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Police control a World Cup protest in Sao Paulo on June 23 (Credit: Ben Tavener/cc/flickr)
Soccer (or football, as the rest of the world refers to it) is the most popular sport globally. But can you love the game while hating the World Cup?
The 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil has attracted record numbers of American viewers, with reports of 23 million people having tuned in to a single match between the U.S. and Portugal alone. Worldwide, the numbers are expected to be even more staggering over the course of the entire tournament, given that half the planet tuned in to the last World Cup in 2010.
Still, I refuse to watch, and here's why:
1. It is a corporate feeding frenzy.
It is precisely because of the lucrative access to billions of eyeballs that the World Cup has evolved into a glorified delivery system of advertising from some of the world's biggest corporations such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Budweiser, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Adidas, Marriott and Johnson & Johnson. FIFA (The Federation Internationale de Football Association), the main governing body that organizes the World Cup, has come under intense scrutiny for its controversial, high-stakes approach to the multibillion-dollar business of soccer. This year's World Cup is expected to generate a whopping $4 billion in revenue, with the majority coming from marketing and TV rights. That is 66 percent more than the last World Cup.
Advertisers are frothing at the mouth over the World Cup having "the power to be the most talked about subject in social media, ever," according to a Johnson & Johnson representative. As one Coca-Cola executive told The New York Times, plans for advertising began three years ago, because of "the opportunity it offers" in that "the World Cup is the world's biggest sporting event." Coke is attempting to equate its sugary, diabetes-inducing drink with soccer, because apparently, "Coke is everyone's drink, and football is everyone's sport."
Even the players themselves are living, breathing vehicles for delivering advertisements, with one sports magazine ranking Brazilian player Neymar, as the most "marketable" athelete in the world. Marriott has signed deals with players Omar Gonzalez and Alexi Lalas, branding them as "Defenders of Travel."
2. It is ridiculously expensive, has worsened poverty, fostered mass displacement and resulted in the deaths of workers.
Like most other major international sporting events, the World Cup comes with a set of financial infrastructure demands that displace people and turn government priorities upside down, all in the service of the international Sports Industrial Complex.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in host Brazil, where protests in the run-up to the games had "become an almost daily occurrence," The Guardian reported last June when more than a million Brazilians demonstrated in 80 cities. A massive subway strike in the metropolis of Sao Paolo threatened to bring all transportation to a standstill. The Guardian added: "Many protesters are furious that the government is spending 31bn reals [more than $15 billion USD] to set the stage for a one-time global tournament, while it has failed to address everyday problems closer to home."
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of poor Brazilians have been driven out of their homes in the favelas in the name of the World Cup. And a total of nine workers have died in Brazil over the course of the stadium-building frenzy to satisfy FIFA's conditions.
Meanwhile, plans are underway for the 2022 World Cup tournament, which is to be held in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar. Qatar's construction labor force consists of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from primarily South Asian countries. Given how many hundreds of workers routinely die each year while laboring on construction sites in Qatar, one investigation estimates that 4,000 workers may die from FIFA stadium construction alone. Fittingly, The Nation magazine's Dave Zirin, in a new book and in ongoing reports on the 2014 World Cup, has maintained that the World Cup has turned into "a tool for neoliberal plunder."
Fans of the game say it is possible to be critical of FIFA while loving the World Cup matches, but that is analogous to claiming one is a fan of the circus while heaping hate on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. It is the very fan base of this single tournament that keeps the pressure on to make the World Cup such a parasitic institution, and watching the games legitimizes the institution, not just the sport.
3. It is nationalist, and by extension, racist.
Like most high-profile international sporting events, the World Cup relies on fans identifying with their nations, many literally painting their faces the colors of their respective flags. As a child, the favorite sport of my family and friends was cricket, and that sport's major tournaments are tainted by a similarly nationalist fervor. Friends from different countries whose teams played one another, such as India and Pakistan, would routinely undermine their friendships in favor of nationalist rivalries when the matches began. I hated seeing that animosity in the context of cricket, and it is no less disgusting to watch this year's World Cup generate similar feuds.
True, in some cases, nationalist pride can help a country overcome internal political issues as last year's Afghan soccer team showed. But since when is a soccer team's unity a good enough substitute for real peace in a nation where decades of war has destroyed institutions, fostered grinding poverty and created a nexus for violence?
Nationalist tendencies among soccer fans are also on display when historical political relations are challenged on the field. Foreign Policy points out how "international football has few features more defining than the grudge match: that contest where the opponents brought together have a particularly seething historical enmity." While it is certainly satisfying to see the team of a former colony beat its onetime colonial master on a soccer field, a World Cup match is simply not a good enough substitute for real justice.
Nationalism is based on the premise that one's country is superior to others'--a sentiment consistent with racism. It should come as no surprise then, that the nationalist fervor of the World Cup has brought out the racists in full force, as seen at Russia's match against South Korea and Croatia's game against Brazil. During both those contests, neo-Nazis in the crowd displayed fascist symbols on their banners. Two Argentine soccer fans were reportedly arrested for taunting Brazilian players as "little monkeys." And perhaps most egregious of all are the instances of German fans wearing blackface to mimic Ghanaian players at a match between the two countries. In all these examples, it has been the fans who were responsible rather than FIFA, which claims it has a zero-tolerance policy on racism.
4. It is a celebration of manhood. By extension, it generates sexism and homophobia.
It is an obvious fact but worth stating anyway. Billions of women, men and children around the world are watching a total of 736 men (32 teams of 23 players each) kick a ball around a field. Yes, Women's World Cup soccer is popular too, but not nearly as popular as men's. In fact, note that the men's team grabs the default name of "World Cup," while the women's version of the same sport is qualified by their gender.
One female journalist writing in The Guardian newspaper said, "Men's football is loved ... simply because the players are men, and men like watching other men play football, and what men like to do and like to watch is, de facto, culturally important. Even the fact the men's World Cup is not explicitly stated to be a men's competition erases women."
Women comprise only three out of 28 members on FIFA's executive committee, and one survey of women working in the world of soccer found a whopping two-thirds of respondents said they had experienced gender discrimination in the workplace.
As a result of the sport being almost exclusively the domain of men, it often generates patriarchal and sexist fervor. World Cup advertising tends to target mostly men by playing up sexist stereotypes. Some of the advertising seen during this year's World Cup includes, The Independent notes, a "rash of regressive marketing campaigns, apparently from the imagination of 1950s ad men," "a talking beach towel that leers at women in skimpy bikinis" and women who are "generally cast as either nags or window dressing."
It should come as no surprise that World Cup soccer fever also encourages Internet memes like this Twitter image of "Rules for Women During the World Cup" that includes the decree, "You are welcome to watch the game with me as long as you are SILENT." One study of three of the past World Cup tournaments found that incidents of domestic violence significantly spiked during the tournament, especially when male fans' favorite teams lost. Suzanne Martin, a lecturer at the University of London, wrote, "there must be a particularly base version of masculinity that's espoused in the football experience. Football provides a context in which gang culture dominates and women are viewed as trophies and commodities."
In fact, World Cup camera operators constantly hunt the crowds at games to profile attractive female fans, as this sports blog describes: "The camera operators of the 2014 FIFA World Cup have two jobs: Document the soccer tournament for the benefit of fans all over the world, and pick out attractive women in the stands--because sports are entertaining enough, but it doesn't hurt to throw in a little cheesecake from time to time."
Hand in hand with the testosterone-laden culture of the World Cup is homophobia, as evidenced most dramatically in a recent match between Mexico and Cameroon when Mexican fans chanted the derogatory homophobic word "puta" against the Cameroon team. The use of the word was defended by the Mexican team's coach as "not that bad" and a term that should be accepted because "it's something [fans] do to pressure the opposing goalkeeper."
5. It is a distraction from things that actually matter.
Workplaces, coffeehouses, restaurants, bars and even doctors' offices are tuned in to World Cup soccer matches these days. At my own workplace, staff members shout and yell up and down the hallways during games. At my local coffeehouse, the TV is permanently set to ESPN while customers stare up at the screen and pound their fists into the air during near hits and misses. My Facebook feeds are dominated by capitalized exclamations of the latest breathtaking goals.
Meanwhile, in the past week alone, Iraq is spiraling out of control. Israel has launched airstrikes on Syria. Nigeria's government has given up the search for hundreds of kidnapped girls. Afghanistan's elections are wracked by fraud. Thousands of undocumented children from Central American countries are being housed in horrendous conditions in the U.S. Three people were executed in Georgia, Missouri and Florida within 24 hours. Thousands of residents in Detroit have had their water supplies cut off.
But most Americans, like people the world over, are fixated on the World Cup. That is not to say they would be mulling social injustice were it not for the tournament. However, the games offer a soothing salve in which the worst thing that can happen is that your favorite team loses. Ultimately the World Cup is nothing more than a commercial extravaganza infused with elevated levels of nationalism, racism, and misogyny, and honestly acknowledging that puts the spectacle into a much-needed perspective.
So I refuse to watch the World Cup. Some of the reasons I list here are similar to why I refuse to also watch the Olympics, Super Bowl or any one of the world's moneyed high-profile sporting events. Based on the responses I have gotten from friends who are avid World Cup fans, I expect this list will generate howls of anger and vociferous defenses of the tournament. What I don't expect is for soccer mania to wane anytime soon. The lure is just too strong, the emotional stakes too high.
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Soccer (or football, as the rest of the world refers to it) is the most popular sport globally. But can you love the game while hating the World Cup?
The 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil has attracted record numbers of American viewers, with reports of 23 million people having tuned in to a single match between the U.S. and Portugal alone. Worldwide, the numbers are expected to be even more staggering over the course of the entire tournament, given that half the planet tuned in to the last World Cup in 2010.
Still, I refuse to watch, and here's why:
1. It is a corporate feeding frenzy.
It is precisely because of the lucrative access to billions of eyeballs that the World Cup has evolved into a glorified delivery system of advertising from some of the world's biggest corporations such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Budweiser, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Adidas, Marriott and Johnson & Johnson. FIFA (The Federation Internationale de Football Association), the main governing body that organizes the World Cup, has come under intense scrutiny for its controversial, high-stakes approach to the multibillion-dollar business of soccer. This year's World Cup is expected to generate a whopping $4 billion in revenue, with the majority coming from marketing and TV rights. That is 66 percent more than the last World Cup.
Advertisers are frothing at the mouth over the World Cup having "the power to be the most talked about subject in social media, ever," according to a Johnson & Johnson representative. As one Coca-Cola executive told The New York Times, plans for advertising began three years ago, because of "the opportunity it offers" in that "the World Cup is the world's biggest sporting event." Coke is attempting to equate its sugary, diabetes-inducing drink with soccer, because apparently, "Coke is everyone's drink, and football is everyone's sport."
Even the players themselves are living, breathing vehicles for delivering advertisements, with one sports magazine ranking Brazilian player Neymar, as the most "marketable" athelete in the world. Marriott has signed deals with players Omar Gonzalez and Alexi Lalas, branding them as "Defenders of Travel."
2. It is ridiculously expensive, has worsened poverty, fostered mass displacement and resulted in the deaths of workers.
Like most other major international sporting events, the World Cup comes with a set of financial infrastructure demands that displace people and turn government priorities upside down, all in the service of the international Sports Industrial Complex.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in host Brazil, where protests in the run-up to the games had "become an almost daily occurrence," The Guardian reported last June when more than a million Brazilians demonstrated in 80 cities. A massive subway strike in the metropolis of Sao Paolo threatened to bring all transportation to a standstill. The Guardian added: "Many protesters are furious that the government is spending 31bn reals [more than $15 billion USD] to set the stage for a one-time global tournament, while it has failed to address everyday problems closer to home."
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of poor Brazilians have been driven out of their homes in the favelas in the name of the World Cup. And a total of nine workers have died in Brazil over the course of the stadium-building frenzy to satisfy FIFA's conditions.
Meanwhile, plans are underway for the 2022 World Cup tournament, which is to be held in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar. Qatar's construction labor force consists of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from primarily South Asian countries. Given how many hundreds of workers routinely die each year while laboring on construction sites in Qatar, one investigation estimates that 4,000 workers may die from FIFA stadium construction alone. Fittingly, The Nation magazine's Dave Zirin, in a new book and in ongoing reports on the 2014 World Cup, has maintained that the World Cup has turned into "a tool for neoliberal plunder."
Fans of the game say it is possible to be critical of FIFA while loving the World Cup matches, but that is analogous to claiming one is a fan of the circus while heaping hate on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. It is the very fan base of this single tournament that keeps the pressure on to make the World Cup such a parasitic institution, and watching the games legitimizes the institution, not just the sport.
3. It is nationalist, and by extension, racist.
Like most high-profile international sporting events, the World Cup relies on fans identifying with their nations, many literally painting their faces the colors of their respective flags. As a child, the favorite sport of my family and friends was cricket, and that sport's major tournaments are tainted by a similarly nationalist fervor. Friends from different countries whose teams played one another, such as India and Pakistan, would routinely undermine their friendships in favor of nationalist rivalries when the matches began. I hated seeing that animosity in the context of cricket, and it is no less disgusting to watch this year's World Cup generate similar feuds.
True, in some cases, nationalist pride can help a country overcome internal political issues as last year's Afghan soccer team showed. But since when is a soccer team's unity a good enough substitute for real peace in a nation where decades of war has destroyed institutions, fostered grinding poverty and created a nexus for violence?
Nationalist tendencies among soccer fans are also on display when historical political relations are challenged on the field. Foreign Policy points out how "international football has few features more defining than the grudge match: that contest where the opponents brought together have a particularly seething historical enmity." While it is certainly satisfying to see the team of a former colony beat its onetime colonial master on a soccer field, a World Cup match is simply not a good enough substitute for real justice.
Nationalism is based on the premise that one's country is superior to others'--a sentiment consistent with racism. It should come as no surprise then, that the nationalist fervor of the World Cup has brought out the racists in full force, as seen at Russia's match against South Korea and Croatia's game against Brazil. During both those contests, neo-Nazis in the crowd displayed fascist symbols on their banners. Two Argentine soccer fans were reportedly arrested for taunting Brazilian players as "little monkeys." And perhaps most egregious of all are the instances of German fans wearing blackface to mimic Ghanaian players at a match between the two countries. In all these examples, it has been the fans who were responsible rather than FIFA, which claims it has a zero-tolerance policy on racism.
4. It is a celebration of manhood. By extension, it generates sexism and homophobia.
It is an obvious fact but worth stating anyway. Billions of women, men and children around the world are watching a total of 736 men (32 teams of 23 players each) kick a ball around a field. Yes, Women's World Cup soccer is popular too, but not nearly as popular as men's. In fact, note that the men's team grabs the default name of "World Cup," while the women's version of the same sport is qualified by their gender.
One female journalist writing in The Guardian newspaper said, "Men's football is loved ... simply because the players are men, and men like watching other men play football, and what men like to do and like to watch is, de facto, culturally important. Even the fact the men's World Cup is not explicitly stated to be a men's competition erases women."
Women comprise only three out of 28 members on FIFA's executive committee, and one survey of women working in the world of soccer found a whopping two-thirds of respondents said they had experienced gender discrimination in the workplace.
As a result of the sport being almost exclusively the domain of men, it often generates patriarchal and sexist fervor. World Cup advertising tends to target mostly men by playing up sexist stereotypes. Some of the advertising seen during this year's World Cup includes, The Independent notes, a "rash of regressive marketing campaigns, apparently from the imagination of 1950s ad men," "a talking beach towel that leers at women in skimpy bikinis" and women who are "generally cast as either nags or window dressing."
It should come as no surprise that World Cup soccer fever also encourages Internet memes like this Twitter image of "Rules for Women During the World Cup" that includes the decree, "You are welcome to watch the game with me as long as you are SILENT." One study of three of the past World Cup tournaments found that incidents of domestic violence significantly spiked during the tournament, especially when male fans' favorite teams lost. Suzanne Martin, a lecturer at the University of London, wrote, "there must be a particularly base version of masculinity that's espoused in the football experience. Football provides a context in which gang culture dominates and women are viewed as trophies and commodities."
In fact, World Cup camera operators constantly hunt the crowds at games to profile attractive female fans, as this sports blog describes: "The camera operators of the 2014 FIFA World Cup have two jobs: Document the soccer tournament for the benefit of fans all over the world, and pick out attractive women in the stands--because sports are entertaining enough, but it doesn't hurt to throw in a little cheesecake from time to time."
Hand in hand with the testosterone-laden culture of the World Cup is homophobia, as evidenced most dramatically in a recent match between Mexico and Cameroon when Mexican fans chanted the derogatory homophobic word "puta" against the Cameroon team. The use of the word was defended by the Mexican team's coach as "not that bad" and a term that should be accepted because "it's something [fans] do to pressure the opposing goalkeeper."
5. It is a distraction from things that actually matter.
Workplaces, coffeehouses, restaurants, bars and even doctors' offices are tuned in to World Cup soccer matches these days. At my own workplace, staff members shout and yell up and down the hallways during games. At my local coffeehouse, the TV is permanently set to ESPN while customers stare up at the screen and pound their fists into the air during near hits and misses. My Facebook feeds are dominated by capitalized exclamations of the latest breathtaking goals.
Meanwhile, in the past week alone, Iraq is spiraling out of control. Israel has launched airstrikes on Syria. Nigeria's government has given up the search for hundreds of kidnapped girls. Afghanistan's elections are wracked by fraud. Thousands of undocumented children from Central American countries are being housed in horrendous conditions in the U.S. Three people were executed in Georgia, Missouri and Florida within 24 hours. Thousands of residents in Detroit have had their water supplies cut off.
But most Americans, like people the world over, are fixated on the World Cup. That is not to say they would be mulling social injustice were it not for the tournament. However, the games offer a soothing salve in which the worst thing that can happen is that your favorite team loses. Ultimately the World Cup is nothing more than a commercial extravaganza infused with elevated levels of nationalism, racism, and misogyny, and honestly acknowledging that puts the spectacle into a much-needed perspective.
So I refuse to watch the World Cup. Some of the reasons I list here are similar to why I refuse to also watch the Olympics, Super Bowl or any one of the world's moneyed high-profile sporting events. Based on the responses I have gotten from friends who are avid World Cup fans, I expect this list will generate howls of anger and vociferous defenses of the tournament. What I don't expect is for soccer mania to wane anytime soon. The lure is just too strong, the emotional stakes too high.
Soccer (or football, as the rest of the world refers to it) is the most popular sport globally. But can you love the game while hating the World Cup?
The 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil has attracted record numbers of American viewers, with reports of 23 million people having tuned in to a single match between the U.S. and Portugal alone. Worldwide, the numbers are expected to be even more staggering over the course of the entire tournament, given that half the planet tuned in to the last World Cup in 2010.
Still, I refuse to watch, and here's why:
1. It is a corporate feeding frenzy.
It is precisely because of the lucrative access to billions of eyeballs that the World Cup has evolved into a glorified delivery system of advertising from some of the world's biggest corporations such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Budweiser, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Adidas, Marriott and Johnson & Johnson. FIFA (The Federation Internationale de Football Association), the main governing body that organizes the World Cup, has come under intense scrutiny for its controversial, high-stakes approach to the multibillion-dollar business of soccer. This year's World Cup is expected to generate a whopping $4 billion in revenue, with the majority coming from marketing and TV rights. That is 66 percent more than the last World Cup.
Advertisers are frothing at the mouth over the World Cup having "the power to be the most talked about subject in social media, ever," according to a Johnson & Johnson representative. As one Coca-Cola executive told The New York Times, plans for advertising began three years ago, because of "the opportunity it offers" in that "the World Cup is the world's biggest sporting event." Coke is attempting to equate its sugary, diabetes-inducing drink with soccer, because apparently, "Coke is everyone's drink, and football is everyone's sport."
Even the players themselves are living, breathing vehicles for delivering advertisements, with one sports magazine ranking Brazilian player Neymar, as the most "marketable" athelete in the world. Marriott has signed deals with players Omar Gonzalez and Alexi Lalas, branding them as "Defenders of Travel."
2. It is ridiculously expensive, has worsened poverty, fostered mass displacement and resulted in the deaths of workers.
Like most other major international sporting events, the World Cup comes with a set of financial infrastructure demands that displace people and turn government priorities upside down, all in the service of the international Sports Industrial Complex.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in host Brazil, where protests in the run-up to the games had "become an almost daily occurrence," The Guardian reported last June when more than a million Brazilians demonstrated in 80 cities. A massive subway strike in the metropolis of Sao Paolo threatened to bring all transportation to a standstill. The Guardian added: "Many protesters are furious that the government is spending 31bn reals [more than $15 billion USD] to set the stage for a one-time global tournament, while it has failed to address everyday problems closer to home."
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of poor Brazilians have been driven out of their homes in the favelas in the name of the World Cup. And a total of nine workers have died in Brazil over the course of the stadium-building frenzy to satisfy FIFA's conditions.
Meanwhile, plans are underway for the 2022 World Cup tournament, which is to be held in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar. Qatar's construction labor force consists of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from primarily South Asian countries. Given how many hundreds of workers routinely die each year while laboring on construction sites in Qatar, one investigation estimates that 4,000 workers may die from FIFA stadium construction alone. Fittingly, The Nation magazine's Dave Zirin, in a new book and in ongoing reports on the 2014 World Cup, has maintained that the World Cup has turned into "a tool for neoliberal plunder."
Fans of the game say it is possible to be critical of FIFA while loving the World Cup matches, but that is analogous to claiming one is a fan of the circus while heaping hate on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. It is the very fan base of this single tournament that keeps the pressure on to make the World Cup such a parasitic institution, and watching the games legitimizes the institution, not just the sport.
3. It is nationalist, and by extension, racist.
Like most high-profile international sporting events, the World Cup relies on fans identifying with their nations, many literally painting their faces the colors of their respective flags. As a child, the favorite sport of my family and friends was cricket, and that sport's major tournaments are tainted by a similarly nationalist fervor. Friends from different countries whose teams played one another, such as India and Pakistan, would routinely undermine their friendships in favor of nationalist rivalries when the matches began. I hated seeing that animosity in the context of cricket, and it is no less disgusting to watch this year's World Cup generate similar feuds.
True, in some cases, nationalist pride can help a country overcome internal political issues as last year's Afghan soccer team showed. But since when is a soccer team's unity a good enough substitute for real peace in a nation where decades of war has destroyed institutions, fostered grinding poverty and created a nexus for violence?
Nationalist tendencies among soccer fans are also on display when historical political relations are challenged on the field. Foreign Policy points out how "international football has few features more defining than the grudge match: that contest where the opponents brought together have a particularly seething historical enmity." While it is certainly satisfying to see the team of a former colony beat its onetime colonial master on a soccer field, a World Cup match is simply not a good enough substitute for real justice.
Nationalism is based on the premise that one's country is superior to others'--a sentiment consistent with racism. It should come as no surprise then, that the nationalist fervor of the World Cup has brought out the racists in full force, as seen at Russia's match against South Korea and Croatia's game against Brazil. During both those contests, neo-Nazis in the crowd displayed fascist symbols on their banners. Two Argentine soccer fans were reportedly arrested for taunting Brazilian players as "little monkeys." And perhaps most egregious of all are the instances of German fans wearing blackface to mimic Ghanaian players at a match between the two countries. In all these examples, it has been the fans who were responsible rather than FIFA, which claims it has a zero-tolerance policy on racism.
4. It is a celebration of manhood. By extension, it generates sexism and homophobia.
It is an obvious fact but worth stating anyway. Billions of women, men and children around the world are watching a total of 736 men (32 teams of 23 players each) kick a ball around a field. Yes, Women's World Cup soccer is popular too, but not nearly as popular as men's. In fact, note that the men's team grabs the default name of "World Cup," while the women's version of the same sport is qualified by their gender.
One female journalist writing in The Guardian newspaper said, "Men's football is loved ... simply because the players are men, and men like watching other men play football, and what men like to do and like to watch is, de facto, culturally important. Even the fact the men's World Cup is not explicitly stated to be a men's competition erases women."
Women comprise only three out of 28 members on FIFA's executive committee, and one survey of women working in the world of soccer found a whopping two-thirds of respondents said they had experienced gender discrimination in the workplace.
As a result of the sport being almost exclusively the domain of men, it often generates patriarchal and sexist fervor. World Cup advertising tends to target mostly men by playing up sexist stereotypes. Some of the advertising seen during this year's World Cup includes, The Independent notes, a "rash of regressive marketing campaigns, apparently from the imagination of 1950s ad men," "a talking beach towel that leers at women in skimpy bikinis" and women who are "generally cast as either nags or window dressing."
It should come as no surprise that World Cup soccer fever also encourages Internet memes like this Twitter image of "Rules for Women During the World Cup" that includes the decree, "You are welcome to watch the game with me as long as you are SILENT." One study of three of the past World Cup tournaments found that incidents of domestic violence significantly spiked during the tournament, especially when male fans' favorite teams lost. Suzanne Martin, a lecturer at the University of London, wrote, "there must be a particularly base version of masculinity that's espoused in the football experience. Football provides a context in which gang culture dominates and women are viewed as trophies and commodities."
In fact, World Cup camera operators constantly hunt the crowds at games to profile attractive female fans, as this sports blog describes: "The camera operators of the 2014 FIFA World Cup have two jobs: Document the soccer tournament for the benefit of fans all over the world, and pick out attractive women in the stands--because sports are entertaining enough, but it doesn't hurt to throw in a little cheesecake from time to time."
Hand in hand with the testosterone-laden culture of the World Cup is homophobia, as evidenced most dramatically in a recent match between Mexico and Cameroon when Mexican fans chanted the derogatory homophobic word "puta" against the Cameroon team. The use of the word was defended by the Mexican team's coach as "not that bad" and a term that should be accepted because "it's something [fans] do to pressure the opposing goalkeeper."
5. It is a distraction from things that actually matter.
Workplaces, coffeehouses, restaurants, bars and even doctors' offices are tuned in to World Cup soccer matches these days. At my own workplace, staff members shout and yell up and down the hallways during games. At my local coffeehouse, the TV is permanently set to ESPN while customers stare up at the screen and pound their fists into the air during near hits and misses. My Facebook feeds are dominated by capitalized exclamations of the latest breathtaking goals.
Meanwhile, in the past week alone, Iraq is spiraling out of control. Israel has launched airstrikes on Syria. Nigeria's government has given up the search for hundreds of kidnapped girls. Afghanistan's elections are wracked by fraud. Thousands of undocumented children from Central American countries are being housed in horrendous conditions in the U.S. Three people were executed in Georgia, Missouri and Florida within 24 hours. Thousands of residents in Detroit have had their water supplies cut off.
But most Americans, like people the world over, are fixated on the World Cup. That is not to say they would be mulling social injustice were it not for the tournament. However, the games offer a soothing salve in which the worst thing that can happen is that your favorite team loses. Ultimately the World Cup is nothing more than a commercial extravaganza infused with elevated levels of nationalism, racism, and misogyny, and honestly acknowledging that puts the spectacle into a much-needed perspective.
So I refuse to watch the World Cup. Some of the reasons I list here are similar to why I refuse to also watch the Olympics, Super Bowl or any one of the world's moneyed high-profile sporting events. Based on the responses I have gotten from friends who are avid World Cup fans, I expect this list will generate howls of anger and vociferous defenses of the tournament. What I don't expect is for soccer mania to wane anytime soon. The lure is just too strong, the emotional stakes too high.
Even right-wing Brazilian politicians are condemning Trump's actions as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference."
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing international condemnation for his decision to level sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a bid to punish him for overseeing the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Brazilian political leaders are not backing down in the face of Trump's economic warfare, which includes not only sanctions against Moraes but also 50% tariffs on several key Brazilian exports to the United States, including coffee and beef.
Chamber of Deputies member José Guimarães, a member of the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores, described Trump's actions as "a direct attack on Brazilian democracy and sovereignty" and vowed that "we will not accept foreign interference in... our justice system."
Left-wing politicians weren't the only ones to criticize the sanctions and tariffs, as right-wing Partido Novo founder João Amoêdo condemned them as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference in the Brazilian justice system." Eduardo Leite, the conservative governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, said he refused to accept "another country trying to interfere in our institutions" as Trump has done.
In justifying the sanctions and tariffs, the Trump White House said they were a measure to combat what it described as "the government of Brazil's politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters."
Bolsonaro is currently on trial for undertaking an alleged coup plot to prevent the country's current president, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, from taking power after his victory in Brazil's 2022 presidential election.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, openly celebrated Trump's punitive measures against Brazil this week, which earned him a stiff rebuke from the editorial board of Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil's largest daily newspapers. In their piece, the Folha editors labeled Eduardo Bolsonaro an "enemy of Brazil" and said he was behaving like "a buffoon at the feet of a foreign throne" with his open lobbying of the Trump administration to punish his own country.
Elsewhere in the world, the U.K.-based magazine The Economist leveled Trump for his Brazil sanctions, which it described as an "unprecedented" assault on the country's sovereignty. The magazine also outlined the considerable evidence that the former Brazilian president took part in a coup plot, including a plan written out by Bolsonaro deputy chief of staff Mario Fernandes to assassinate or kidnap Lula and Moraes before the end of Bolsonaro's lone presidential term.
U.S. government reform advocacy group Public Citizen was also quick to condemn Trump's actions, which it described as a "shameless power grab."
"Trump's order sets a horrifying precedent that literally any domestic judicial action or democratically enacted policy set by another country could somehow justify a U.S. national emergency and bestow the president with powers far beyond what the Constitution provides," said Melinda St. Louis, global trade watch director at Public Citizen.
St. Louis also predicted that the tariffs on Brazil would soon be tossed out by courts given their capricious justifications, although she said the reputation of the U.S. would suffer "lasting damage."
"Follow the money," one critic wrote in response to the Justice Department's decision to drop an antitrust case against American Express Global Business Travel.
The U.S. Justice Department this week dropped an antitrust case against a company represented by the lobbying firm that employed Pam Bondi before her confirmation as attorney general earlier this year.
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has paid the lobbying giant Ballard Partners hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to pressure Bondi's Justice Department on "antitrust issues," according to federal disclosures.
The DOJ's decision to drop the antitrust lawsuit, which was initially filed during the final days of the Biden administration, allows Amex GBT's acquisition of rival CWT Holdings to move forward despite concerns that the merger would harm competition in the travel management sector. Amex GBT said it was "pleased" the DOJ dropped the case ahead of trial, which was set to begin in September.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the anti-monopoly American Economic Liberties Project, called the Justice Department's move "so so so corrupt" and urged observers to "follow the money."
Amex GBT paid Ballard Partners $50,000 in the first quarter of 2025 and $150,000 in the second quarter to lobby the Justice Department. Jon Golinger, democracy advocate with Public Citizen, said last week that "the American people deserve to know whether Attorney General Bondi has been involved with her former firm's lobbying and if the red carpet is being rolled out for these clients by the Department of Justice because of her former role at Ballard."
"If Bondi has been involved with the Ballard firm's lobbying, she has likely violated the ethics pledge," Golinger added. "The American people deserve an attorney general who always puts their needs above the special interest agendas of former business associates."
Scrutiny of the Justice Department's decision to drop the Amex GBT case comes amid allegations of corruption surrounding the DOJ's merger settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks last month. It also comes days after the Justice Department fired two of its top antitrust officials.
The American Prospect's David Dayen noted Tuesday that the Justice Department's voluntary dismissal of the Amex GBT lawsuit means the case—unlike the Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper settlement—doesn't have to face a Tunney Act review.
In a statement to the Prospect, a Justice Department spokesperson denied that Bondi had any involvement in the antitrust division's decision to drop the Amex GBT case.
"The smell of corruption has gotten bad enough that they're trying to shape the information environment," Dayen wrote in response to the DOJ statement.
"The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' latest effort to block additional American arms sales to Israel failed again late Wednesday at the hands of every Republican senator and some Democrats.
But a majority of the Senate Democratic caucus voted in favor of Sanders-led resolutions that aimed to halt the Trump administration's sale of 1,000-pound bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits, and tens of thousands of assault rifles to the Israeli government.
The first resolution, S.J.Res.41, failed by a vote of 27-70, and the second, S.J.Res.34, failed by a vote of 24-73, with the effort to block the sale of assault rifles to the Israeli government garnering slightly more support than the bid to prevent the sale of bombs.
The following senators voted to block the assault rifle sale: Sanders, Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
And the following senators voted to block the sale of additional bombs: Sanders, Alsobrooks, Baldwin, Blunt Rochester, Duckworth, Durbin, Heinrich, Hirono, Kaine, Kim, King, Klobuchar, Luján, Markey, Merkley, Murphy, Murray, Schatz, Shaheen, Smith, Van Hollen, Warnock, Warren, and Welch.
Three Democratic senators—Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan—did not vote on either resolution.
"Every senator who voted to continue sending weapons today voted against the will of their constituents."
In a statement responding to the vote, Sanders said growing Democratic support for halting arms sales to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an indication that "the tide is turning" in the face of Israel's "horrific, immoral, and illegal war against the Palestinian people."
"The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza," the senator said. "The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future."
Wednesday's votes revealed a significant increase in support for halting U.S. military support for the Israeli government compared to earlier this year, when only 14 Democratic senators backed similar Sanders-led resolutions.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who did not vote on the Sanders resolutions in April, said Wednesday that "this legislative tool is not perfect, but frankly it is time to say enough to the suffering of innocent young children and families."
"As a longtime friend and supporter of Israel, I am voting yes to send a message: The Netanyahu government cannot continue with this strategy," said Murray. "Netanyahu has prolonged this war at every turn to stay in power. We are witnessing a man-made famine in Gaza—children and families should not be dying from starvation or disease when literal tons of aid and supplies are just sitting across the border."
The Senate votes came days after the official death toll in Gaza surpassed 60,000 and a new poll showed that U.S. public support for Israel's assault on the Palestinian enclave reached a new low, with just 32% of respondents expressing approval. The Gallup survey found that support among Democratic voters has cratered, with just 8% voicing approval of the Israeli assault.
"The vast majority of Democratic voters say Israel is committing genocide, and have repeatedly demanded that their party's elected officials in Congress stop helping President Trump deliver more and more weapons to Israel with our tax dollars," Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, said Wednesday. "Tonight proved that an increasing number of Democrats in the Senate–more than half of the Democratic caucus–are hearing that demand."
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, called the vote "unprecedented" and said it "shows that the dam is breaking in U.S. politics."
"Our job is to increase the pressure on every member of Congress to stop all weapons and military funding," said Miller. "For 22 months, the U.S. has enabled, funded, and armed the Israeli government's slaughter and starvation in Gaza, and still the majority of senators just voted to continue sending weapons to a military live-streaming its crimes against humanity."
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want to stop the flow of deadly weapons to the Israeli military and end U.S. complicity in its horrific genocide against Palestinians," Miller added. "Every senator who voted to continue sending weapons today voted against the will of their constituents."