World Cup column: Football is eating itself, try and enjoy the leftovers
You can forgive those involved in football for thinking nothing matters more. From the hyperbole of broadcasters to the ultra-importance clubs and national teams now place on strict diets and recovery schedules, coupled with the frenetic partisanship of supporters in the stands, football has an importance attached to it that can often feel unstoppable.
Even for supporters, people who suffer no genuine consequences based on the outcome of games, it is as though football is more important than real-world issues that they face on a daily basis.
This sense of self-importance adds to the richness of stories that take place at an event like a World Cup. We care about Morocco becoming the first African team to reach a semi-final and Lionel Messi’s attempts to garnish his legacy with the ultimate crown because of how invested we are in the stage they are playing upon. Football has established itself as the most important of the least important things in our collective psyche, conditioning how we think, feel and act in a way that little else can.
The World Cup in Qatar has been a disturbing intensification of this idea, an amalgamation of so many of the game’s wrongs played out in a hypermodern surveillance state that has no genuine interest in football. It has been written regularly in this column, and far more eloquently elsewhere, that this tournament should never have been awarded to Qatar, but it has in fact acted as the perfect place to display FIFA’s ideal form of football; an entertainment product that can matter more than anything whilst being grounded in a place with an interchangeable culture, wrapped in so many forms of discourse that the noise begins to feel superficial.
Football’s sense of self-importance has stretched to new heights at this tournament. The treatment of migrant workers has been an obvious and very real concern for over a decade now, but so many are still being treated as an underclass of humanity in Qatar and a disturbing number are still dying in their place of work. Yet as the tournament has progressed, the associated stories becoming more romantic as the scenarios they play out in become more intense, it has been possible to become distracted from just how abhorrent the reality of life in the country is for so many.
So often it is the players who can draw our focus away from more pressing concerns elsewhere, but even many of them have exposed their own role in upholding and maintaining football’s march towards a future as an instrument of capitalism – something that can be bought and sold with a glossy sheen so seductive that means there will always be a willing buyer, but lacking in potential to represent something more meaningful, something that can disrupt despots and discrimination and provide hope.
The vague threat of ‘sporting sanctions’ was enough to see a number of initiatives designed to show support for groups persecuted by the Qatari state abandoned, most notably the OneLove armband – a hardly adequate but still significant recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in the gulf state and further afield.
France captain Hugo Lloris announced before the tournament he would not wear the armband in order to ‘show respect’ to the host nation and is now preparing to lead his side in a second consecutive final. Germany, who did not wear the armband but clearly still distracted themselves by going as far as covering their mouths for a pre-match team photo, went out in the group stage. It does not take any great deal of imagination to see how this will be used as evidence of the benefits of ‘focusing on football’ the next time a player, coach or entire footballing association wants to dismiss anyone willing to challenge a hegemonic way of thinking that so often excludes minority groups in the men’s game.
England’s opening match against Iran was halted for more than five minutes after Alireza Beiranvand took a blow to the head from a team-mate when trying to defend a Harry Kane cross. Nose bloodied and visibly dazed, the goalkeeper initially tried to play on. How could he not? This was his first World Cup as the Iranian number one; it was potentially the most significant moment of his career. Within two minutes he was stretchered off having fallen to the turf for a second time. The decision to remain on the field being left in the hands of a player and his manager once again allowed an individual to risk their long-term health due to a belief that playing on was of greater importance. Beiranvand’s was only the first of several uncomfortable head injuries poorly dealt with at this tournament.
Most of these issues were prevalent before the tournament began and will continue to act as no more than a fly in the ointment of enjoyment for most going forward; a mere crack on the edge of a television screen that projects year-round entertainment. The anger and astonishment that greeted Qatar being given the right to host this tournament meant the build-up to it actually taking place felt an inevitable time for some sort of stand to be taken, introspection to be forced upon football’s most influential stakeholders. Instead, Qatar and its capacity to re-imagine the competition in any way that best pleases has allowed some of football’s worst elements to be accelerated and accentuated.
With just one game left to play and no major furore in sight, and FIFA emboldened by their role in the ‘incredible success’, this process seems destined to continue beyond Qatar. When the apocalypse does come some time not long after a Saudi Arabian-hosted tournament in 2030, all that will be left is cockroaches and Gianni Infantino’s latest plans for a reformatted 32-team Club World Cup.
