The voices calling for a committed protest against the World Cup in Qatar are still rather quiet. While there is general unease, the reports of human rights violations and the dubious mechanisms underlying the awarding of the tournament to the desert state are no longer news.
But as the tournament approaches, more and more people are wondering how to deal with the dark side of this World Cup. Some football fans decide to just look the other way. The internationals were informed by human rights organizations about the often unworthy life of migrant workers in Qatar.
On Saturday, a network meeting was held in Frankfurt under the title “Not our World Cup!” with different groups to exchange views on further protest options, says Gerd Wagner from the coordination office for fan projects. The basic questions were:
“What is there anyway? Which initiatives are already active? We don’t even know that at first. Well, we can always only talk about football, but at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty: What are they planning and doing great stuff, so if you bring that together, then maybe we’re a little more powerful.”
Agree protest initiatives for joint actions
In addition to the coordination office for fan projects, the initiators included the Alliance Our Curve, the Boycott Qatar 2022 initiative, activists from the organizations “Gesellschaftsspiele eV” and “!Nie Wieder”. But there were also human rights activists, trade unionists and representatives of church organizations who exchanged background information on the World Cup and discussed possibilities of protest in eight workshops.
“We are almost all pursuing the same goal, with different methods, with different approaches, but everyone muddles around a bit in quotation marks. And this parenthesis ‘Not our World Cup!’ is obviously also established as a nationwide slogan, under which many initiatives also feel at home and say: Okay, we can also agree to that, and we can continue to network and also plan further joint campaigns,” says Gerd Wagner .
It is by no means simply boycotting the World Cup to show FIFA that Germany, as the most important European TV market, would react negatively to such a dubious World Cup. Rather, the activists want creative resistance.
“Bunter Strauss” of protest ideas
For example, the regional league team Hessen Kassel declared self-ironic and publicly that they were boycotting the World Cup by not sending any national players to the tournament.
The Pro Fans Alliance has asked the DFB to ask its seven million members whether the German national team should even take part in the World Cup in order to make the uneasiness visible. The stadium audiences of the Bundesliga clubs could go to the games of the women’s teams during the World Cup weeks in November and December instead of watching the broadcasts from Qatar.
Initiatives such as “Kicken instead of watching” or “Back to bolts” collect such protest ideas in order to spread them. Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling from “Boycott Qatar2022” says:
“There is a colorful bouquet of ideas that differs from place to place, depending on what kind of alliances arise, there will be a lot going on. The aim can only be that this World Cup is not just a glamorous event, but that we cause a certain unrest. And we keep up discussions about human rights, but also about FIFA’s politics.”
Ultra scene so far reserved
However, it is unclear to what extent the big players of the game can be enthusiastic about the actions. For example, bundled campaigns in the Bundesliga stadiums during the match days before the World Cup would have a lot of reach.
But to do this, the ultra groups, which have not yet invested much energy in the World Cup issue, would have to be convinced. Ultras did not appear at the congress in Frankfurt. Only a few people came from the active fan scenes. Gerd Wagner explains this reticence with the resignation of these groups towards the functionaries, who, as experience has shown, hardly react to impulses from the grassroots.
“I’m surprised that on the one hand this isn’t the case now, because the topic of the national team and the World Cup isn’t so present for many in the ultra scene. They also have a completely different fan policy, and maybe they’re a bit disillusioned with their own effectiveness.”
Litmus test for new DFB President Neuendorf
The DFB’s handling of the tournament could therefore be decisive for a critical examination of the World Cup. It is not yet clear how the association will deal with the demand for a member survey. But the new President Bernd Neuendorf has announced a cultural change. For example, cooperation with other football associations such as the Norwegians, who have positioned themselves very clearly, would be conceivable. Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling describes the handling of this World Cup as a litmus test for Neuendorf and its renewal project.
“I have certain hopes for the new DFB president. Qatar is an issue where he could position himself. He has expressed sympathy with the Norwegian association president. He has responded to Amnesty International’s call for FIFA to pay compensation to workers who died as a result of human rights abuses. That is specifically a demand that I would support and where the DFB can prove that it is now taking a slightly different course.”
The next meeting of the “Not our World Cup!” network is to be held in September, which will then also be aimed at a broader public. Because there is still great concern that all the uneasiness about the tournament will quickly be dispelled when people can brighten up the gray November days with radiant World Cup football from sunny Qatar.