Players from the NACKTional soccer team also recently pleaded for a boycott of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as part of an art campaign.
A meeting is an everyday occurrence for professional footballers. As a rule, it is usually about football-specific topics, but on Wednesday the German national team experienced the exception at the headquarters of a supplier in Herzogenaurach. First came Kai Havertz, Julian Brandt and Nico Schlotterbeck in the »Feel3« room of the so-called »World of Sport«, before Leon Goretzka, Manuel Neuer, Serge Gnabry and finally also latecomer Thomas Müller looked for a place in the first three rows . They wanted to listen to a multifaceted discussion on controversial World Cup host Qatar.
For an hour, the entire squad, coach and supervisor listened to the contributions of various experts before national team director Oliver Bierhoff summarized: “There is not one truth!” suitable World Cup organizer has been chosen: “A development is underway, but it is not enough in many things, there are gaps in many places.” In the richest country on earth, there are “different classes of people who live very isolated from each other – the third and fourth grade, you don’t see them!” Bierhoff promised: “Soccer has a responsibility there.”
Unlike before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the German Football Association no longer wants to duck away from such sensitive issues. The attitude that is often modeled on three cartoon monkeys – see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing – will not work when by far the most controversial World Cup in history starts on November 21st. Therefore, three days before the Nations League duel in Bologna against Italy, there was not a rather predictable press conference, as usual, but that dialogue forum.
Very different points of view were discussed. For Martin Endemann from the Football Supporters Europe, not only are freedom of the press and speech, as well as human rights in the desert state on the ground, the fan spokesman also picked up the argument that the allocation of major sporting events in “unjust states like Qatar” would change something. That’s a misconception: “China and Russia are the best examples: the situation hasn’t improved either through the Olympic Games or a soccer World Cup.” I support Fifa compensating the exploited migrant workers with a fund. It is not an easy debate that accompanies the DFB team into the desert. National players can no longer simply throw questions about the observance of human rights out of bounds, like the ball after a dangerous cross from the opponent.
Thomas Hitzlsperger, who joined from Boston as DFB ambassador for diversity, does not believe “that the DFB and other associations can change the country in a few weeks.” get at all”. Nevertheless, he drew attention to the contradiction that Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) was in the process of contractually securing larger deliveries of oil and natural gas. So how high should a sports association set the moral bar in the current geopolitical tensions? Hitzlsperger spoke of a “dilemma” if football is to meet higher requirements than a commercial enterprise.
For the security director Helmut Spahn, who has been working at Fifa since 2017, everything is not quite as bad as human rights organizations describe it anyway: “The development that the country has taken makes us feel positive.” A lot has happened. The former boss of Offenbacher Kickers worked for a Qatari security company many years earlier and strongly advised against a boycott, because: »It strengthens exactly those who want to go back to the old systems. That’s the wrong way.”
The fan organization »ProFans« sees things differently. In an open letter she recently asked the DFB to ask its more than seven million members about World Cup participation. According to DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, the World Cup will be an event “that was paid for directly with the merciless exploitation of migrant workers and with the lives of many young people who were still perfectly healthy when they entered Qatar”. It’s simply not appropriate to “celebrate a lavish party” here. German fan and club initiatives just agreed on this at a network meeting.
Dealing with the LGBTQI+ community, i.e. people who have different identities and sexual orientations from the heterosexual norm, is of particular concern. Christian Rudolph, head of the DFB contact point for gender and sexual diversity, was upset by the latest statement by the Emir of Qatar, who wanted to welcome all World Cup guests but at the same time emphasized that his country’s culture had to be accepted. Rudolph saw this as an open threat: »Because homosexuality is also a criminal offense in the country. If holding hands, as you do on vacation, is already a punishable offense – that doesn’t give you a feeling of security, definitely not.«
Discover Football’s Pia Mann shares the same concern: »I wouldn’t feel safe traveling to Qatar with my partner. The freedoms we have here do not exist there. A few years ago, Fifa imposed its own human rights statutes, which it does not follow.« For Mann, the world sport of football has long been »highly political« – and also »an emancipatory means«. Incidentally, as a note of protest from the German team, she would like the rainbow armband to be worn at the World Cup. In addition, the players with their huge reach in social media could make a difference if they showed the rainbow colors in the Pride month of June or if they liked the outing of 17-year-old Englishman Jake Daniel. “These are symbolic signs that make a big difference.” And that every professional footballer could accomplish in his everyday life – if he is behind it.
