Opinion – Rodrigo Tavares: Should we boycott the World Cup?

Perhaps the best antidote to the post-election Bolsonarist boasting is the World Cup.

The opening game is scheduled for November 20, a few weeks after the election. The green-yellow shirts that symbolize an ideology will be diluted in the sea of ​​fans of the Brazilian team.

But the question that many, legitimately, will ask is: should we boycott the Cup? Never has a world cup been so targeted by environmentalists and human rights defenders.

Qatar is an authoritarian feudal regime, ruled by a tribal family that enforces a social system that violates the dignity of poor women and immigrants (kafala system). There are numerous suspicions of corruption in the award of the Cup to the country.

An official FIFA report concluded that, in order to win the election, the country reached the limits of the rules of conduct. To build the stadiums and all the supporting infrastructure, immigrants were subjected to a slave regime with long hours of poorly paid work and under desert temperatures, suitable for hyperthermophiles, but not for human beings. Thousands died. The Guardian estimated there were 6,500 people, but Qatar’s public records for this category of worker (mostly immigrants from South Asia) are as poor as the number of Covid deaths in China or North Korea.

The ambitions of the local authorities for the stadiums to be ecological and for the World Cup to be the first “net zero” (carbon neutrality) in history will only be achievable with makeup in the accounting of emissions.

But what does it mean to boycott the Cup? When we think about the 1978 World Cup, we remember the historic games against arch-rivals Argentina (0-0) and against Italy (Brazil won by 2-1, taking 3rd place). But the event was held in Argentina, in the midst of the military dictatorship. Near the Monumental stadium, stage of the final, victims of the dictatorship were tortured at the Escola Mecânica da Armada. Our memory is selective.

The last World Cup, 2018, was played in Russia, just a few years after Putin crushed the 2013-2014 pro-democracy protests in Ukraine and invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. Russia was as autocratic in 2018 as it is. today. Why don’t we boycott?

Qatar ranks an embarrassing 114th (out of 167 countries) in The Economist’s Democracy Index 2021. But Egypt is 132nd on the same list. Are we going to boycott COP27 to be held in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh in November this year? And are we going to stop following Paris Saint-Germain because it was bought by Qatar Sports Investments, an investment fund linked to the Qatari government? It is easy to be ethical, but it is very difficult to be without inconsistencies.

A boycott also presupposes an ethical determinism that is always based on criteria that derive from personal regulations and, therefore, are difficult to universalize. Morality and virtue –the distinction of right and wrong– is contingent on individual subjective experiences and specific cultural and religious codes.

But should we, therefore, use the difficulty of being consistent as a subterfuge to avoid feeling guilty every time we turn on the TV to watch a game? Or the partiality of ethics?

I believe that there is still room for indignation. If most contemporary players are silent in the face of the ethical deficiencies of the world, preferring to sign contracts that oblige them to smile eternally, Brazilian football has a tradition of contestation.

Socrates was a democratic icon, defended social causes and maintained a voice against the dictatorship. Paulo André was one of the protagonists of the Bom Senso FC movement, which demanded better conditions in Brazilian football. Richarlison, currently at Tottenham, took a stand against the bushfires in the Pantanal and criticized unscientific practices in the fight against the pandemic. Football is not destined to be monomaniacal.

In Qatar, the Brazilian Football Confederation should allow players to express their indignation if they wish. Inside stadiums, FIFA censorship will be ubiquitous. But outside of them, nothing should stop the players, or the CBF, from paying tribute to all the dead workers or expressing their support for the sacredness of democracy, as they usually do against racism. Why can’t part of the gaming prizes be channeled to NGOs that support migrant workers, victims’ families, or environmental causes?

It is of course possible that some of these actions are public relations tactics. But they will be useful. They will serve to remind us that there were those who gave their lives for the World Cup party. And that the stars are not just those who score goals.