What the Left can learn from football
Whilst wandering through the crowds at Stone Techno Festival I was stopped by a fella who felt compelled to compliment my headpiece. I was sporting a pink head mesh that I'd received as a gift during a visit to Brazil, inspired by this local brand. The conversation progressed and I learned that he was Mexican, and as an Englishman I felt the need to console him on his team's loss against England the previous week. When I asked him which team he intended to support in the semi-final (where England was to play Argentina) he declared himself for England. In his eyes, Argentina represented the football establishment and an extension of FIFA. Evidently the anti-establishment sentiment among football fans was significant enough to view England as the good guys in an international sporting event, something that very rarely happens.
One characteristic of football culture, which contributes to my general apathy towards the sport, is its apolitical nature. Football is about drama, competition, tribalism and rivalry. The huge amount of money that has flowed into the game in the past two decades, particularly in the English Premier League, also indicates how the sport sits at the centre of capital. And yet, this world cup felt more political than ever: it invoked political responses from the socialist left and from the wider anti-establishment right. The Qatari world cup conversely attracted criticism primarily from the liberal left due to the way the country had employed immigrants to build several stadiums in conditions reminiscent of the British mills and factories of the 1700s.
The last 10 years of western politics have been defined by the battle between insurgent anti-establishment parties and presidents and the liberal establishment. And so perhaps it's not surprising that football now too has been infected with the fever of anti-establishmentism. But what I find impressive about this expression of disdain for the establishment is that it accurately identifies the constituent members of the establishment and diagnoses the symptoms that represent an overreach by the establishment for their own profit. In other words, football fans know who is fixing matches and ripping them off!
One statistic that was flying around on social media is the number of fouls per yellow card. Argentina had one of the lowest of the tournament. This matters, because if a player accumulates enough yellow cards they are banned from the next match. Ultimately, FIFA has influence over refs at a strategic level and controls which refs end up at the tournament (and future ones!), so there is definitely material reason for suspicion. If the idea that FIFA is briefing its officials to go easy on Argentina seems conspiratorial, we can look to a different incident that underscores the malleability of FIFA's rules. The organisation overturned a red card given to a US striker after Donald Trump made a direct appeal to its chief Infantino.
Both the statistical indication of preferential treatment for Argentina and the Trumpian interjection suggest that FIFA does not apply its rules fairly. The powerful get treated better than the powerless. This kind of perceived injustice lies at the heart of anti-establishment politics and I salute the football community for spotting this and protesting against it, both online and during in-match commentary and punditry.
Anti-establishment politics also captures a second sentiment: certain communities left behind or priced out of their hometowns to the benefit of corporate interests. One doesn't have to look far to see how FIFA managed to outprice football fans. Compared to the Qatari world cup, base ticket prices increased by around 150%, while tickets for the final jumped by ~550%. Only semiconductor stock could have offered similar returns in such a short time! In addition to the price spikes, FIFA's ticketing platform misconstrued seating locations in stadiums by conflating premium tickets available to the public with hospitality packages, so even those forking out top dollar were left with suboptimal seating and a bitter aftertaste. But at least those willing to pay got the chance to enjoy a classic game of footy, right? Well not quite, FIFA held on to its premium advertising real estate, situated at the halfway point of each half (what is a half of a half called again?), under the guise of a hydration break. It seems that the value of our attention has superseded the importance of the sporting world's oldest truth, that football is a game of two halves.
When we look at European and US anti-establishment rhetoric we often find that there is a scapegoat for the deterioration of western democracy: immigrants. From housing prices and shortages due to asylum seekers in the UK, to proposed mass deportations of non-birth citizens in Germany, up to the not-so-secret police known as ICE in the US, decline and increasing inequality are being pinned on the lowest in society. But when that same sentiment expresses itself in football there is no need for a scapegoat. The disaffected are able to clearly see the arbiter and benefactor of organised and exploitative corporate greed - FIFA!
As much as I'd like to praise the moral and analytical strengths of the world's football community as a reason for this difference, I've come to a different conclusion. In the political world, anti-establishment politics and its focus are being directed top down by the political classes of the new right who profit from the sentiment. The political sentiment of the world cup, conversely, is the product of bottom up, grassroots politics. There is no political party who benefits, there are just straightforward observations of injustice and greed.
On the left we need to remember that support for our politics must include those who currently see immigration as the cause of economic decline. Rather than letting right wing politicians redirect genuine electoral concerns onto the weak, we need to help the electorate see the root of their problems with the same kind of clarity with which football fans see FIFA!