing”), I’m left with no other option. In Qatar, homosexuality is illegal and was recently described by Qatar World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman as “damage in the mind”. More than that, under strict Sharia law, anyone “engaging in homosexuality” faces being fined, imprisoned or even executed. Qatar’s human rights record is abysmal. Women’s rights, freedom of expression and assembly are all suppressed under Qatari regulations, while Amnesty International continues to push for its fair treatment of migrant workers (the Guardian reported that 6,500 migrant workers have died since Qatar won the right to host in 2010 –, a figure officials bizarrely describe as “misleading”). The competition’s organisers state that everyone is welcome to attend the matches, but with its chief executive, Nasser al-Khater, adding that any visitors must “respect our culture”.
I respect and admire many things about Islamic culture. But not this. To watch would make me complicit. A passive approver of homophobia and misogyny. How can I watch a tournament held in a country where some of my friends could face the death penalty, purely for quietly and peacefully living their lives. I support football, but more importantly, I support the idea of an existence free from fear, violence and discrimination.
Many, including Piers Morgan, suggest we should “just enjoy the football” and sport shouldn’t be political. But everything is political (the fact that Qatar, the “richest country in the world”, was successful in its bid to host is a huge political statement in itself).
Others have implied engagement “highlights the issues”, a fumbling defence used by World Cup commentator Gary Neville when recently challenged so exquisitely by Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You. No, Gary. You can highlight the issue without sitting in a commentary box with a big fat pay cheque in your back pocket. Most people believe whether they watch or not will make zero difference, but if you think you are too small to count, “try sleeping with a mosquito”, as the Dalai Lama says.
Besides, I strongly believe it’s the small decisions we make, whether we look or turn away, whether we speak out or stay silent, these are the decisions that make us who we are. Especially when no one ever sees those decisions except ourselves. So the next few weeks, at least for me, will be football-free. Will anyone care what I do? I doubt it. But if we all made that small change, if we all decided not to watch, what a very big difference that would be.
• Joanna Cannon’s latest novel is A Tidy Ending
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