Grubby Football
grubby adjective /ˈɡrʌb.i/
1 dirty
2 not honest, fair, or moral
In May 2014, I wrote an article about how my dad and I had bonded over the years through football and how football was a force that brought people together.
I chose the subject matter of the article because I was writing it just before the start of the football World Cup in Brazil, and I was reflecting on fatherhood because my second son was about to be born. Now we are on the eve of another football World Cup and that son is now eight years old.
What else has changed in those eight years? We have endured a pandemic, Brexit, four years of Trump, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. It’s generally accepted that the world has become a harsher, more cynical place. So, it is perhaps appropriate that the World Cup that is about to kick-off is taking place in Qatar, one of the least deserving places ever to have held a sporting event. Qatar was awarded the World Cup back in 2010 by Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president at that time, who has since been found guilty of corruption. In 2010 most people felt that awarding the World Cup to Qatar was an awful decision. The intervening years have only intensified that feeling.
Qatar is a small, ridiculously hot country not suited to playing football, and therefore has no football culture. It is also a country with a terrible human rights record. To build the required infrastructure for hosting a World Cup, tens of thousands of migrant workers were brought into the country. These migrant workers had to work in brutal heat, endure squalid living conditions, and had virtually zero worker or civil rights. They were little better off than slaves. Under these inhumane conditions, over 6500 migrant workers have died. Even the corrupt Sepp Blatter has admitted Qatar should not be holding the tournament.
So, let’s boycott the Qatar World Cup, right? It’s a grubby event, being run by a grubby organisation, for grubby money. However, if you like sport, and football in particular, it’s not so simple and easy.
I’m angry that we have been forced to ask ourselves these moral questions about boycotting something that brings people together and enriches their lives. Why should we starve ourselves of enjoying sport at its best? What will switching off really achieve anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to engage with the football but limit how much we engage commercially with the World Cup? For example, where possible, we could boycott the official sponsors, such as Budweiser and Coca-Cola. They provide a lot of the Fifa revenue, and perhaps action such as this will send a message that association with Fifa doesn’t sell products.
When something like football is so universal and popular, it will always attract others that want to have those qualities as well, whether they be commercial or political. The Berlin Olympics in 1936 was meant to be a showcase for the might of Naziism and Hitler. Instead, it was a showcase of Jesse Owens and one of the finest sporting achievements ever, when he won four gold medals in athletics events. More recently, the last World Cup in 2018 was held in Russia. Again, a grubby, corrupt choice of venue by Fifa. However, the tournament is not remembered for Putin’s regime, but for the free-flowing football and open exciting tournament. Sport at its best can overcome the politics and sordid organisations that seek to control and own it. Sport is not controlled by the evil, the corrupt, and the grubby.
The evil, the corrupt, and the grubby also don’t own the memories I have of bonding with my dad through football. I like to think that my sons will have their own fond memories of bonding with their father through the different things we do together. Although I can’t control their future memories, I don’t want to limit possible bonding moments. Even if these moments are about watching a grubby World Cup together. My hope is that the football will outshine the grubbiness.
Sources
publicethics.org/post/should-we-boycott-the-2022-world-cup
theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022
dictionary.cambridge.org
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