The ugly side of the World Cup tournament in Qatar was shown one last time at the award ceremony, when the incomparable Lionel Messi was shamelessly exploited by the organizers. Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Fifa boss Gianni Infantino put a bischt on the football genius, a traditional Arabic outer garment that important men wear on ceremonial occasions. It all happened before Messi accepted the World Cup and lifted it to the sky among the team.
The scene in the magnificent Lusail Iconic Stadium in Doha, at the end of four weeks of football, made clear once again what will remain associated with this tournament forever: the appropriation of football for the purpose of political propaganda. The hero of the evening and of the whole tournament became a publicity puppet for Qatari interests for a moment.
Many critics were outraged. Bastian Schweinsteiger was visibly upset about the action on ARD. Schweinsteiger was talking about footballer Messi: “You take away a great moment from the player, I didn’t think it was good either”. Schweinsteiger didn’t say how else the gesture could be interpreted: as a cloak of silence that was spread over all the abuses in the country and around the World Cup. The cloak was not meant as just a nice gesture, but was intended to make Qatar appear to the TV sets of two billion people worldwide as the nice emirate next door.
Anyone who speaks of Qatar must not remain silent about the reasons why the tournament met with great rejection in Germany: the unspeakably high number of construction workers who lost their lives under inhumane conditions during the construction of the magnificent World Cup stadiums (exactly how high, is still not clarified. several hundred or several thousand?), the alleged corruption in the awarding of the World Cup, the miserable situation of the LGBTQ community, the repression of women’s rights, the continuing poor conditions of foreign construction workers and the insults against Israeli journalists.
Still, the question remains whether a clumsy gesture will change anything about Messi’s triumph. Or even soiled him or cast a different light on his story, which had the world following for four weeks spellbound: That a football genius crowns his long career with the greatest success that can be achieved in football and sends a whole country into a frenzy of joy. More football romance is not possible. Even in Germany, some fans sat on the sofa at home with tears in their eyes in the face of this heroic journey with a happy ending. This is real despite the glittering world of illusion and the justified criticism.
It is true that the World Cup was a huge party with a great atmosphere for most fans outside of Germany. Even the reporters from Germany cannot help but praise the wonderful World Cup world that Qatar has conjured up in the desert sand. Even the guest workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Africa celebrated a boisterous World Cup party at the public viewing in their Asian City district, so it is said. What is real is that the tournament was perfectly organized for fans and teams and broke TV ratings records worldwide. The TV world does not only consist of ARD and ZDF.
The truth is that the World Cup, like every tournament before it, told great stories and produced great games. Saudi Arabia’s victory over Argentina in the group stage, of course Germany against Japan, Argentina’s success over the Netherlands or Morocco’s triumph over Portugal in the quarter-finals. In general, Morocco’s success is highly commendable. He was a very important factor in keeping the atmosphere of the World Cup alive until the end thanks to the Arab fans. Then there were the idiosyncratic Germans with their “shut up” gesture, Ronaldo’s futile fight against old age, the sad Brazilians and the best final ever.
In terms of sport, the World Cup was solid, which is usually the case because national teams play here for a short time. Significant tactical developments take place in club football. The preferred way of playing consisted of the ancient tactic “touch concrete behind, counterattack in front”. In contemporary language, this is called “condense the center on the defensive and switch quickly.” The eternal knowledge applies here that you can only be successful with a strong defense. Argentina and France, the two finalists, were masters at it.
So what is the conclusion? That football loses none of its greatness in difficult conditions and has the power to captivate people and entire countries, no matter how abused it is. Despite everything, football remains “unfortunately awesome” even at a World Cup in Qatar, to quote a song by the band Deichkind. You can enjoy that. Even an Infantino doesn’t break the football.
From the German point of view, the lesson remains that in the future you should find a different way of dealing with organizers who are worthy of criticism. Because human rights in Qatar, like the national team in this country, are not served if you get bogged down in “One-Love-Binding” discussions or pompously talk about an attitude “that you have to develop”. That sounds like you didn’t have one before, which of course was and is nonsense. The criticism of the German team for giving in on the issue of bandages was sometimes grotesquely exaggerated. The “Kicker” speaks of “affectation drunkenness”, which is quite good. There are mendacious illusory worlds not only in Qatar.
