“We are 26” is FIFA’s slogan for this year’s World Cup. It’s a rather vague successor to last time’s powerful mantra. “Football unites the world,” they cried, in 2022.
It’s a far cry from the ‘Football unites the world’ spirit of the 2022 World Cup. Above, crowds in South Africa, in 2010. (Getty Images)
But then, so much has changed ahead of the tournament’s kick-off in June. First, the game’s international governing body awarded US President Donald Trump a newly created FIFA Peace Prize in 2025.
Now we have the unique situation of the US — which was at war, until a recent and somewhat-tenuous-seeming ceasefire — co-hosting a World Cup in which Iran, the country it attacked for reasons that remain unclear, is set to play.
Iran has so far refused to play in the US. The expectation was that FIFA would schedule these matches so they could instead be held in the two co-host countries: Canada and Mexico. But this proposition has been rejected by FIFA.
It is unclear whether Iran will eventually compete as guests of a President who has said in expletive-laden posts that he will bomb their country “back to the Stone Age”; or whether the Asian football powerhouse will forfeit play.
World Cup matches have been held before, under the complex shadow of political hostility and war between participating nations. East Germany and West Germany met at the 1974 World Cup, against the backdrop of the Cold War. The infamous East German spy organisation, the Stasi, monitored fans and players, forbidding the latter from swapping shirts with their West German counterparts, even as armed police ringed the stadium and helicopters hovered over the pitch.
The Argentina-England match in 1986 played out almost as an extension of the Falklands War, though it had been four years since that conflict; with clashes breaking out between fans on the streets of Mexico City.
Ahead of this World Cup, things are tense not just between the US and Iran. America’s relationship with its co-hosts and with a number of participating countries from Africa and Asia has been strained too.
Four nations set to play in the tournament — Iran, Haiti, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire — have had total travel bans imposed on them by the US, for instance, which means that fans and journalists can expect to find it very difficult to attend. (The last three were among the States famously referred to as “shithole countries” by Trump, in 2018).
Other participating nations, including Egypt, Ghana, Jordan and Morocco, have been told that each person they send to the US may need to deposit a bond of $15,000 with the US government, in order to obtain a visa.
Should fans have to shell out what amounts to a penalty by default? That hardly seems like a good way to celebrate a sport.
(Email Rudraneil Sengupta on rudraneil@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)
सिद्धभूमि के लेखक एक प्रमुख समाचार लेखक हैं, जिन्होंने समाज और राजनीति के महत्वपूर्ण मुद्दों पर गहरी जानकारी और विश्लेषण प्रदान किया है। उनकी लेखनी न केवल तथ्यात्मक होती है, बल्कि समाज की जटिलताओं को समझने और उजागर करने की क्षमता रखती है। उनके लेखों में तात्कालिक घटनाओं के विस्तृत विश्लेषण और विचारशील दृष्टिकोण की झलक मिलती है, जो पाठकों को समाज के विभिन्न पहलुओं पर सोचने के लिए प्रेरित करते हैं।
एक ऐसे समय में जब प्रिंट एवं मुद्रण अपनी प्रारंभिक अवस्था में था ,समाचार पत्र अपने संसाधनो के बूते निकाल पाना बेहद दुष्कर कार्य था ,लेकिन इसे चुनौती के रूप में स्वीकार करते हुए स्वर्गीय श्री शयाम सुन्दर मिश्र “प्रान ” ने 12 मार्च 1978 को पडरौना (कुशीनगर ) उत्तर प्रदेश से सिद्ध भूमि हिंदी साप्ताहिक का प्रकाशन आरम्भ किया | स्वर्गीय श्री शयाम सुन्दर मिश्र “प्रान ” सीमित साधनों व अभावों के बीच पत्रकारिता को मिशन के रूप में लेकर चलने वाले पत्रकार थे । उनका मानना था कि पत्रकारिता राष्ट्रीय लोक चेतना को उद्वीप्त करने का सबसे सशक्त माध्यम है । इसके द्वारा ही जनपक्षीय सरोकारो को जिन्दा रखा जा सकता है । किसी भी संस्था के लिए चार दशक से अधिक का सफ़र कम नही है ,सिद्ध भूमि ने इस लम्बी यात्रा में जनपक्षीय सरोकारो को जिन्दा रखते हुए कर्मपथ पर अपने कदम बढ़ाएं हैं और भविष्य के लिए भी नयी आशाएं और उम्मीदें जगाई हैं । ऑनलाइन माध्यम की उपयोगिता को समझते हुए सिद्ध भूमि न्यूज़ पोर्टल की शुरुवात जुलाई 2013 में किया गया |
हमसे संपर्क करने और जुड़ने के लिए मेल करें - siddhbhoomi@gmail.com
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