Is this the last World Cup?

Dramatic, I grant you, but all you need do is pause for a moment to consider who the subsequent hosts are and you can quickly write them off as events that any fan who is also a human being should want to participate in.

For Russia, see Sochi 2014 – $51 billion siphoned to corrupt officials, homes bulldozed, roads of caviar to glorify a repressive conservative regime, not to mention the ever so slight racist tendencies of the nation’s club supporters.

Qatar might be even worse! The death toll stands at more than 500, for an event that is 8 years away, to be played in a desert with no footballing heritage but with FIFA’s main requisite of a corrupt government in need of golden elephant projects, where workers are treated as expendable.

My only consideration is if Brazil can provide a glorious end to international football competition, the most successful nation with the most exciting style of play and attitude must surely deliver a 5 week party that I can reflect on in the football empty summers of 2018 and 2022.

Sadly this is not straightforward. 5 people have died building the stadia required, and the new Maracana has been developed over precious public facilities (including a school) to the anger of local residents. As Roy Hodgson and the right wing press like to repeat, ‘Brazil is a nation that loves football’ – which, if true, gives even more weight to the protesters angry with the high government spending on the tournament at the cost of spending on healthcare, transport and education. The only hope from Hodgson et al is that the police keep every one in line so as we do not spoil the party.

For a few seconds, I want to agree. I want to be dancing a carnival through the streets of Rio, drinking and singing with fans of teams from all over the world, enjoying Brazilian hospitality as we forget our problems and celebrate the wonderful and beautiful game we love. The reality will be sanitised fan zones, rank and file of fat corporate clients and little if any representation from the poorer nations. Brazil and its public, will like every country before them, make a net loss on the tournament, as the money flows out of the country to Budweiser or into the pockets of the corrupt. When I stop indulging selfish fantasy, and put my political head on, I hope the tournament is disrupted by protests, I hope the people’s frustrations are heard, and we can start seriously looking at FIFA and how they allocate tournaments. There is no reason why it should be a corrupt corporate fairground, which excludes almost all fans from its half empty stadiums and increasingly half hearted games.

Perhaps Brazil’s legacy to the tournament could go beyond one final party, and instead start us on a path to bring the game back towards something we can all enjoy, without playing in deserts or people dying in the attempt to legitimise repressive politicians. Sorry Bill Shankley, but there are more important things than football, lets hope one day it will be peoples lives rather than money and power. 

A Taste of Things to Come

Sochi 2014. Russia 2018. To major sports events both alike in dignity, which are and will be the scene of human rights controversy and corruption so rank that even some of the old Soviet bloc would be turning in their graves, if they weren't still heavily involved in the Russian power structure. 

Gay rights seems to be the issue of choice for the Western media, it is straight forward and clearly delineates them from us. It is interesting to note though, that states in the USA prohibit sodomy, as does the 2010 Commonwealth games host India - which received little mention at the time. Google does not choose to 'bravely' comment on these issues (though it does provide forums for dissent - tax free!).

Russia passed the anti homosexual law recently, however the temporal proximity of a law hardly means it is more repressive. Russia has hardly been a beacon of humanitarianism in recent years, yet they were still selected to host an Olympics and a World Cup. The recent responses seem to think that the decision to grant these events is made in a vacuum, trapped in a void behind a seperate dimension, rather than as a result of international and entirely uncorruptable authorities, and that the games themselves are an apolitical expression of athleticism. They are not. Sports events are used by the corrupt to self promote, and to get together the various elites which care not a bit for gay rights or the rest of the worlds population.

What is noticeable is the reluctance to confront with a real determination the outrageous spending involved in the games. There is no campaign to boycott or protest against this, despite it being an example of an equally serious issue, that a country as powerful as Russia is run by a system of corrupt crony capitalism that allows $8billion to be spent on a 30 mile road. Why do we not want to challenge this so openly? Corporations so close to the government they can do what they wish perhaps look far to similar to what happens in the west, whereas a campaign for gay rights can create a bit of political capital and shows that the 'Ruskies' are still a bunch of 'Commys'. It is a political decision to have such a narrow focus. 

These issues will not concern sports bodies, and as the 'Olympics is not about politics' I guess they needn't mind. I'm sure itt was sheer coincidence that the games were revived by Imperial Britain at the height of its empire and neoclassical pretensions, its charter contains political statements and it has a whole bureaucracy to support its operation - all apolitical matters.

MONEY, THAT'S WHAT I WANT

Forbes, The Times, MTV etc enjoy making a fetish out of the lives of rich people, and their popularity suggests they are not alone. There are plenty of others who find the excesses of the rich sickening, indeed the lives of the super rich can be so gross that they are not to be aspired to. Footballers in the top European leagues fall into this category, yet it comes as no surprise to find some of their colleagues are not so luxuriously rewarded.

Inequality is not unique to football, though this is a fitting example. Many staff are on agency contracts, which apparently absolves the clubs involved from any responsibility, and are generally not paid the living wage, yet the players will earn in excess of a £100,000 a week for playing football (or sitting on the bench, and regardless of whether they play well or not.) Is this the market? Football is a very strange market, yet the value of the wages the players command is drawn from the lack of suitable replacements, yet the wage demands bring clubs to the bankruptcy or the brink of it. The cleaners etc are replaceable, there is an international reserve of labour waiting to take their jobs and the logic of the market is such that their pay and conditions are forced down through various means.

Not many other businesses will operate on these terms, with perhaps the exception of our forever loveable heroes in the financial sector, though they did used to have high revenues and will probably be handed them again after leaning on the state for a few years. Not much of the money these days comes from the fans directly – television, advertising, sales in ‘emerging markets’ etc form an increasing share of the big clubs earnings, yet instead of the owners benefiting from this boom it seems that a select few of the workers have cashed in. Again, we can see an analogy with the gods of finance, shareholders have lost out in the long term whilst the senior bankers and executives continue to be very wealthy.

The reason I bring this up is because it is all so unnecessary, so petty and so blatantly unfair that within one business someone should be earning so much money it puts the whole operation in financial jeopardy whilst others have to take extra jobs to subsist. Sky keep pumping more and more money in, is it actually at a point where a football club can’t shift a grand off a top p-layers weekly wage to ensure 3 or 4 employees who contribute to the running of the club can afford heating? Are the payers that greedy?

As with a football club, it is with the world. There are a lot of money and resources floating about, yet they seem to gravitate towards a small cadre of people, regardless of desert or effort from everyone else. So, why am I even surprised? Because football isn’t the financial sector, it isn’t food production, it isn’t the world economy. It is an association of clubs which belong to the communities and groups which formed them. There is no need for a profit incentive as the club exists for the sake of playing a game, and it should have the basic democratic structure where those that contribute to the club should have a say in its running, like a mutual or co-operative. There should never be poverty wages in premier league clubs where their earnings are so grand, and in smaller clubs people volunteer in order to be part of the club. Low wages are a much wider issue than the scope of this blog, my concern is more that if such blatant injustices have crept so unchallenged into football clubs, what chance do we have changing these problems in wider society.

For a football team, the market creates a basement price for its low wage workers. They, like all low wage employers put their arms in the air and submit to the gods. Regarding their superstars, they operate against the interests of their fans in paying outrageous wages in a market so distorted by the money from free market television companies like Sky and associated advertising, whilst courting the big money corporate sponsors and hospitality sales to further boost their income to cover the costs. Ticket prices go up, the game is more sanitised and dare is say it… boring!!... at the top level than it has ever been, yet those who clean the boardroom are like the rest of us in that their wages don’t go up for 30 years. It is a wonder how much extra effort can be made to accommodate the whims of £180,000 per week Yaya Toure, yet none of this extra finance can be used to reduce ticket prices or pay the living wage to those who work in the ticket office, even though the owner is a non-domicile multi-billionaire. Football has all of society in a few hundred yards, though societies change and so can football.

NEVER FOR MONEY, ALWAYS FOR LOVE

A heartwarming celebration of the game was shown on BBC the other week, in the film 'More Than Just a Game'. It depicts the story of the Makana FA, a football league formed by the political prisoners of Robben island in South Africa, who harassed guards until they were allowed access to equipment and formed a full administrative body for the 2000 prisoners to play. 

The film and book will explain the significance of the league to the inmates much better than I can. Related to the previous post, our munificent leader took his chance to become apolitically involved around the 2010 World Cup, rightly celebrating the league by granting it FIFA status. Like a true politician, he basked in the glow of better men, trying to let the humanity and strength of their example reflect upon the current FIFA executive.

Without wishing to take a negative approach to a positive story (Criticism is positive!), it should be pointed out how shamelessly Blatter appropriates this as an example of all football, rather than a rare and wonderful example of what the game can do. The executive are still relaxed about racial abuse in many footballing countries across the world and indeed award them licensed tournaments, and are reluctant to comment on other nations involved in FIFA who treat people in the way the men on Robben Island were, and in some cases support them. These people have not become part of the political establishment yet, so are not worthy of Blatter's attention.

To a more optimistic point, one which Blatter and others chose not to highlight. The Makana FA helped give bursts of freedom to the imprisoned, and made their lives more bearable. What they also showed was the essence of the game. A league was significant and enjoyable for its members and spectators without corporate sponsorship, without workers dying to build stadiums, without exorbitant salaries and billionaire owners. It was made by the people for the people involved, it was self governed as the people wished to be on a national level. These men managed to get this from apartheid prison wardens, in the UK today people pay someone to make a profit off playing a 6 a side game. I'm sure there are some lessons to be learnt here for our football and political lives, though far be it from me to force my opinions on you as fact. 

THE BLATTER PARADOX

The excellent columnist Marina Hyde brought this to my attention. 

"Football has the power to build a better future,"- Sepp Blatter

 "We are not the ones that can actually change it,(the situation in Qatar)"- Sepp Blatter

Blatter would like to have it both ways. When he wants to convince a government to make the inherent sacrifices involved in hosting a national tournament, he will happily talk up the supposed political benefits. When one of said tournaments happens to be held in a nation where slavery is utilised to create the required stadiums, FIFA and football loose their entire agency in the political world, forced to stand and stare at the unchangeable material conditions foisted upon us like mere peasants. 

There is not a direct inconsistency in Blatter’s statements highlighted. Football can build a better future, and FIFA cannot prevent economic injustice in Qatar. The Blatter paradox (similar the Platini conjecture above) is in trying to hold the two propositions 1) Football has agency as a political economic force   2) Football exists in a separate sphere (or ball) to socioeconomic activity and has no relations (causal or otherwise) to it. 

Blatter can’t end exploitation, nor should he be trying to. If he was the man charged with such a task we would have gotten to a sorry state of affairs. “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but an away tie in Donetsk.” This does not mean he is justified in choosing which side of the paradox he fancies. He does so for convenience, FIFA will use whatever rhetoric they can to gloss over the reality of the costs imposed on World Cup hosts, without acknowledging the reality that for most countries it is a white elephant project which they will happily let some citizens loose out to create.  FIFA are happy to be politicians in this sense. When they are then charged with showing support for somewhat brutal regimes they draw up their very own veil of ignorance between the political world and the world of football. The mistake Blatter makes is a category one, he thinks that the two are not one in the same thing. If he genuinely believes this, and believes both statements, then he is a fool not suitable for his position. If he is being rhetorical as he probably is, then the truth of (2) is negated as he as the leader of the professional football world is actively engaging in political activity (unless he wishes to deny this form or rhetoric is political or that he is not part of the football world).

Beyond this philosophical analysis, there is a tragic darkness. Blatters obfuscation, deliberate or otherwise, between politics and football means that he ends up supporting regimes by proxy and creates a situation in 2022 when rich people will be sitting in purpose built stadia in the desert in a land lacking in a clear football culture supping the offerings of whichever multinational has won the lucrative and monopolistic contract at the cost of the lives of workers in Qatar. Football will have created this, and there is no reason why this should be the case. Football is (sometimes) a source of joy and aspiration for people all over the world, and FIFA’s direct political task is to make sure this is the case as much as possible and exclusively. If Blatter wants to separate politics from football, he should be supporting the magical property which he alludes to in the first quotation - the games ability to transcend the horrors of political and economic reality. Football can show what the best of what humans in unity can be. That is why it was created and why so many people are interested in it. It should be ahead of our normal material conditions, and this politician Blatter should not be allowed to get away with using our game to support those who do not share in its beauty. 

These are academic articles about FIFA and world cups which support some of the above!

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2013.01.pdf

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47113

ROCKIN ALL OVER THE WORLD / UEFA MEMBER STATES

Gibraltar played their first ever UEFA sanctioned game, becoming the newest and smallest member of the association. Amazingly, they played out a 0-0 with Slovakia with a man of the match performance from Danny Higginbotham! The sports news media took to this story like a macaque monkey to the rocky peninsular, comparing them to fellow 'minnows' San Marino, chirping on about how you could fit the whole of Gibraltar's population in a fleet of Mini Metros and drive them to Tbilisi and back for 2 hours of Gareth Bale's wage etc etc.

At some point after hearing this story though, were you asked (or did you ask) "Is Gibraltar a country? All the other people in UEFA are countries, isn't Gibraltar that bit of Spain at the end which we won't give back?"? What follows is a full answer, which you may wish to abridge for your friends (or just don't tell them, keep it bottled up and never let any one know, just accept Gibraltar as it is, its better that way...)

Gibraltar was ceded to Britain in the early 1700's after the Treaties of Utrecht, and despite a few attempts from Phillip V to Franco to regain control, the colony or British Overseas Territory has remained in the state of pseudo sovereignty others like it do. Those who live their are defiantly Gibraltan with a defiantly British language and identity. They have voted in a number of referendums to stay as such. Spain has disputed the validity of Britain's claim since the colony was established, and have recently revived their interest. The UK is keen to keep hold of the tax haven and international gambling center.

Alledgedly apolitical UEFA seem fine with granting the colony equal country status along with the rest of its members. Whilst I do not mind more teams joining in, even if they might struggle to compete, a body which is politically averse should perhaps not be bestowing nationhood on controversial lands, unless of course it is not averse and in fact just willfully ignorant of the political issues it chooses to acknowledge. Granted, it is unlikely to lead to armed conflict  though this story shows how political economic issues permeate even the simplest of football good luck stories.

Gibraltar have some form here too. Ever since 1993, they have been competing in the Island Games. Do not worry if you do not see what scandalous deceit this, they have had the wool over the organisers eyes for 2 decades. At last! They are exposed by this simple map!