The upcoming World Cup, which begins in Qatar later this month, is easily one of the most controversial in the tournament’s 92-year history. And it hasn’t even started yet.
Awarding the prestigious tournament to the tiny Gulf state, one with no history or pedigree in world football, smelled of corruption. The use of migrant workers across the country to build the World Cup infrastructure –who died in theirs thousands– is shameful. Qatar has not been able to guarantee the safety of LGBTQ fans traveling to the country (it is In Qatar it is illegal for men to be gay), and the government has already done so warned travelers—sports fans– about trying to get alcohol across the border. Plans to force visitors to install an app on their phones—ostensibly for Covid-19 reasons, but who could also be tracking their movements and phone usage at any time-was just fell last week after widespread international opposition.
While the anticipation for the tournament itself is as great as ever – you could host it on the moon and fans from the 32 participating nations would still be glued to their seats – the anticipation for the World Cup is as one eventwhich fans travel all over the world to be there and celebrate is not even on the same stage as other World Cups in Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the USA, South Africa or Brazil.
Earlier this year, a speech by the Norwegian football boss at the annual FIFA congress said decision to award competition to Qatar was ‘unacceptable’while The union of global players FIFPRO has also published a letter criticizing Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers.
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In France, the largest support group of the national team to say “Their traveling party would be only one-sixth their size in Russia.” Where 5000 Dutch fans traveled to Russia in 2018 –itself a massively controversial tournament!—only 3000 go to Qatar. While the cost of living crisis in Europe and ongoing Covid concerns also contribute, Qatar’s human rights record, visitor restrictions and security concerns have also been cited by fans as reasons why they will stay home.
The Danish team will wear kits expressly designed in protest against the Qatari government (and the maker of those kits, Hummel, will boycott the tournament entirely), while Australia – citing reports from Amnesty and others –also posted a video critical of the situation of migrant workers.
All of this could explain why The Qatar government has started paying for some fans’ tickets and flights in exchange for positive coverage of the event. Although you have to wonder why they would bother when international video game publishers can do so much of it sportswear
EA Sports is close to releasing an official Worlds mode for its flagship sports series FIFA 23and while the download itself looks fantastic – you can play the entire tournament, recreate games based on their matchday squads, and recreate history by turning on teams that didn’t actually qualify – there’s a big segment in the middle , which is (unsurprisingly) out of .
It’s all about the “Matchday Experience,” a segment I’ve set up to autoplay below. Think of everything I just said as you watch these digital fans merrily mingling and partying on the streets:
Ah, what a great time everyone (not quite!) has in these wonderful new stadiums (built by thousands of dead slave laborers!) at such a prestigious tournament (awarded under some of the most corrupt circumstances in sports history!). None of this comes as a surprise, of course, but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. Will some fans still travel to Qatar and have fun? Of course! Is it expected that a AAA video game publisher that relies on an official license would do this? Absolutely! Does it still taste good? Sure it does!