The not so beautiful game

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They call football the beautiful game – a game played with grace and beauty and elegance as if poetry itself has leapt from the pages and onto the playing fields where players move with the smoothness of a gentle breeze across vast desert sands…writes Justin Ambler.

Photo: Unsplash

And the Football World Cup is the pinnacle of that expression, the ultimate accolade of the greatest show on earth.

But beneath the glossy stadiums, the finely manicured grass, and the newly built state-of-the-art transportation system, lies a darker and more sinister rotten core that not even the estimated cost of the US$300 billion dollars spent can cover. For the controversies leading up to the World Cup in Qatar have been plenty and entirely predictable too.

From allegations of bribery in the bidding process to the inhumane treatment and abuse of migrant workers to the treatment of women and the LGBTQ community, it was obvious from the outset that staging an event such as a World Cup in a country ruled by a dictatorial regime with no regard for human rights would not go smoothly.

And it hasn’t.

In the days leading up to the official start of the tournament on November 20, numerous incidents had already arisen.

Despite Qatar’s promise that alcohol could be served in designated fan zones around the stadiums, it then decided to reverse that decision just two days before the event started, leading to a major crisis with Budweiser, one of the World Cup’s official sponsors and provider of alcohol. This brings into question just how trustworthy those commitments are.

And despite promises that cooked kosher food would be made available for Jewish patrons, it reneged on that too by not allowing any cooked kosher food to be sold or offered to visitors.

The broken promises continued when sources in Jewish organisations told of how Jewish prayer services in Qatar’s capital Doha were now banned, despite being initially told they would be permitted to create prayer spaces for religious Jewish visitors. The claim by Qatar was that it wasn’t able to “secure” this kind of activity.

And according to a report in the Jerusalem Post, a large group of American Jews have cancelled their planned trip as a result of these broken promises, saying they did not feel secure, knowing there’d be no kosher food, Shabbat meals or public prayer services.

The Israeli Government has also warned Israelis travelling to Qatar to keep a low profile and to hide any Israeli symbols, which could be presumed to mean Israeli flags or Star of David necklaces. The Government is expecting upwards of 20000 Israeli fans to visit the Gulf country.

Now that the tournament is underway, the reports keep on coming and in a country where being gay is illegal, it’s not a surprise.

Welsh supporters were reportedly told to remove their rainbow hats after being told it was a “forbidden symbol”. Even a Brazilian regional flag, carried by a fan, was mistaken for an LGBTQ flag by a local who grabbed it and started stomping on it on the ground.

And the captains of seven European nations; England, Wales, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark, decided not to wear ‘One Love’ armbands in support of diversity and inclusion after pressure from FIFA, which threatened to issue yellow cards to any players wearing the armbands. This was an about-turn from FIFA which, according to its own guidelines, had previously said that pride flags would be welcome at the World Cup.

Journalists, too, are not immune.

American reporter, Grant Wahl, was briefly detained after trying to enter a World Cup stadium wearing a rainbow shirt in support of the LGBTQ community.

Another reporter from Denmark, Rasmus Tantholdt, was interrupted during a live broadcast in Doha when a couple of locals, joined by a security guard, approached him in a threatening manner. They covered the camera lens while another man off-screen threatened to break the camera. All this despite showing them his reporter accreditation. Tantholdt later revealed though that both he and his network received an apology from the Qatar International Media Office and from the Qatar Supreme Committee, the organising committee for the World Cup.

Israeli journalists have also come under extreme harassment and abuse by fans and some locals. Channel 13’s sports reporter, Tal Shorrer, says that he’d been abused or verbally assaulted more than 50 times in the four days he’d been there, describing the whole experience as “unpleasant”.

He tells of how every time they go on air, fans approach them carrying Palestinian flags, calling them murderers and yelling “Free Palestine”.

And although their broadcasting team is mostly harassed by Arab-speaking fans, there was an Argentinian fan who saw Hebrew letters on his microphone and subsequently pushed him, accusing him of killing babies.

Another Israeli reporter, Ohad Hemo, was broadcasting live when approached by a Lebanese fan who then proceeded to argue with him, including telling him that there was no Israel, only Palestine. Their exchange went viral and since then, many other fans from Arab countries are trying to replicate the incident whenever they recognise him.

This would have been music to the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, the corrupt and authoritarian chairman of the Palestinian Authority, whose term ran out in 2009 but who has remained in office ever since. He quietly arrived in Qatar with a large entourage of family and advisors. The trip followed an outcry at home over leaked documents showing that his hotel bills alone had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars even as the Palestinian economy falters. That’s probably why WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, which covers his daily activities, strangely did not report this trip.

But what has become abundantly clear and will continue to do so over the course of the tournament is that rewarding the world’s greatest showcase for football to a regime that is steeped in corruption, has no regard for human rights, is intolerant of other religions and is a financial supporter of terror groups such as Hamas, was never going to go down well.

In fact, even Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, has admitted that giving the World Cup to Qatar was a mistake.

Ultimately, when the tournament is finally over and the many international visitors return to their homes, and the din of reporters and broadcasters has died down, the legacy of the World Cup will not leave Qatar with a greater respect for human rights and dignity and all those warm and fuzzy words the Western world likes to talk about. Those virtues the democratic world holds dear will largely be forgotten, much like the many thousands of migrant workers who died to bring this showcase to the world. Qatar’s moment in the sun will be over and life there will return to normal.

They call football the beautiful game – a game played with grace and beauty and elegance, but what’s happening in Qatar right now is downright ugly.

Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council