It’s Theo’s birthday soon. He will be ten years old. After the last two birthday parties were canceled due to Corona, this year will be celebrated properly again. With ten boys we go to the soccer hall. First play for an hour and a half, then eat pizza. He made the invitations over the weekend. Each guest gets an individually designed one. Theo has sacrificed a few of his beloved football trading cards for this. Each guest gets an invitation card with a player stuck on it. “Felix likes to play in the middle, Kimmich gets him. Mbappé is for Miguel, who is fast and always fumbles. And Peter, the old Bayern fan, gets Müller,” is how Theo justified his choice.
And so it is that we will soon be celebrating Theo’s birthday with a football world selection. Kick and eat pizza and parrot cake afterwards. The boy can’t imagine anything nicer. Of course he’s interested in the World Cup. The schedule hangs in his room, and every morning he checks “kicker” to see what’s new in the world of football. He plays football in the club. Sometimes he is already looking forward to breakfast in the morning: “Today is finally training again. Dad, I have to show you a new trick later.”
The World Cup in Qatar is incredibly justifiably criticized for so many reasons. We all know the things that are in trouble in the small country in the desert: human rights, support for terrorists, discrimination against minorities, lack of equality, corruption, energy policy. According to a survey, more than half of Germans do not want to watch the World Cup games for this reason. First of all impressive numbers. A good six million people saw the opening game in Germany, four and a half years ago in Russia it was more than ten million.
I do it like always. Despite all the grievances, I will watch as many World Cup games as possible. I’ve been doing this since I was eight years old. Since the 1982 World Cup in Spain. Since then there hasn’t been an argument between my father and me at home whether we watch the sports show or Sesame Street on Saturdays. I’ve been a football fan since the 1982 World Cup: scandalous game, bicycle kick, penalty shoot-out, defeat in the final. i love sports I’ve also been a sports reporter for over twenty years and that’s why I watch the world championships.
Now I have a son who loves football like me. As I always wanted, honestly. Who plays in the club and whose coach I am. Footballer posters, Haaland and Sané hang in Theo’s room. He has a small goal and a foam ball. With it he plays his own world championships for hours, which he documents on a piece of paper. For Theo there is nothing better than watching the sports show with his father on Saturday evenings. He even keeps me a seat, although no one is looking except us anyway.
Theo is in fifth grade at a high school. He is interested in what is happening in the world. Of course we talked about the fact that Qatar is located on the largest natural gas field in the world and the Qataris therefore have a lot of money without most likely not having won the World Cup. Money that they used to build huge stadiums that nobody will need after the World Cup.
We talked about the fact that many workers died building the stadiums, that these construction workers came from poorer countries. Many from Nepal, where Mount Everest is, but no gas. That these people came to Qatar to earn money for their families.
Theo learned that the Qataris, although they are rich, paid the workers little money, earning much less than construction workers in Germany. And that they worked under conditions in which no one in Germany would work voluntarily and that many workers died on the construction sites in the heat of the desert. Theo wanted to know why nobody is doing anything about it. I explained to him that half the world knows that. The world football association, FIFA, does nothing about it because it earns so much money with this World Cup.
Theo and I spoke a few times about host Qatar, including again before I wrote this text. What is happening in Qatar was also a topic at school and with his football team. He thought it was crazy that in Germany energy had to be saved, gymnasiums were colder than usual, while in Qatar the air conditioning was running in the stadiums, without which nobody could play football in the heat.
Sunday we watched the opening game between Ecuador and Qatar. It was more of a boring kick, but then the Emir of Qatar faded in. “Is that the man who let the construction workers die?” asked Theo. “Well, this is the man who brought the World Cup to his country.” Next to him sat a bald man in a suit and smiled, Fifa President Gianni Infantino.
Infantino didn’t smile on Saturday. At a press conference, he lashed out at a general slap against democratic Europe. Against the countries that keep criticizing the things to criticize in Qatar. In addition, Infantino spoke of double standards and history. It was embarrassing, but he added to it by saying: “Today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arab, today I feel African. Today I feel homosexual. Today I feel handicapped. Today I feel like a migrant worker”.
In a single sentence, the man mocks all the minorities in the world. A man who, when he’s not “feeling” like something he’s not, heads the world’s richest and most ruthless sports federation, who’s been embroiled in corruption scandals and awarded a soccer World Cup to the desert. Infantino himself has been living in Qatar with his family for a few months. He has secured his power by being on good terms with despots and tyrants who flout the rights of the people in their countries, which Infantino “felt” to be in his speech.
His re-election as Fifa President next year is considered certain. He has four of the six continental football associations behind him, only Europe (UEFA) and South America (COMEBOL) are skeptical. There is no opponent because no one dares to compete against the Swiss. On Monday, he suddenly couldn’t remember anything that he had “felt” on Saturday. Probably under pressure from Qatar, Fifa threatened penalties if the captains of European teams showed up with the “One Love” bandages, with which they wanted to make a statement for sexual equality and freedom of expression. The pads stay in the closet now.
All these machinations, these connections are difficult to convey to a ten-year-old. But all of them are good reasons to boycott this World Cup, to give this broken football system the cold shoulder, to turn off the television. But anyway, my son and I will watch it. Because it works, because it takes place, because football is still a wonderful game that can enchant, despite the world championships and fans that have been bought and glossy stadiums that are covered with blood.
Some might consider this attitude selfish or ignorant. The question is can we block out all the bad stuff, can it work for me to really watch this World Cup with a clear conscience? Yes, it works because I made it clear to myself and my son that the circumstances of how this World Cup came about are scandalous. For kids, soccer is all about soccer. For nothing more.