Football is the continuation of war by other means. It was one of the most popular phrases in the football world during the Cold War. With the Russian team finally eliminated from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, those times seem to have returned.
The West’s boycott of Vladimir Putin’s government has already crossed trade and economic borders and positioned itself in one of the most iconic areas of civilization: sport. According to the experts interviewed by Sputnik, this is the only way to understand FIFA’s decision to exclude Russia from this competition, which will take place in Qatar from November 21 to December 18.
“Historically, sports are popular and symbolic spaces where all geopolitical issues arise. We saw it at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which the United States did not participate in, and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, which the United States did not participate.” visited Russia,” notes Ismene Ithai Bras, academic and researcher at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
This March 24, in Moscow against Poland, the Russian team would have sought their passport to the World Cup, but the final decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was final: Russia has no place in the largest international party Football. The Spanish journalist and writer Miguel Ángel Bastenier once said: “Sport is the bloodless but painful version of politics in the most warlike sense.”
“Let’s remember that there is a sports diplomacy that has also been much discussed and commented on, especially when it consists in further punishing a certain group of athletes for acts that in reality their government is committing; in this way their preparation and their sporting commitment,” says the former adviser to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Was the situation balanced?
France have attacked and occupied African countries and have never been banned from a World Cup by FIFA. England clashed with Argentina over the Falkland Islands and never received a sanction at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Chile was even allowed to participate in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, despite Augusto Pinochet having violently seized power a year earlier in a military coup that ended in of a 16year dictatorship ended.
“Since its inception [en 1904], FIFA was an organization with more Western values. In fact, today we can consider it an active player in international relations because we know that [en la diplomacia] not everything is processed via the Westphalian nation states,” explains the Turkish internationalist and professor at the PanAmerican University Talya Iscan.
According to its statutes, the body, headed by Gianni Infantino, aims to “truly globalize, popularize and democratize football for the benefit of the whole world. However, in recent years it has been embroiled in a number of scandals, almost all of which have been linked to highlevel corruption.
In May 2015, the international press reported on the FIFA Gate, the biggest corruption scandal in the history of world football. Swiss authorities have arrested 26 FIFA officials for fraud, bribery and money laundering, crimes they committed in different regions of the world including Latin America, North America, Europe and the Middle East.
Among those arrested were former CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer and former CONMEBOL owners José Ángel Napout and Nicolás Leoz. Days later, thenFIFA President Sepp Blatter was suspended from all footballrelated activities for eight years. This is how Gianni Infantino, the current head of the organization, entered.
“From a geopolitical point of view [la FIFA] It’s a more Western organization, but we can’t say whether that’s good or bad either: it’s just an actor that’s more responsive to Western interests, and that’s how we can explain its position,” says the researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Russia: From protagonism to exclusion
Just four years ago, the country ruled by Vladimir Putin opened its doors to the world by organizing its first World Cup. For four weeks, the Russian territory became the home of the sporting spirit, although the event was not free from criticism.
In 2019, FIFA President Sepp Blatter accused former UEFA President Michel Platini of engaging in irregular acts in order to award Qatar as a venue for the 2022 World Cup and Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.
Blatter has for years insisted that the outcome of the 2010 FIFA vote was influenced by a meeting in Paris attended by Platini, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the future Emir of Qatar.
“Vladímir Putin’s goal in accepting the organization of the 2018 World Cup was never athletic, but political,” explains Mexican historian Carlos Illades, author of books such as Marxism in Mexico. An intellectual story.
The opening of the World Cup in Russia was marked by three major absences from Western leaders: thenUK Prime Minister Theresa May; German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Russia 2018 is Vladimir Putin’s party. A celebration of Russia for Russians. Failing Western economies reject Putin, but in reality he is the man Russia needs right now: someone who will assert authority inside and outside the country, but at the same time be able to project to the world the image of a renewed Russia mediate,” Alejandro Salgó, an expert on Middle East geopolitics and a researcher at UNAM, told the Mexican newspaper El Financiero in 2018.
However, today Russia is completely separated from all international tournaments organized by FIFA. Social network users criticize this decision, since other countries are involved in international conflicts that have not been sanctioned.
“Perhaps the most offensive thing is that the decisions of the [como la FIFA] they are biased as France is never punished in this way even though France has attacked African countries. In this respect, the message is very ambivalent. [de Occidente]’ concludes Ithai Bras.