The world will have to wait for 4 more years for life to come to a standstill and be engulfed with futball fever one more time. I feel sorry for the Brazilians, where the mounting losses on the playing field are symbolic of a nation in flux. In the Brazilian media, the World Cup has been characterized as a massive calamity amid accusations of wide spread corruption, crime, and disorganization.
While the economic impact runs into the billions, the human cost of lives lost and wide spread crime are swept under the carpet. More than one worker a month, directly related to this massive event, has died over the past 8 years. Tragic. Bizarre. Unacceptable.
I was equally shocked to see the 60 Minute’s story about the upcoming 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Construction workers, from some of the poorest nations in the world, living in squalor and conditions that border on slavery. The unlucky ones returning home in body bags — more than a few a month. Accusations abound that FIFA members were bribed with millions of dollars to pick that city for the games. I think Qatar should be banned from hosting the World Cup. No sporting event is worth the exploitation of the defenseless and a loss of human life. We can’t turn a blind eye to massive human rights violations. We can’t brush aside the loss of life to collateral damage. Sports can’t be that important. Or that ruthless.
About Hemant Rustogi
Sport is fun & exercise, somebody smelled profit. With so much money & misery riding on it it’s a misnomer, give it another name so people know the difference. Swept along in the fever who sees the underbelly? You have a good heart, Hemant.
Concise and well written Hemant. FIFA, where national and international directors, are embedded in their positions for multiple years if not decades, is ripe for corruption. And in corrupt organizations, the cost of life is cheap. The Olympics suffers from the same disease, particularly when hosting is awarded to countries who have little regard to individual and human rights. What is one to do? Turn off the TV? Not attend? A boycott of the sponsors? Ask athletes to withdraw their services? Can the power of social media overturn such a monopolistic, corrupt and profitable behemoth?