Value added? Final thoughts on a troubled World Cup
A tournament everyone had predictions about turned out as few predicted
In the end, there was the football. My journey in this World Cup led from indifference and a feeling of being compromised to absorbed fascination watching a final that must rank as one of the greatest and most dramatic games of football ever.
And maybe that is the big positive to take. That the beauty, drama and sheer fascination of an extraordinarily simple game can still have such power. Strip away all that has been attached to this most precious thing and just revel in the fact that the unalloyed playing of the game can still make us feel this way.
There was only the football to speak about after the final penalty kick. The extraordinary twists and turns of the game. The sight of Messi and Mbappe illuminating proceedings at the most vital moments. But also the sight of so many of what had been billed as simply a supporting cast having their moments – Martinez, Coman, Romero, Thuram, De Paul, Camavinga, Macallister, Konate, De Maria, Lloris…
At the end there was no villain to be blamed for a defeat, no questionable decision from a referee, and thankfully little mention of VAR. Two very good football teams had played an exceptional match and one of them had won. That is about as pure a sporting outcome as you can get.
Of course, there is context. And it did not take long to be reminded of that as FIFA goons ensured Lionel Messi was enveloped in the Emir of Qatar’s shroud. Known as a bisht, the ceremonial clothing was draped around Messi in a crass attempt by the Qatari hosts to forever associate the images of perhaps the greatest player ever holding the greatest trophy in world football with themselves.
But what it succeeded in doing was further embedding the negative image of Qatar that has been established during this World Cup. For all the billions spent, can anyone really say the image of the Qatari state has improved because the country hosted this World Cup? If anything, the event has shone a spotlight on the lack of respect for human rights, the ingrained discrimination, the absolute arrogance and abject disregard for basic humanity.
There will be few who say “After that World Cup, I’ve really changed my view of the Qatari state”. And whenever Qatar is mentioned, the words “discrimination” and “dead migrant workers” will be further up the search list than “great stadiums” or “wonderful football”.
I’d also like to think that the nonsense of cultural relativism has also been exposed. Those who sought to rally support for Qatar, paid or otherwise, tried very hard to paint any criticism as prejudiced attempts by elitist westerners to dismiss those who held different values. But what they succeeded in doing was revealing the universal nature of some values. The rights of women to be equal citizens, the rights of anyone to love who they want, the rights of workers to fair treatment – all of these things are more universally accepted now than they were. Attaching these arguments to football has made more people assess their basic values.
This is not to say that much of the criticism of Qatar was not conducted through a Western prism. There were equally valid criticisms of the narratives some attempted to build that came from other perspectives. I learned a huge amount from reading an excellent article by Columbia University scholar Hisham Aïdi about the conflicts between Arab and African identities, and the conflicts within those, that Morocco’s run to the semi-final threw up. I can’t comment on most of the issues raised with any authority because so much of it is so totally outside my own experience but what immediately resonated with me was football’s ability to open our eyes to new perspectives. If we let it.
Much of what I read after the final seemed to accept the very thing it was arguing against. That the great football, of which there was a lot, somehow made Qatar’s cultural values better, more acceptable. That Qatar had won. But none of these arguments set out how. My view is that the fact that it was possible to enjoy the football without signing up to every aspect of Qatari cultural values underlined the fact that we all have choices, and that how we make them matters.
I felt uneasy about the World Cup being held in Qatar, for reasons I outlined in the last edition. But I felt able to watch the games and enjoy the football, the more so as the competition progressed. And I could separate the sporting from the political to some extent.
Gary Neville attracted criticism for accepting a job commentating on the World Cup while also taking a strong stance on various progressive issues. I always suspected the majority of the criticism came from people who always try to catch out anyone who takes a position, or from those who disagreed with the position taken, rather than because of any real concern over so-called ‘hypocrisy’. My view is that Gary’s argument that being present to criticise where necessary would have carried more weight if he’d said he was donating his fee to a progressive cause, but he did make the very necessary point after the final that if we are going to make a big deal about rights and fair treatment, we should make the point universally.
Neville’s comments, unlike so many in the debate around Western criticism of Qatar, are not whataboutery. They are clearly an attempt to argue for universality. They are clearly also in contrast to his former teammate David Beckham, who cited the benefits of engagement as justification for taking millions from Qatar to promote the tournament but who has failed to please his paymasters because he’s tried to keep a low-profile after being criticised by groups he has previously spoken up for.
It's now approaching midnight as I finish writing this – another Western prism for you. On social media, the cultural relativism debate over the wearing of the bisht is raging strong. If you need convincing why it’s phoney, think of what the reaction to Giorgio Chiellini being clad in iconic English garb by FA officials after the Euro 2020 final would have been. And of how nonsensical the entire episode would have looked.
The 2022 World Cup, or the FIFA World Cup as we are now required to call it by the impossibly pumped up and preening organisation that has turned Jules Rimet’s idea into something he never intended, was a very modern football event in that it reminded us of so much we dislike about the game we love. But its concluding act may well have reinforced the love.
Header photo: Photo by Manu Mangalassery:
Excellent article Martin. Like you I started out with little enthusiasm, but by focusing on the football itself day by day I got more and more engrossed. It was a relief not to be reading about hooligans and wags, even though it seemed the atmosphere at most matches was rather flat and artificial. Football was the winner in the end- despite everything.
As you say, while the football was mostly decent (apart from one or two of the referees), the issue was always the time and place of this WC. And while we can be critical of Qatar, especially with its take on women, migrant workers, LGBTQ+, alcohol, etc, the bigger issue has to do with FIFA. This organisation has become so unrepresentative of the beautiful game. Infantino has proved no less corrupt than his predecessors, and they are all guilty of bowing and scraping to government figures in a range of less-than-salubrious countries. It is time (overdue) for individual FAs to demand change from those who are supposed to be responsible for football, which is after all the people's game.