I was thinking of writing about Ansu Fati’s first World Cup, which has finally been called by Luis Enrique. I was waiting for the selector’s list to start typing, I wanted to focus on what is strictly sports, on the logical joy of the Hispanoguinean after more than two years without stepping on a call-up. But I can not. Because Ansu will play in Qatar, a country where fundamental human rights are not respected. Luis Enrique was asked about this and his answer was as follows: “It is clear that it is a country surrounded by a series of conflicting situations, but it depends on what you want to focus on. If you want to see the positive things, such as what is being tried to change to create a fairer society; or if you just focus on the problems. I’m not a politician, I’m a selector. I don’t have any capacity to make a decision.”
So brave is Luis Enrique when it comes to expressing himself as he wants, defending without a hair on his tongue what he considers just until the last consequences, that the fact that he is now showing himself so lukewarm and coward with something so important is a pity. Human rights is not an issue that only concerns politicians, but everyone, including himself, who also has a giant megaphone at his disposal that he can use to point out and build a fairer society.
There is nothing positive about Qatar hosting a soccer World Cup. Nothing. It is a country that has 12% of the world’s gas reserves, that has money to be bored and buys sports shows to clean up its image, to look like what it is not and, in this way, to be able to continue imprisoning homosexuals, enslaving migrants and beating women.
I wish Luis Enrique was the only one, I wish. But there is also Xavi, for example – Qatar’s ambassador for more signals – who, in an interview with this newspaper, assured that even if Qatar was not a democratic country, it worked better than Spain and that people, in general, she lives very happily, arguing that she doesn’t even need the key to enter the house. They didn’t just buy him, David Beckham also gets paid. And Samuel Etoo and Cafu… And a few more. I hope that one day they will all be ashamed to collaborate, keep quiet or cover up with Qatar. Because no matter how stubborn they are, this World Cup is unjustifiable. And that’s why, in the end, I haven’t written about Ansu Fati. Because I also have a speaker and I can use it.
