The Human Rights Violations Cup

One thing I love about the World Cup is that it gives a certain set of liberals who love to shout SPORTSBALL most of the time an excuse to root for the United States in sports every four years while promoting the most corrupt sport on the planet in a game where racist fans throughout the world routinely chant things that are unthinkable even at Trump rallies. Nothing like some good ol’ nationalism when it makes people feel like global citizens. And hey, what is more global than corruption and massive human rights violations? The Putin Cup in 2018 was bad enough and now we have the clown show that is the Qatar version.

But Qatar’s involvement in the competition isn’t rooted in pure motives: The Gulf State nation is in the World Cup business for purposes of sportswashing—it is, in many ways, the culmination of a project that began with its purchase of Paris Saint-Germain over a decade ago. Qatar has heavily relied on migrant labor to prepare for the tournament, and reports of rampant labor abuses have been circulating for years. In 2018, it was reported that more than a thousand migrant workers had gone months without being paid and that many were living without running water. In February of last year, a report in The Guardian found that 6,500 migrant workers had died in the country since it was awarded the World Cup in 2012.The country is a viciously repressive monarchy. Political parties are banned, and there is no right to free expression. Homosexuality is punishable by death; consensual same-sex relations can lead to seven-year prison sentences. Women require the consent of a guardian—typically a father or husband—to do things like marry or travel.

The question for the media, heading into the World Cup, is how best to cover an event that’s been assembled by despots on the backs of modern-day slaves. There are some signs that the teams themselves will take some limited action. Denmark will wear uniforms without any identifying markers on the front in protest of Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers. Earlier this week, England captain Harry Kane announced that he would wear a OneLove armband, part of a larger anti-LGBTQ-discrimination push, even if FIFA, the international soccer governing body, tries to prevent him. But asking the players—who are there to play soccer and have no say in where the sport’s most important event is located—to counter Qatar’s human rights record is unfair.

That task should fall to the press. But the way that Saudi Arabia’s record has been scrubbed from the Newcastle United story, even as it suggests that a dire precedent has been set—that the path to European athletic glory is best bought with blood money—doesn’t exactly instill much in the way of faith. (Arlo White, the lead commentator for Newcastle United’s first post-Saudi game, spent much of that broadcast handwaving concerns about the regime’s human rights record. He is currently employed as the lead broadcaster of the Saudi-backed LIV golf league.) Here in the lead-up to the event, there may be some willing to illuminate the seamy underbelly of Qatar’s World Cup. Once the tournament begins and the euphoria of competition takes center stage, the fervor of accountability may quickly ebb away. In fairness, sports reporters are not political reporters and it’s a lot to ask for them to become experts in human rights and global realpolitik. But Qatar was awarded the World Cup a decade ago; stories about its treatment of migrant workers, women, and homosexuals have circulated for years. The action on the ground must be accompanied by stories investigating the country’s abysmal human rights record, as well as the corruption at FIFA that created the opportunity for these tyrants to buy the beautiful game’s most important tournament.

SPORTSBALL!!!!

….I’m not sure why people are taking this post to mean that I don’t like soccer. I mean, I prefer sports where teams actually score, but soccer is a perfectly good sport. I’ll watch at least some of the World Cup, probably rooting for Mexico. But I realize what it is–readers don’t like the idea that they are supporting something run by right-wing authoritarians engaging in grotesque corruption. But of course that’s exactly what they are doing. What I don’t like is liberal hypocrisy about entertainment based on moral preening and inconsistency. I am obviously perfectly fine rooting for a sport that is run by horrible humans.