Thursday, January 9All That Matters

German football team covers their mouths at their first game in Qatar

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German football team covers their mouths at their first game in Qatar

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30 Comments

  • The main effect of this world cup seems to have been to shine a light on a what a disgrace qatar and fifa are.

    I hope this was their goal.

    Edit: some interesting comments to something I thought was a fairly innocuous observation and pun. Since this comment blew up I’ll use it as an opportunity to address a lot of the pushback I’m getting in the comments.

    First, to people defending Qatar. This is country that guarantees almost no human rights by law. Thats why it murdered 1000s of its hundreds of thousands of slaves building stadiums for a football tournament where its national team will likely be embarrassed 3 times before quietly disappearing from the world cup for the rest of our lives. And the fact that these deaths even occurred was only discovered by foreign press.

    Second, people like comparing it to brazil (though they are strangely silent on russia who hosted more recently and had comparable controversy? 🤔). Women have rights in Brazil. Gay people have rights in Brazil. Freedom of speech and the press is a right in Brazil. None of this is true in Qatar. Plus probably hundreds of other massive discrepencies between the way each country treats its people.

    Is Brazil perfect? No. Is its government hampered by significant corruption? Yes. But its controversies in 2014 were in part about its own people’s criticism of their country wasting resources hosting a football tournament. Its own people protested the death of 8 people who died building the stadium. That speaks to Brazil’s people’s strength. Their willingness to stand up to corruption in their ranks. And the value they place on human life and the role of government in preserving human life. And the Brazilian people’s willingness to fight to preserve and exercise their own rights to freedom of speech and the press. if nothing else these things should be commended about the people of Brazil.

    Finally, the whataboutism is gross. I’m american and I’ll be the first to say my government is far from perfect. No country is. But to handwave away slavery that resulted in thousands of deaths is gross. Its the fallacy of appealing to hypocrisy and an attempt to derail discussion about serious issues.

  • Everyone is talking shit about FIFA but they’re still watching the games, companies are still sponsoring them, and countries are still desperate to host the tournament. European players were going to wear rainbow bands in support of the LGBTQ community, but the moment there was pushback and consequences they abandoned it.

  • I have a serious question – I don’t mean to downplay what these (and other) players are doing, but why would FIFA care about this? Thousands of migrant workers were enslaved to build these stadiums and thousands died, and the entire world still participated by sending their athletes despite all their “moral objections”. FIFA is still going to get there advertising money, so how does doing any of these small gestures actually help? Unless you hit them where it hurts (their wallet), I don’t see FIFA changing their ways. Why would they? We can all feel morally superior by wearing rainbow armbands and saying how awful modern slavery is, but in the end did it change anything?

  • It’s not even about homophobia at this point. Right after the world cup is over, FIFA will start campaigning on how lgbt friendly they are, how love has no boundaries and act like they didnt bend over backwards for cold hard arabic cash.

    As for migrant workers, it’s not even anything new, Qatar has been doing that even before the world cup and will continue doing it after it’s over. People shed crocodile tears, cry about the inequality yet they line up to watch the games. All of this will fade into obscurity again in a few months. No one will care about any of that because that’s the way people are.

    That “silent protest” with covering their mouths is also total BS, a show if you will. They could’ve pulled out of the tournament, together with the rest of the european teams and boycott the event. Let FIFA and Qatar enjoy their disaster and pick up the fallout and live with the legacy of a failed world cup. That would send a message, but money run the world and not a single team has the courage to do that, so they just “pretend” to protest.

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