I don't really have any insights into this, but it was striking to me the last few days how much athletes and athletics are intertwining with politics on the global stage.
Obviously, we have the corrupt and illogical staging of the World Cup beginning next week in Qatar. From the moment it was announced until the moment they hand out the trophy, there has been a strong sense of WTF and disgust. Some of this naturally falls on FIFA, who make the Gambino Crime Family blush, but Qatar is apparently doubling down on being a shitty host and telling people not to protest. Good luck with that. I predict that at some point there will be large scale arrests during the Cup, either from drunken fans or LGBT protests. Well played FIFA
We also have numerous instances of Iranian teams refusing to sing their national anthem. I guess that constitutes a form of protest (as opposed to not knowing the words). There will be some interesting overlap with the Iranian men's team playing the US, England and Wales in the group stage of the World Cup. There's a fair amount of obvious bad blood between Iran and the US and UK. How will THAT play out against the simmering unrest in Iran will be interesting, too.
Meanwhile, on the subject of national anthems, Hong Kong's rugby team played the "wrong" anthem.
I guess to try and tie it together, the world in 2022 remains a brittle, fragile, angry, damaged place. Democracies are certainly dealing with this, but authoritarian regimes cannot by definition be flexible with their population. Sports elicits emotions in us that are hard to control. When they meet it could get combustible.
No comments:
Post a Comment