I hope this world cup was worth it

You're entering LEF levels of conclusion drawing here.

 

Yep now Alex Scott has been caught taking hospitality off the same people she criticized , were app 2 faced at end of the day. We all wear clothes, trainers. Shoes made in sweatshops , way food produced by low paid workers.

 

I know he only said it to suit his own agenda but I do sort of agree with Infantino's point about people going to football to get away from the stresses of everyday life. Watching football is my escape from reality, so to switch on the opening World Cup game and be met with 45 mins of political guff was pretty annoying. First world problems obviously but I do think it's getting a bit ridiculous now.

 

Yep football from day 1 has been an escape from the working life, family issues. Bills, politics etc

 

Fair enough and I agree that it gets tedious to watch, but International football has often collided with politics in the past, it’s difficult for it not to. These clowns have now made it more political than ever by pulling the Russia/Qatar stunt, done not for the good of the game or the competition but solely to enrich themselves and their organisation beyond imagination. They knew what they were doing and did it anyway. It was an inherently political decision. I’m glad it was called out and shown up for what it was, Infantino can’t hide behind ‘but…sport’ because it wasn’t about that. Anyway, USA next, expect lots of carping from the Arabs, Russians, Chinese etc..

 

At least Russia had a footballing history

 

True, and that’s what gave it a veneer of integrity. That history had nothing to do with why Putin wanted to stage it though, eh.

 

Didn't we try to get WC while we were in an illegal war in Iraq?

 

Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout…….

 

So they shouldn't get it but we should?

 

This false equivalence stuff is irrelevant. You could probably find something wrong with every country that has ever bid for anything ever if you wanted to. Doesn’t alter the fact that the decision to award the last two world cups was a political one, not a sporting one. No-one else is to blame for the enormous politicisation of the competition in recent years other than FIFA themselves.

 

I tried to type something out as direct response to this but I've deleted it as we're going around in circles. I believe football changed mainly due to the damage caused by corporations profiteering out of football since the early 90's. Societal change has had an impact on cultures, not just on the terrace culture, and a mix of shit policing and even shitter politics in the 70's and 80's laid the groundwork for this cultural change. Overseas fans and plastics are part of the game now, there is no denying that, however they are a result of the aforementioned factors, not the reason for football being damaged beyond repair. Persisting with mainly blaming overseas fans for the problems with the game is xenophobic, even if you do not intend it to be xenophobic. I really really hope you can take a step back and have a think on it as words do matter. When you post on this issue, as it is when you post you are effectively blaming the likes of me, @Tshabs @Marty_LFC and many other decent human beings who use this site for issues in the game that we have no control over at all.

Finally, my grandad was English. My uncle moved his family back to North London, 3 of my cousins are Arsenal fans and one is a Spurs fan. I could easily use this connection as a valid connection for supporting Tottenham. I'm not going to, I identify as an overseas fan as I started supporting Spurs independently before knowing my cousins were all connected to North London. I've been to one Spurs game, the ticket was a present, I very much enjoyed seeing Spurs beat Leicester 5-4 but the game was at Wembley unfortunately. Aside from 2 or 3 Spurs jerseys I bought when I was younger I don't think I have put any money into Spurs. I'm going to leave it at that and just hope that you can think on how your words here affect real people.

 

It's certainly nothing new but the coverage/involvement of pundits/footballers etc. is far more now than it was in say 1990.

I think it's great how much of a light has been shone on Qatar's human rights abuses and I hope they never get to host a major football tournament again but I'm not sure Alex Scott wearing an armband and trying to string a sentence together about the plight of migrant workers helps anyone. If anything it probably made people mute it until kick-off. I know I did.

As I said, first world problems, but I'd rather they did an hour-long special on the issues before/after the coverage and kept the football side of it purely about football

 

His line of "politics has no place in football" is total bollocks, Qatars bid didn't win because they were the best from a footballing infrastructure perspective. It was a political decision to have it there in the first place.

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Using a platform that uses the escapism of life is precisely why the platform is used. It's supposed to create an apathy and then acceptance.

You can't say football should be free of politics and only focus on the media/fan response. UEFA and FIFA have welcomed politics into the sport, and then fans are told to dismiss it, pundits shouldn't speak out, only focus on the football. Sorry, but the football has become that. The annoying bit is people shrug until something happens that they really don't like.

 

If they had said " ya know what, I am only going for the coins that fall into my wallet " then I would have more respect for them being brutally honest.

That goes for Lineker, Shearer ( does he slag Newcastle off for being taken over by them lovely Saudi's ) Ferdinand and anyone else out there. Just don't think we are thick and stupid by trying to convince us you are modern day Nelson Mandela's righting the wrongs of a country.

 

Except two natural deaths are not associated with a Qatari Word Cup drenched in the blood of migrant labor because they are natural deaths which would've likely happened even if, like, it were Costa Rica who were hosting an entirely carbon positive and openly and decidedly pro-human rights/working class World Cup. Their deaths did not happen because of how Qataris treated them, as far as we know, so Its entirely spin to try and associate their tragic deaths with the forced deaths of migrants. Doing so adds nothing to the argument/point that we do both agree on. Which sucks because we're already fighting an uphill battle because, even though I liked seeing an African team make the semi-finals for the first time, I'm a bit miffed because unfortunately for you and me, the unpredictable results this World Cup produced was enough entertainment for the average person to ignore the migrants death and sportswashing.

I know and I feel the same way about you which is why I never really firmly push back when you criticize foreign fans. I wouldn't hesitate for a moment if it were someone like Zippy for instance. Because any pushing back will only likely end in tears (which I do not want) since - your issue is effectively with my existence, so I am understandably not going to back down, while you are firmly entrenched in your position in taking issue with my existence. And I agree with you that the amount of money pumped into the Premier League especially but also La Liga doesn't help global football but framing foreign fans for it and being hostile towards them isn't going to change anything. That's just tilting at windmills and tilting at windmills not in the manner of Cervantes, but more the manner of the Inquisition, which is bound to create negativity and pushback from people who in all likelihood agree with you on probably everything else apart from you taking issue with their existence because of their origins, ie something they cannot control (which is a clear cut case of xenophobia. I'm sorry, but this is dictionary definition stuff, especially since you outright refuse to accept them no matter how sincere or genuine their support for/knowledge of a club purely because of their origin, which is textbook xenophobia).

I'll happily expand on the reasons why your framing of foreign fans is tilting at windmills when I have more time, but the basic reasons are a) as @Guyett pointed out social/economic/political trends over the last 40 years, which fans regardless of their origins have Infinitesimal, if at all any, control over. Trends that have not only decimated English working class people but trends that have decimated working class people all over the world, which is to say that you and the foreign fans you despise are in the same boat in the bigger picture. And historical and linguistic factors which no fans have any control over whatsoever; b) an unrealistic expectation/dismissal of actual human nature and human social behavior; and c) and on a semi-related note, an incredibly unrealistic belief that you wouldn't have foreign fans even if all leagues were equal, especially given today's communication tech.

 

After reading the last few pages here I only wanted to say that I fully understand why e.g @Guyett and @Tshabs don't let Frannie get away with this here.
Although I'm not one of the mentioned "plastic foreign fans" because I don't support an english club and only watch the matches of my hometown club live in the stadium, I understand their feelings.

If it is "allowed" I want to remark that I'm always grateful for any foreign fans who come from abroad to watch matches in the Bundesliga. It's always a pleasure to see the usual Rangers fans at HSV matches in the Volkspark or Americans who are in Hamburg and want to see a match of my club or the "legions" of Japanese tourists with their cameras in the stands at a match. I never felt they would ruin it for the German fans of the clubs.