the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar is not under a good star. It is possibly a tournament bought with a lot of money and political influence, for which countless construction workers lost their lives under scandalous working conditions.
In addition, the country’s leadership is reluctant to see its morals and cultural mores constrained in favor of a liberal bubble, even if only open for a few weeks. Beer is banned in the stadium, FIFA threatened teams from Europe, including Germany, that they would wear a shirt promoting tolerance ONE LOVE pad would be punished. And then there is the fact that the climatic conditions in the tiny desert state with the enormous reserves of raw materials made it necessary to hold the World Cup in the early winter almost until shortly before Christmas. Mostly a time of balancing – and that is not necessarily easy in a year with corona deaths, war deaths, the onset of the energy crisis and inflation.
Bad luck for Qatar and FIFA when most people just don’t feel like attending a mega-event trimmed for economic efficiency, which certainly has a lot of emotions to offer, but whose contribution to international understanding has more global influence due to Qatar’s obvious political tendencies especially in sport, but also in other areas of the economy, is overshadowed.
The question arises all the more whether this World Cup shouldn’t simply be boycotted. But how best? Who would be helped if you just closed your eyes? Here are some suggestions.
1. Only see the games of the DFB-Elf
A football World Cup lives from the atmosphere, from the whole range of very many games in a short time. If fans were only interested in their own nation, the ratings would be in the basement and probably many stadiums would only be half full. The interest in the performance of one’s own nation is of course there before every tournament, no matter where it takes place or how the award came about (even if this only really hits the stomach since the event in Putin-Russia in 2018, it will probably be something suppressed, how the 1978 World Cup in Argentina also played into the hands of a tough military dictatorship). Why should this be denied to people? It would be a sign if you just opted for cutting off the DFB-Elf interested and would only watch their games. But was it cowardly that Manuel Neuer and Co. refrained from wearing the “One Love” bandage after threatening consequences? Such decisions can also put you in a bad mood and increase the likelihood that people who otherwise only attend the big football tournaments or even just for the German national team interested, no longer interested.
2. Only see the matches from the round of 16
The preliminary round is of course less exciting than the final round, when the best nations and some surprising outsiders (Saudi Arabia?) actually compete against each other. But the real attraction of a tournament is of course the concentration of events, a stream of games so to speak, in which one highlight follows the next and in the end it is not just luck or the video referee who decide who progresses. But you can also do without it. That would mean only seeing 16 games out of a total of 64 events. Without really missing something exciting, one would not have placed any value on 48 games. From 2028 there should be 48 participants instead of 32 teams. That would probably quickly be questioned again if the preliminary round, which was then even more inflated, generated little interest.
3. Just watch games, but no more
Every football World Cup lives from its flair, from the temptation to be presented with stories of winners and losers almost around the clock. Experts give their assessments, reporters report from the training camps in luxurious 5-star hotels. You can do without that. In addition to the critical reporting on the situation in the country of Qatar, there is always an advertising effect for the rich hosts, albeit unconsciously fueled, when the magnificent local specialties and stadium temples built only for this tournament are shown. And broadcasters like now ARD/ZDF/Magenta When the odds for the rest of the program are falling, they are definitely considering whether they want to do as much again at a next tournament when people are less interested. Because even if the license fees for the transmission of the games may be expensive, the production all around also devours huge sums of personnel costs and equipment.
4. Soccer on an empty stomach
Of course, FIFA earns a lot of money with its World Cup, it is said that it is in the higher single-digit billions. The tournament will also pay off for rich Qatar, although the gigantic sum of up to 200 billion US dollars is said to have been invested beforehand (for comparison: the World Cup in Russia is said to have only cost around 11.5 billion US dollars) . But the money is not only brought back with football. Countless brands advertise themselves at the tournament, in the supermarkets there are Nutella jars with competitions for the soccer World Cup and chips and beer producers are looking forward to the best sales in many years. But if that doesn’t happen because nothing is being bought, because the games are just being watched soberly and the party mood is simply not there, then sponsors will think twice in the future whether they want to spend their money on a tournament taking place under questionable circumstances . In times of global inflation, which is also hitting companies very hard, this is a convincing lever. The pressure that the customer exerts today will be passed on by the group tomorrow.
5. Watch football with only half an eye
The real currency for the world’s most popular sport is attention. Of course the odds can be high when the games are exciting (and who can predict in advance how many moments of surprise a World Cup tournament creates), but who measures how much focus and interest one is really putting into what is happening? Of course, simply ignoring what is happening is a boycott method. That doesn’t mean it has to be turned off. But then for a few weeks it’s not as important as it was in the past decades. And a trip to the Christmas market together might just be more interesting than England versus the USA or the Netherlands versus Qatar. You can still check the results in a news app.
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