Sorry to start with a link, but the opinion piece here on Al Jazeera is interesting:
This world cup has been controversial in so many ways, and I expect there to be a lot more news about background machinations on how the right to host the WC was gained yet. But there has been a sense that it was happening out of the control of the usual nations who ‘own’ football. I very much wonder if the reactions to Messi being gowned were a result of him becoming identified with the host nation, and far less about simple racism.
Perhaps it should not be a surprise if what was once the sport of the common man becomes synonymous with colonialism and power?
Racism plays a part, certainly, so often in the press, but in this instance wasn’t it in some cases, Dan Walker’s for example, ignorance rather than racism. And isn’t there a touch of reverse racism in the automatic reaching of the author for the racism card without bothering to understand that not everyone would know the significance of the enrobing?
I have no interest in football and no knowledge of this particular custom, so just thoughts from the sidelines.
Complicated one, but an overly one-sided article, particularly when he’s citing The Telegraph and Fox News as exemplifying attitudes in the global north
Al Jazeera is an interesting station. I have a link to it on my browser and dipped in and out of their WC coverage, which not surprising given that it’s funded by the Qatari government, was continually plugging Qatar (large shopping mall becomes a nation state?).
If one looks at the history of the WC, the driving forces for many decades were mainly S American countries, rather than former European colonial powers. More recently it’s been held several times in countries that were neither colonial nor footballing powers, However in the last decade or so, the competition has been has tainted by FIFA corruption (with murky Qatari and Russian involvement).
Furthermore, given that M/c City and PSG (Messi’s club) are both sponsored to illegally high levels by the Qatari government in the guise of its state airline, I’m not sure who’s the colonist.
I usually like AJ for the relatively seemingly neutral stance they often have reporting events. OTOH their opinion pieces are seldom neutral, often strongly anti-western, but never the less raise some interesting questions, and that was why I linked this one.
FWIW I have a negative level of interest in football and the WC (now that seems an appropriate abbreviation) but they are significant in that they affect many lives and play a part in colouring attitudes.
I like that @Susannah , where did you get that from? I wonder if it has been seen in Argentina. It always amused me in the run up to the war, and after, that the Argentinians often called Britain the colonial power in the Falklands whereas the ruling classes/races in the whole of South (and Mid and N) America are the self same descendants of colonists, much the same as the Falkland Islanders.
