Shame on FIFA – Shame on us (?)
Red Card to society
The precious FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) decided to have the World Championships of Football in Qatar. A lot of documentaries have been made and a lot of ink has been spilled on the stadium slavery in Qatar, the hundreds of people that died in the process, and the large-scale corruption that was somehow still allowed in this 21st century.
There was no worldwide boycott, no clear signal that we are not tolerating these malpractices, this indirect genocide. The show must go on, FIFA-steamrollers flattened hundreds of people to make this happen, with the labels of many multinationals shining on their hoods.
This weekend that same organization decided that captains of football teams wearing a rainbow bracelet get a yellow card. FIFA no longer surprises me here. What strikes me and millions of people is that all of a sudden a yellow card in a (with all respect and written with some contradictory feeling as I was born with a football at my feet) stupid game is enough to throw all values we are supposed to stand for overboard.
A yellow card.
National football associations claim that the sportive risk is too big to take. Are they kidding us? They should walk on that pitch with eleven players wearing that bracelet. Referees should wear it. All the instances shouting out loud that we are all equal are now given the choice to stand up, speak up or lose their credibility in any future ethics discussion.
Sponsors, tv-stations, and any other party supporting the national teams should withdraw if their countries decide to take part in this hypocrisy. For their colleagues, their partners, their teammates, their kids, their countrymen, and -women in the LGBTQ community.
If this is ok, none of these organizations should comment on the corruption and credibility of FIFA as they did. If this is ok, they all became part of it (as far as we/they weren’t yet).
This World Cup surfaces many shortcomings of our society. It is holding out a mirror for all of us to look into. I can only hope we take the opportunity FIFA offers us to look at that mirror and act.
If we don’t, we all deserve a red card, and hope for a better world will be the one suspended by us.
Please Lionel wear that rainbow bracelet. Wear it for the LGBTQ-community, wear it for hope.
We Are But Ants 