The 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be prevented: we are all involved

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The horror scenario is about to come true. The 2034 FIFA World Cup will likely be held in Saudi Arabia. What will happen now, in quick succession. We are very upset about this. Fair enough. We condemn the human rights violations that occur there. Fair enough. We complain that football is being used to cleanse the sport. Fair enough. We watch documentary after documentary on the depths of football and just shake our heads. Fair enough.

And then, eleven years later, we will sit comfortably in front of the TV and watch the work of Saudi Gaudi. Maybe with a bad feeling and certain moral concerns, but we still won’t miss the pleasure of the World Cup.

Why not Aarau?

We have seen all of these mechanisms many times in recent years. Be it the presentation of the World Cup to Qatar. Be it the hype of the next World Cup final, the European Championship, the Club World Cup, the Champions League and the introduction of the Nations League.

Our reflex is always the same: there is the evil FIFA with its cunning president Gianni Infantino, and here we are, the poor benefactors/football fans.

Yes, this reflex is not wrong, but it is also incorrect. We are all complicit. Our excuse “They’re out there doing what they want anyway” is not enough. This is how we cowardly shirk our responsibility.

We all prefer to watch the Manchester derby on TV rather than the Challenge League game between the friendly Taners and the friendly Arauers. We would all rather go to Germany and attend a Bundesliga match than watch an amateur match in the next village. We all help finance the excesses of modern football and are therefore part of this commercialization.

Cool, money!

A typical example is Newcastle United. In the Premier League they languished in midfield. Until the Saudi sovereign wealth fund took over the club in 2021. The reaction of us football romantics to this is: indignation! Scandal! How can you! But most home fans saw it differently. Cool, money! Now we are the ones again. A plan that has worked so far. For the first time in 20 years, Newcastle are back in the Champions League, playing some exciting football. With the support of Saudi Arabia.

Naive thinking game. What if Newcastle fans boycott their club from then on? First one, then ten, then a hundred, then a thousand, then ten thousand. What if no one else buys the jersey? If the stadium was always empty during home games?

Applied to football in general, this would mean: what if the TV ratings for the World Cup in Qatar were terrible because we didn’t watch it? What if stadiums are regularly half-empty during Champions League games because we don’t want to support it? What if fewer and fewer fans buy expensive sports subscriptions because we’re no longer willing to spend a lot of money on them?

All of this will damage world football in the long term. Because one thing we have learned in recent years is that reinvention can only happen when money is involved. Moral objections are useless. We are all complicit. Naive thought: game over.

Joke about humility

And one more thing: anyone who thinks that at some point everything will automatically return to a healthy level is mistaken. What was it called again at the beginning of the Corona period, when suddenly the football world was on the brink? Now is the time to think. In the future, these excesses will no longer exist. The days of record transfer fees are over. Football will be modest.

This is all nonsense, because since then we have all continued to play this game. The sad conclusion of this story is that we are all complicit. The beautiful takeaway from this story is that we can all make a difference. It’s up to us.

Source: Blick