published first time at: versopolis.com
Fifa’s most tedious make-believes are the notion of ‘fair play’ and the idea that the World Cup brings nations together in a celebration of football, peace, sport, and the future of childhood. Everyone knows they’re a pack of lies, but we need them: To keep the smiles going, to justify all the exhilaration and zeal, all the disappointment and anguish, all the overflowing, conflicting emotions that are the reason we care so much about the World Cup.
The World Cup is generally held to be an encounter between peoples and nations, but in truth it’s an excuse for competition and conflict and an opportunity to show off differences and inequalities. Parading their collective identities on the pitch, nations learn to recognize their respective peculiarities, while we as humans come to see that conflict and competition are forms of co-operation, and that conflict is the engine of progress.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I read Klaus Zeyringer and Ilija Trojanow’s Manifesto against the Dictatorship of Sport. The text begins with the question of conflict, referencing what it describes as Fifa’s ‘mafia-like’ behaviour (a moot point since no prison sentences have ever been handed out), dealings which in some countries would be considered corruption, but in others, such as Switzerland, are not. The manifesto moves swiftly on to the question of social justice, accusing international football’s corrupt institutions of bleeding state resources and taxpayers’ money, which pays for the infrastructure which makes the sport possible. At this point one gets a little lost: Is the manifesto directed at Fifa, players’ wages, or liberal policies? Or at everything, like the anger of the Ultras on an adrenaline high?
The text ends by urging the reader to take an unusual decision: To refuse to watch the World Cup, and to refuse to be ‘sheep’ or ‘consumers’. Then, in stark contrast with what they have said so far, the authors affirm they are ‘true football fans’.
Perhaps to the white European intellectual this manifesto might sound like a courageous voice of reason, but to the brown intellectual, it comes across as counter-intuitive. If you’re a football fan, but you resent the dictatorship of Fifa, then why boycott, why withdraw from the battle? As I see it, the text reflects Western anxiety over the white man’s loss of control over Fifa, and international football more generally, in recent decades. Other, non-democratic states are no longer satisfied with giving up talented expatriate players to European clubs and national teams; many of these states are now wealthy and powerful enough to join the fray that surrounds Fifa, hosting tournaments and gaining access to the material, social and political power which international football bestows.
The white intellectual is perturbed by Russian, Qatari and Saudi influence within Fifa. He sees what is happening as a corrupt dictatorial takeover of what is ostensibly a democratic game. Their intervention prescribes turning one’s back on the world and on the conflict.
A brown intellectual like myself, on the other hand, would never have paid the equivalent of €200 to the Qatari company Bein, and instead chooses to stream the World Cup on pirate websites or watch free broadcasts on British or European television channels. That’s how I enjoy my World Cup—not to mention the exasperation of the commentators and presenters, as they rail against piracy and accuse me of stealing from Qatari billionaires.
Zeyringer and Trojanow’s manifesto addresses the democratic world, which has been shrinking ever faster over recent years, to the point it scarcely has a continent to its name. The writers believe that football derives its power and presence not only from corrupt institutions, but from the continued interest of its fans and followers, and hence believe that with their call to football lovers not to watch any matches, they can shake the structure of the institution, or perhaps reform it. Once again, this is a white man’s fantasy.
In the brown part of the world where I live, the state of Qatar has invested tens of billions in the media and sports sectors over the last ten years, won their bid to host the next World Cup, and established the Aljazeera news network, as well as the Bein sports network which monopolises World Cup broadcasts in the Middle East. Qatar has pressed all this into service of its political agenda, which consists in supporting regressive and Islamist currents across the Arab region. This agenda has brought Qatar into conflict with ruling regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, resulting in a movement to boycott Qatar led by the three states.
Watching football matches on the Qatari channel is an irritating experience thanks to the style of Arab commentators. [Arab] commentators don’t just get excited about goals—they remain in a permanent state of excitement throughout the match, reeling off metaphors and nicknames, and wittering about their sporting reminiscences, or becoming engrossed in thinly-veiled invective directed at Saudi Arabia and other states participating in the blockade.
If you get bored of the Qatari commentary, you can switch to a Saudi pirate channel. Saudi Arabia refused Bein permission to operate or sell satellite receivers within the kingdom and instead established its own sports network which pirates its broadcasts from the Qatari channel. In breaks you’ll find Saudi commercials urging you to visit Salwa, at the base of the Qatar peninsula, where you can see the cows—a mocking reference to the dairy shortages caused by the Saudi-led blockade—up close. Fifa, from whom both channels claim they bought the rights, have given vague and contradicting statements on the matter.
All these manoeuvrings are highly undemocratic, and a result of the regional crises and conflicts of recent times. Fifa and the World Cup merely reflect the contemporary moment. There is no use attempting to reform Fifa by democratic means, since Fifa cannot be reformed as long as these regional conflicts continue. It is naive to think that democracy is capable of solving any of these problems, because it was democracy that got us where we are today. Giving up our right to watch football, meanwhile, will do nothing but make our lives as individual football fans more miserable, and more isolated from the world and its conflicts.
That said, I couldn’t bear to stream the whole World Cup on sites pirating the Qatari and Saudi broadcasts, because the constant political chatter and nationalist swagger of the commentators got on my nerves so much. Searching for alternatives, I discovered a whole world of commentary. I found a website showing the BBC broadcasts, whose commentators were so calm you hardly noticed when anyone scored a goal, and confined themselves to narrating the action in a neutral tone, with asides I can only presume are considered humorous in the white world—one described the Egypt v. Saudi Arabia match, for example, as the ‘desert derby’, while another attributed the African teams’ poor showing to the migration of African players to Europe. In the end I decided to watch the World Cup with the sound switched off, without commentators, sitting with my friends and listening to our own commentaries.
Translated by Katharine Halls
Ahmed Naji 