Guerrilla History - World Cup 2026: Geopolitics and the Beautiful Game w/ Alex Aviña, Abubaker Abed, & Indi.Ca,

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

This is our newest installment of our Guerrilla History series previewing and analyzing the major international football (soccer) tournaments on and off the pitch.  This time, with the disastrous US/Canada/Mexico hosted World Cup 2026. Amid war on Iran, anti-immigrant ICE terror gangs, dismal initial attendance numbers and astronomical costs, this world cup looks to be one of the worst in history. No wonder there have been calls to boycott it and the US. A terrific global panel joins Guerrilla History hosts Adnan and Henry to discuss the geopolitics of the once beautiful game and review the myriad ways this world cup violates the spirit of sport. Gazan journalist Abubaker Abed , Resistance is Fertile podcast co-host Indi.ca, and returning panelist and great friend of both Guerrilla History and the Adnan Husain Show Latin American historian Alex Aviña will break this down. Give to Dahnoun Mutual Aid in Gaza: dahnounmutualaid   Subscribe to Guerrilla History podcast on your favorite audio podcast platform or listen at: https://guerrillahistory.libsyn.com Follow Abubaker Abed on X and substack: x.com/AbubakerAbedW and substack.com/@AbubakerAbedW  Follow Indi on X and his website: x.com/indica and https://indi.ca as well as Resistance is Fertile podcast on his YT channel: @indications Follow Alex on X: x.com/Alexander_Avina Support The Adnan Husain Show www.patreon.com/adnanhusain https://www.adnanahusain.substack.com Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available as audio podcast on all major platforms: https://adnanhusainshow.libsyn.com X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory   

You remember Dan Van Boo in Africa? They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Salam, hello, peace to you all, and welcome to the program. This is an episode of guerrilla history and the Adnan Hussein show. We're also streaming on East as a podcast, on At Indications, the YouTube channel for Resistance is Fertile. podcast and also on at least my X channel and possibly others. It's great to be with you all.

This is a kind of continuation of a series that we've done a few times before as a guerrilla history football preview show for major international tournaments. And so, of course, I have with me my guerrilla co-host, Henry Hakamaki. Henry, it's great to see you. Welcome. Nice to see you as well, Adnan, and happy that we're continuing this series of talking about football before the tournaments. Yeah, yeah, definitely before, you know, is good to get a sense of like what we might be expect to see and to analyze the state of the affairs for the tournament. We didn't do, I'm sorry to say, we didn't do an African Nations Cup this year, which given what happened was probably the most exciting. We'll have to do a retrospective because of what happened. We'll do it as a history episode, yeah.

But I think there's been fallout from that even into this one. So we may end up having some discussions about that connected. But here to join our panel as ever, returning guest, friend of my channel of the Gorilla History Show and founding member of the Football Preview series here, historian of Latin America Alex Avina Alex, great to see you again. You're wearing a great shirt.

Maybe you can tell us also a little bit about who you're supporting and what you're wearing. Thank you for having me back. Yeah, we did miss the Afcon Cup, but as someone who was watching the final, I don't know how to describe what happened in that final or in the weeks after. Like, I'm still kind of confused.

Like, who has the trophy at this point? So this is a jersey that Neatcap did in collaboration with Bohemians, a professional club in Ireland. They've done several jerseys to raise funds for different Palestinian causes. So at this point, I think this is like my fourth Bohemians jersey, which is like way too much. But they're all good, so I can't resist. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Beautiful. In addition, we also have Indy from a co-host of Resistance's Fertile podcast, whom I discovered

as a result of collaborating on the Iran versus the Epstein Empire series that is continuing, and there will be one coming up tomorrow night, Wednesday evening. So do join us for that live stream, collaborative live stream. He made a couple of sly references here and there to, you know, the Premier League and football. several times I said, okay, he watches football. I don't know who he supports, but he seems to have an analytical perspective on the beautiful game. So next time we begin our preview for a major term,

we have to have him on. So Indy, I'm so delighted to welcome you on to the panel. Yeah, thanks for having me. I started really getting into football after the Qatar World Cup actually as a kind of trauma response, honestly. like someone in our family got got murdered, and then that was like how I got away from it. But now I think it's come full circle

and football is traumatizing me again. Oh, my goodness. Wow. That is a gruesome story, but probably fitting for the worst World Cup ever that is about to start. I mean, I think it's already got that sort of tag and reputation. We are going to also hopefully have Abu Bakr Abid,

a Gazan, Palestinian, football journalist, and political analyst and commentator who will be joining us hopefully in about 10 minutes or so, but at some point in this broadcast. So he'll be a sub from the bench who turns the match, I would expect. And so we're looking forward to that. But I wanted to start with actually the Qatar World Cup, because we did do a preview and discussion. And I talked about it. I actually attended the Qatar World Cup. And I recall the media storm about Qatar hosting the World Cup. Absolutely every possible criticism, concern, fear about the games being hosted in this small kind of energy oligarchic nation that I can't remember the exact date of its independence.

We should put scare quotes around that word. But it's like from the 70s, early 70s, right? It was a British colonial possession. And it has then, you know, since become an important member of the GCC, fabulously wealthy and engaged in like other GCC countries in enormous investments in football and other sports as part of a kind of sports washing, diplomacy, geopolitics through patronizing. and hosting sports and sports events and sponsorships and so on to try and burnish the image.

And although Western football leagues, UEFA and the Premier League in particular, but also Paris Saint-Germain and the French League, we're all willing to accept Gulf money, you know, to sponsorships and even to purchase teams. Suddenly when they were the host, suddenly we started learning about, you know, how terrible the sources of their funding were, how unequal their societies were, how built on labor exploitation and labor migration, you know, with the Khafala system, how, you know, horrific they were when it came to, when it came to gay, lesbian, and queer people's rights, you know, none of which you could say was completely, you know, untrue, but was definitely deployed in a way to try and undermine

the Qatar World Cup. And after having attended it, I would say it was actually quite a well-run games. You know, like all the concerns and fears about not having the infrastructure, it not being, you know, they're not having been a tradition of hosting large-scale football tournaments other than the Asia Cup, which was a bit of a kind of tune up for the World Cup,

that it was actually very well run. It was a great fan experience. I personally felt it was kind of nice not to have to be surrounded by drunken fans in stadium spilling beer when a goal was scored all over you and that maybe behaviorally there was a little bit more focus about what was going on

on the pitch than other things. So I wasn't bothered. And people who definitely had to have alcohol had places where they could go. you know, to consume alcohol, but it was conducted in a way that because it was in one central location, brought all the fans from the world, all the teams together.

And that was a beautiful sort of experience to meet, to mix with fans from all over the world. Nobody said sorry afterwards. But nobody's saying anything, it seems, in mainstream media about the U.S. as a host of the World Cup. So that's just somewhere I would want to start with is about the media portrayal or the silence, really, about the many serious qualms. It was a torrent of criticism and concern. They even created such an atmosphere that people like Tony Cruz, you know, who I don't think has ever had a political thought in his mind or made a comment about anything happening in the world ever felt that it was necessary.

or important or significant for him to condemn Qatar as a host of the games. We saw what the German team did, you know, sort of provocatively to dramatize that they were not happy with having to play these games in Qatar and the sort of society that it was and so on. So there was a lot of like performative criticism and now we hear nothing from many people. So I just wanted to sort of begin there with like the absence of any concerted media discussion or even response from FIFA, from football other competitors, you know, about some of the problems that have emerged around this World Cup. So the floor is sort of open, I think. I would like to start. Just to build on, since you use Germany as an example,

they're the, they're kind of a microcosm for the dynamic that you just mentioned Adnan, right? their captain kimmich gave an interview a week or two ago where he said no there should be no place for politics and sport and we would never use the world cup as a venue to advocate for our political stances like that's just like four years after you guys just did that in Qatar so i think it's kind of a funny contrast but also i think emblematic of the the difference in treatment right that we are seeing with with regard to to what the comrades at the end of sport podcasts are referring to as the mega world cup and they the world is getting full view of what, I mean, what kind of police state is developing in the United States. I mean, part of it has always been a police state, right? Only affecting certain populations, certain geographic locations, dependent on race and class, etc. But it's definitely an expanding police state.

And now you have people around the world who are going to be witnessing what it looks like. And it's, no, I think you said, what you said was right on this is going to be in the united states at least is going to be the worst world cup and it's got like a if you if we think about this historically it's got a there's a tough like running competition for worst like hosts like 1934 musulini italy um let's see 1970 mexico after two years after having massacred students and in the in the midst of a dirty war against the arm left um we have 1978 argentina with an actual military dictatorship we have accounts of prisoners who were being held in clandestine house detention torture centers,

they could hear the roars and the cheers from the stadiums as they were being tortured. It's pretty like they're going to lose. The U.S. is going to beat all of these horrific regimes out as the worst World Cup host. That's a good point about Qatar because Qatar was, it's not just like the evil that America is doing. People physically can't travel to America. whereas with Qatar, people especially from, say, Sri Lanka or Africa, we regularly travel through there. I had to kind of look up the visa regulations there because they don't actually trouble us that much.

But that was an open World Cup for everybody. But I think what it comes down to really is just racism, right? That the hypocrisy, the whole idea is that you point out something outside of like, whiteistan or like white dumber, white empire, whatever you want to call it. And that's where all the sins and the bad stuff are. But there's no concept of looking back. Even with people in the mainstream media that kind of are discussing the problems with this World Cup in America because there are so many. But they rarely attributed to America in the same way that everything was attributed to Qatar. It's just almost like passive voice, like, oh, things are happening.

But it's not attributed. It's not connected to some grand narrative about this being some evil place. because there's still that vestigial idea that there's some, you know, that like everything bad with America can be redeemed by what's good, good with America. It's not that portrayal. They just can't fathom, the Western media can't fathom that they're the villain. They can fathom very easily that Qatar is the villain or Russia is the villain or any other country, but they just can't figure out that they're the bad guys. Yeah, and just a quick little point about the accessibility of the Qatar World Cup. I mean, you had 50,000 Iranian football fans attending their matches.

You know, it's not far. They could come over 30 or 40,000, maybe more Saudi fans because it's just a drive, you know, into Qatar. Morocco had 40 or 50,000, especially when they made it to the semifinal. I think 50 or 60,000 fans came, you know, to attend. And even if not all of them were able to have tickets to the stadium, they just came in force en masse to enjoy the atmosphere, to support. their team to enjoy the World Cup and enjoy this festival, you know, of different nations coming together. So it was so much more accessible, not only because it was closer, it was in a part of the world where people from East Asia, South Asia, Africa, West Asia, and Europe all had

relatively easy access, which is, of course, the history of West Asia and the Middle East is that it is this transit point and trade routes historically. It's defined its history as being in between these different world regions and connecting them. So it was a tribute in some ways to that, but also because, as you were saying, the visa regime, so the legal blockade, the legal walls that are built up, that's even more important is that, you know, many of these fans are very close.

Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, they're just on the other side of the Mediterranean. But when the World Cup has been held in Europe, in Western Europe, in particular, it has always been a challenge. You know, it's expensive to stay there, but it's been even also a challenge to get visas. And we are seeing that to the nth degree with the walls and barriers that the U.S. has erected. And hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about some of the individual cases that illustrate this. But Henry, yeah, I just wanted to add in.

Can you hear me, by the way? Great. Okay. So I just wanted to add in on the fact of accessibility, even in the case. even in the case of Russia, and I say this is from the perspective of somebody who lives in Russia and has lived in Russia for five years, historically Russia hasn't been super easy to get to for a lot of the world. So there's a lot of countries, and it's expanding now, the number of citizens of countries that can travel to Russia without a visa or that have access to very quick visa

turnaround times. Historically, Russia wasn't super easy to get visas for, or at least super fast to get visas for. I have personal experience with that when I was. first going there. But in terms of that World Cup, they made the visa process extremely simple for anybody that could demonstrate that they were going to be going to the World Cup. And maybe listeners will remember. But at that time, the media actually was looking at that and demonizing Russia for that. So what they were saying is that Russia is doing sports washing. The country, which is very closed off, makes it hard for, you know, Western citizens to travel to the country. they're now opening themselves up at a time that's going to be a celebration to show themselves in their best possible light.

They were branding it as Putin's World Cup. They were branding it as, as I said, sports washing of Russia and everything that is wrong with Russia. But nevertheless, the World Cup was accessible. People got there and it was a well-run World Cup. I talked to people pretty frequently who were at the World Cup, Russian citizens and foreign citizens who travel them. And they still remember how well that World Cup was run and how enjoy. it was. As Adnan was talking with Qatar, it was quite easy for citizens basically of any country to be able to travel and go to the matches if they had any proof that they were actually going to be going to the World Cup, regardless of what country they were from. And again,

the accusations of sports washing come in. And that's not to say that there wasn't sports washing that was taking place in Russia or in Qatar or in any country that has ever hosted a major sporting tournament. That certainly is part of why you put in a bit. to have a sporting tournament, whether that's the Olympics, whether that's the World Cup, whether that's any sort of sporting tournament. You are obviously bidding for it because you want to show your country in the best possible light. That is definitionally sports washing. So not to say that there wasn't sports washing in Qatar.

We talked about it four years ago with Alex and with Adnan and Brett on the show on Guerrilla history. Listeners can go back and listen to that episode from four years ago. It's not to say that Russia wasn't also sportswashing eight years ago. but the United States is doing the same thing today, obviously. However, the United States' government is so incompetent that even when they have the opportunity to sports washing, rather than making it accessible and showing their country in the best possible light, they step on the rake, hit themselves in the face,

and have all sorts of news stories come out about how inaccessible and difficult it is, all of the egregious things, which again, I don't want to go into every specific detail now, because I'm sure we'll talk about it, specifically the targeting of Iranian citizens and even the Iranian team. The United States is making itself look like a petulant child on the world's sporting stage. When you could have the opportunity, if you were the Trump administration, to, again, look like an adult in the room and show the United States is actually a great country, you have the opportunity. But even with the opportunity thrust upon them by a personal friend of Trump, Johnny Infantino, the head of FIFA, they still manage.

to make the situation even worse. They are not even able to sportswash correctly, which is the ironic thing. That's an interesting issue, Henry. And, you know, I just want to raise, like, you know, a possible counterpoint is that are they, is it really the story fundamentally about incompetent? I'm fully willing to believe that they could be very incompetent. We've seen, look at the hapless, you know, performance of the U.S. military in confronting, you know, Iran and we just had the downing of a, you know, and in fact, actually, but this is my point, is that in some ways, they're happier to have it sometimes be said that it was accidental and it was a technical mistake and like, oh, you know, so like it could be contained within that

and not credited to the resistance from the, you know, other side. That's one element of it. But the other side is, I wonder, they know on some level how this is going to project an image to the rest of the world. Maybe that's the image they want. It's like America for Americans, and this is the world's game. Well, guess what? We own it, but you're not welcome, you know, in it, you know, and that there's this aggressive, you know, Americans don't really. There's not, yeah, there are football fans, soccer fans in, in North America, in the United States, but it's a lesser sport. It's seen as something that belongs to the world rather than the U.S. And, you know, so there's maybe something that's actually being communicated about this aggressiveness in walling out the

world's fans for the world's game saying, you know, America, you know, has these barriers up, don't come. Like, it's like Kamala Harris herself when she went to, you know, Latin America. And she said, well, you know, this under the Biden administration, you know, she sent to her portfolio to burnish her, you know, credentials for having foreign policy chops as to go to, you know, Latin America and in a public speech say, you know, yeah, don't come, you know, to America. Essentially, you're not welcome. And so I just wonder about that. Is this like actually a projection of a ideological image? What do you all think of that? And what do you think of that, Henry? It's both, obviously. I think that there is some incompetence involved in terms of the process

and how the process is running. But I also would say that the majority of the incompetence, and I know that I was just railing against the U.S. government's incompetence before. and I do think that a lot of it is projection. It's the same reason why the United States takes a lot of punitive actions against other countries. Even if that's things like minor tariffs on minor countries that don't do trade with the United States anyway, those things are put in place in order to show the rest of the world. The United States has impunity to do whatever it wants, and it is the powerful country. That is also true, and that's a large part of it.

But I would also say that there's even more incompetence on the side of FIFA than there is on the side of the U.S. government. the fact that they have been so complicit with the U.S. doing these things, which go directly against the FIFA's charter as well as just the spirit of the game and the spirit of the tournament. And the fact that, again, the head of FIFA who's a personal friend of Trump, Johnny Infantino, is such a bootlicker for Trump that he allows these things to happen and doesn't come out and condemn them or take any sort of action against these things. That shows true incompetence from FIFA. But again, is it actually incompetence when he's a friend of Trump or is there some backhanded dealing here? So, you know, maybe there's some incompetence involved. But there's also just malfeasance involved as well. It's certainly both.

There's definitely malfeasance. And I would say one place to look at maybe this is something we can talk about some of the specifics is if you look at the, you know, populations, the fans and the teams from which countries have been subjected to great indignant. visa rejections, you know, a Somali referee, okay, a referee who's designated as somebody that Gianni and Fontino, either personally or at least his processes that he oversees for staffing the World Cup, selected this referee because he was, you know, deemed, judged by his colleagues as the best, you know, referee from Africa and you want to have each of the confederations represented, you know, that's very important. part of the normal process for administering a World Cup is to have participation from all the,

you know, confederations and refereeing from all the confederations. And so he has a diplomatic passport, but he's Somali. And, you know, ICE was deployed in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, in part to terrorize the Somali community specifically to isolate and suppress and subordinate them. And we know that also, like, you know, Trump has said, you know, remarks about Somalia that I won't even repeat here because they're so disgusting. But also that he has a animosity, is very specific and personal animosity to Ilhan Omar and has degraded her, you know, kind of background. Caesar as a dangerous political opponent, is able to marshal and mobilize, you know, racism, fears about, you know, xenophobia and fears about foreigners, fears about Islam, Islamophobia, all together in one. person, and that's embodied, you know, represented broadly in the Somali, you know, I mean, in the Somali community. And I would argue it's something that reminds me very much of the rules that

we have here in Quebec province next door to me that disallows wearing the hijab, for example, if you are a government employee in any position where you might wield authority over people as a police officer, as a judge, as a teacher. And I would say that's another real red line here is the idea of a Somali referee who's in charge of the match, who judges, who, you know, has control. Essentially, it's like a sovereign, you know, kind of to make the game kind of function. That's a person in a position of respected high authority. That is, you know, just anathema to this idea. You know, we don't want Sharia law.

Is he going to implement Sharia law, you know, on the pitch? It's almost as crude as this. So I do think then when you look at the Iranian, the Iraqis, the Moroccans. And I think we may also hear also about the Uzbeks, about other people from Latin America being denied visas. It's certain populations. I have not heard about European fans being denied access.

Now, maybe they're out there. I don't know. But it seems to me it's targeting various populations. And that is communicating something about what America wants the rest of the world to know at this moment. Who's welcome and who's not? I think a World Cup is, sorry, go ahead. No, no, just to add to your comment about Somalia, we shouldn't not mention is also the dozens of times that Trump has bombed Somalia since he took office. So that's also part of that context as well, which is very, it's a U.S. imperial thing, but also a Trumpian thing, right?

You bomb the countries and then people leave and you don't let them come in, right? That's like that circular logic of Trumpian, at least the Trumpian version of U.S. Empire. But, Indy, go ahead. Jump in. Yeah, so I just want to. say every World Cup or every Olympics is a communication. It's an act of communication. And Maya Angelou said, when people tell you who they are, believe them and believe them the first time. So at the time that they were deciding on this bid, Trump was doing his Muslim ban at the time. And I think the Supreme Court

kind of approved it at the time that the bid came through. So they knew this is what they were getting into. And just like the Olympics China used as a sort of coming out party, I think this is America basically saying party's over, which is a. a very clear part of Maga of the Trump's Make America Great Again thing. It's like we got this colony. We brought in many immigrants, including my wife and my like, I think, mother and so on. But now party's over. It's for white people. And you can see that in who is targeted. It's like Moroccan fans have been not allowed. And a lot of fans are categorically not not allowed. So under the, under the visa regimes, I think Haiti, Iran, Senegal and Ivory Coast can't apply for.

for those, the relevant visitor visas. And I think until May, fans from Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia had to pay, I think, a $15,000 deposit. I think maybe for some of our readers or listeners, it might be worth explaining, like, what a visa process is, because sometimes when I talk to Westerners, they don't actually understand that. But it's incredibly onerous. So I have a white passport and a Sri Lankan passport, but most of my families applies on

Sri Lankan and my dad who travels most is on Sri Lankan. And you have to give like a colonoscopy bank statements. You have to go for interviews. If you get one tiny thing wrong, they kick it back. And you pay easily hundreds of dollars each time or you pay for lawyers. It's a constant humiliating, bleeding process. And that's and that's what people will go through normally to get in. Now with World Cups, Russia, as, as Henry mentioned, like Russia, if you had a fan ID, which is essentially a ticket, you got visa access, you got access, not just for the World Cup, but I think you got it for the year. Under the highest system in Qatar, it was the same. When Brazil hosted the World Cup, FIFA actually worked with them to pass like 900 pages of laws, a lot of them pertaining

copyright and so on, but also pertaining to access of the fans and any criminal, like, proceedings and so on. So FIFA traditionally, you know, sets this stuff up before. So from 2018, FIFA should have set this stuff up. Or going back to 1966, when England tried to, where they considered not allowing the North Korean team to come denying those visas, FIFA said if you do that, we will pull the World Cup. So FIFA has that institutional power. And as someone commented online, FIFA will be around longer than this government and possibly even the United States. They have that power. So there's some, it's like every international institution that we're.

seeing. But there's a corruption of this institution in the service of empire. And this is I guess how Trump operates, but he likes to humiliate everybody. He runs a humiliation administration. And they're, this is, they're trying to humiliate us. They're trying to say, you know, there's an American saying, I guess it's a Western saying, I want to take my ball and go home. And they want to take their ball and go home, except they don't even like football. It's a, it's a great irony, actually. or the communities that do like football in the United States are the ones that they're targeting domestically. I mean, that's the other thing, right?

So to push back a little bit on Adnan's comment earlier, like football is really popular, but it's popular among certain populations within the United States. Like Mexican-American population, different Latin American populations, it's extremely popular. But those are also the targets, the domestic targets, for Trump's, you know, a system, a systematic approach to domestic politics, which to him and to people like Stephen Miller, there is no border, right? There is no border between their domestic and their foreign policy. So the type of humiliation and violence that they've applied to Somali-American peoples in Minneapolis or to Mexican-American peoples in Southern California, they're now doing it globally to people

who are, you know, to use like late 19th, early 20th century language just as swarthy as they are, right? I mean, you watch those videos of what they made the Senegalese national team do, like on the tarmac. Like, it's all humiliation. And that is the core of racial humiliation is at the core of whatever MAGA is or whatever Trumpism is. This is not incompetence. From the perspective of FIFA, it is incompetence because this is going against their, the economic logic of their project. Incompet. Yeah, it goes against the money, which we can discuss later, which is what FIFA cares about.

Exactly. But if he've watched Infantino try to play soccer, football, then, like, you know why it, there's, there's, the way he's handling this World Cup is the way he, I just watched a video of him trying to take a corner kick other day. And I'm like, my God, that is what? How are you the president of FIFA? But we know why? Because he's an imperial bootlicker. And FIFA does have power. And they've had exercised power in the past. But they also choose not to, right? Like, so FIFA and, and We've talked about this in the past, you know, the fact that they're silence or they're in unwillingness. to take any sort of action against Israel, while after the Russian special operation, they ban Russia from Saudi. They're still, I think they're still banned, right? Henry, like,

they're still not only, yeah, not only in terms of FIFA competition, but also in terms of European club competitions. Like in all international competition, Russia is not permitted. So the only teams that the Russian national team has played in the last four years are teams like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

And recently, they're most recent one that they played. against was Burkina Faso, where they played a week ago against them. So this is the incompetence thing. Like this is, they want this, right? And this also signals to me and Nindi, you brought this up. It's a signaling, the party's over. I think the way that we can think about the party is this is the end of U.S.

Imperial soft power. Like that is the one thing that the U.S. Trump administration has tried to get rid of since their first time in office, right? Like I've seen this insane right wing MAGA discussion online where they say, something like, oh, what a coincidence. Once we get rid of USAID, right wingers in Latin America finally win an election. I'm just like, I don't even know what to do with that, like kind of, but that's their thing, right? So their whole thing is to get rid of U.S. soft power. And the way that they're humiliating these national teams, these fans, that's part of that project, I think.

Absolutely. I just wanted to add in one thing on what Alex was saying. So when he was talking about there are groups, populations within the United States that are big fans of the United States. This connects with something that I was planning on bringing up later in the conversation, but maybe we can add in at some point around here, which is ticket prices. So there are populations in the United States that are very fervent in terms of supporting their football, the national teams of their heritage. So one team that I think will surprise people by how many supporters will be at the stadiums or would have been at the stadiums, which will be.

get to that point in a second is Haiti. There's a lot of Haitians in the United States, tens of thousands of Haitians in the United States who are really into football and really hardcore supporters of the national team. And actually, many of the players on the national team were born and raised in countries like the United States, but they feel a connection with Haiti as a country. And with the visa regime and the restrictions against Haitians, it would probably surprise a lot of people to see how many Haitians would turn up to the stadiums in the United States. But that is the diaspora who have either American citizenship or residency or some sort of document. They're already present within the United States.

This is not only Haiti. Obviously, there's huge Mexican populations in the United States that are the biggest football fans and the best football fans of the United States. There's many communities like this. Henry, we're in the process of covertly taking over the United States if you've been following. It's not covert Alex. Everybody knows it's happening. It's already happened. Like culturally food.

Yeah. Yeah. It's already happened. Mama, Make America Mexico again. I did want to say about the ticket prices, though, because I don't believe we've mentioned yet, the ticket prices for this World Cup are about three times higher than they were for previous World Cup. I think it's five.

But I loaded an image if you want to add none. Yeah. With dynamic pricing, it might go down to three, but it also may go higher. I mean, dynamic pricing. has never gone down. It only ever goes up. But in any case, yeah, three to five times higher for each of the matches. Now, this has a couple of intended purposes. One is to be a money generator. But as we have seen in the news repeatedly in the last few weeks, hotel bookings are way below the projections. I mean, many times below the projected numbers. Ticket sales are lagging way behind

what FIFA was anticipating. And with dynamic pricing, in theory, the ticket prices should come down for games that aren't being sold out to normal levels. But in my view, there is a second reason that the ticket prices were jacked up so high. And this reason is precisely the fact that the best football fans present within the United States are not supporters of the United States national team. They are supporters of the Mexican national team, the Haitian national team, etc., all of these diaspora populations that have been historically fervent supporters of the football teams of their heritage or of their home countries if they're in the United States temporarily.

These populations, though, traditionally and presently, are much more socioeconomically disadvantaged to the white population of the United States. So what happens when you jack up the prices, and we just saw the graphic on the screen that India put up, and, you know, listeners of the podcast, if you didn't see it, you know, you can easily find these statistics about the ticket prices. Why would the ticket prices be jacked up so high that it's like an entire month's salary or more, even for American populations, many months salaries for populations that are coming from overseas in most cases? Why would they be raised so high even when they know that they're going to be struggling to sell tickets

and they see the hotel numbers are way, way down? In my view, part of that is to, again, discourage the populations. that would turn out for their teams there. And then again, kind of whitify the World Cup and the American experience at the World Cup. We don't want those diaspora populations coming to the stadium and making a vibrant fan atmosphere

around the national teams of Mexico and Haiti. We want rich, you know, billionaires and tech investors to come to the stadiums and sit there and drink beer quietly. So the stadium experience is going to be absolutely dead, but it'll look like, you know, Nazi Germany. It'll be absolutely white in the stadium. We won't have any diversity in the stadium because we are doing everything we can to prevent that. Yeah, the difference is that under sort of the neoliberal kind of maybe Democrats' vision of how you would manage, you know, a World Cup,

is that it would be okay to have a United Colors of Beneton style, you know, kind of let's incorporate the, you know, Comprador, Western, wealthy elites of some of these countries, they can have privileged access and join and participate in this global culture. But I think something that Alex was talking about connects very nicely with what you're talking about, Henry, here, which is about the politics of spectacle and the humiliation, right? So the scenes that we've seen meant to humiliate, you know, African players, Middle Eastern players, etc., Muslim players, you know, in this kind of racial regime, to aggrandize white supremacy,

that's the same as the kids in cages. You know, that actually was a feature, not a bug. You know, for all the criticism of it, it was meant to communicate something to this politics of sadism that comes from the idea, we're victims in our own country. So we should be able to do this violence against others

because we are actually, you know, white supremacy. That's the doctrine of white supremacy. And the prospect that's so dangerous from what you were saying, Henry, is indeed the point that you and Alex made about what are the populations that actually do like football, do follow football, is that it would have been an embarrassment to have, you know, in the United States stadiums filled with, you know, underclass or lower class, although, you know, as somebody pointed out, even if they were at the Qatar world, you know, prices, that's expensive. A lot of people. still are going to be, you know, kind of excluded. But there would have been more people from, you know, the Latin American communities, African communities, and Haitians and so on, able to be at those games. But this is also why they are ramping up ice, you know,

raids and monitoring around the stadiums. Like, in a way, it doesn't make any sense. It's not actually probably for the people who are here as visitors and fans, from abroad, you know, for, because they're on a kind of short-term visa, it's actually for the populations domestically that do support will come out to these fan parks and experiences and so on and create an atmosphere, even if they can't get into the stadium, they will want to join into the festival atmosphere and support their teams. And they are ripe targets for surveillance, patrolling, terrorizing, and trying to, you know, reinscribe this.

hierarchical racial order in America. So we've heard that there is targeting plan by ICE. That's what explains it, it seems to me, is the analysis, both of you were highlighting about who are the domestic populations that actually care and the embarrassment, you know, if they were actually allowed to be in public, in the public sphere. So, you know, that's a great point. And we want to talk maybe a little bit more about some of the economic components and all of that as well further in this conversation.

but I want to bring in special guest, Abu Bakr Abed, Gazan journalist, Palestinian activist from Ireland right now. Abu Bakr, thanks so much for joining. It's great to see you. Great to meet you. Salam. Let's check, make sure your sound is okay. Yeah, we can't hear you.

So there must be something going on. Let's see if we can boost your sound and I don't know which microphone you have selected. Oh yeah, we're not hearing you, unfortunately. So let's check this, you know, if you click on the mic icon at the bottom of your window for the stream yard, see which is the selected mic. You have options. You can choose one. So that might be one solution.

Okay. Well, all right. Well, I don't know exactly. There's also a private chat. You can write a message in. He looks like, yeah, let's set him off and trying to come back in. Okay. Yeah.

So Abu Bakr has been actually saying over and over, which we should discuss, is that people should boycott these games, which we're kind of dancing around because we all kind of want to watch it. But he's been saying clearly that we should boycott. Yes, can you hear me now. Yes, perfect. Wonderful. It's great to have you on. Thank you so much for having me.

And nice to see you all on this panel. Yes, yes. Well, Indy was just mentioning, you know, at some point it would be great to talk a little bit more about FIFA, Palestine, and the whole broader issue of Palestine. but we've been talking about the World Cup. And Indy just mentioned that you have been posting that people should boycott this World Cup. So maybe you can tell us, you know, a little bit more. We hadn't come to that.

We've been talking about how terrible, you know, all of its policies. But we hadn't come to the point of saying, yeah, we all should boycott it. And we've only scratched a surface of how terrible it is. We've got some more to go. There's a lot more to talk about, yeah. But go ahead. 100% to me, like, as a Palestinian first and as a Palestinian, journalists, especially covering sports, which have been doing over the past three years,

and I have sadly broken the news on the vast majority of the murders of Palestinian athletes during the course of the past three years. If you look at whether this World Cup's being held, even, to be honest with you, even if this World Cup would be held or were held in Qatar or any Arab country, I would have said the same. Just to be held, just to be held, be clear, because Arab countries have also contributed to the genocide in Gaza. So I'm not trying to play the double standard role here. No, I'm absolutely, I'm right here and I'm right there. So the thing about it is, the United States, I don't have to talk about the United States' role in the genocide in Gaza. Everybody knows that. It has co-operated it. Canada, of course,

the level of complicity is utterly insane. Mexico. is also infiltrated by the Zionist lobby, the Mexican government. In the end, this is one reason that why we must boycott that. If you are going to pay for watching the game, either online or on one of the channels that is broadcast in the games, or even you want to go to the game itself, you contribute into that. I mean, if people cannot resist their desires to save life,

How can we call you a human being? It doesn't make any sense to me, right? And the second thing, let's talk about what the United States has done so far, and we have seen that banning the referee. And when we are talking about the referee from Somalia, because we are in the same region, we have to bring attention to some facts. When we are making history,

when we are trying to reach our dreams, we break mountains. We go like we overcome loads of obstacles to do so. This Somalian referee, I'm sure, he has worn the unbearable to reach his dream, just to be banned by the United States. Look at the Somalian team. Humiliation. This like degrading of human life and human rights. at the most horrible level.

So there is racism, outright racism. There's everything that we can see. Why is it important? Why is it important to watch World Cup, which is going to cause more problems, make for more killings in West Asia, especially in Palestine and in Gaza? After you all have seen what Trump has done

across the world, attacking seven countries, fueling the genocide in Gaza, carpet bombing Lebanon, carpet bombing Iran. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? Like, as I said, this is just a World Cup for a month. We cannot, people are very, very keen on their instant gratification. Rather than focusing on saving the human lives, it's horrifying. It really horrifies me that people are still intent on watching this World Cup and are paying the money for that.

So there are so many reasons. Like have some respect for the Palestinian footballers whom the United States helped kill. Have some respect for, like have some compassion with the fact, I will show some compassion to the fact that the sports scene. The entire sports scene in Gaza has been obliterated. I just got out of Gaza a year ago. I have reported from most of the stadiums. They are just piles of rubble. And people are using these piles and mountains of rubble and these stadiums like

Hanunis Municipality Stadium, which I've been to. People are living there. They're living in tents over the bulldozed pitches of stadiums in Gaza. Look at Dura Stadium, which is the sole standing stadium in the intense. entirety of the Gaza Strip, it has, it's no longer a stadium, it's a refugee camp. It's a displacement shelter for the displaced communities. Look at the clubs. Israel has destroyed 51 clubs out of 54 in Gaza. If we are talking about this in England, the entire Premier League and championship teams would be upletrated, would be entirely uptraded.

if this happened in the UK. Moreover, Israel has destroyed nine stadiums out of thin stadiums in Gaza. I don't know how the number of cities in the United States, but I think the number of cities that would be used for the World Kabul is going to be quite similar, maybe 10 or 20.

Actually, don't remember the number. But it's, if it were in the United States, then the world Kabul have never been held at all. And all this has been, made possible by the United States, Canada and Mexico, all these governments. It has been made possible by that. So why I understand that some, for example, Jordan is participating for the first time. The people of Jordan have seen some of them because I'm from the Arab world, they've seen some of them that they want to watch this World Cup. Iraq is participating also

in this World Cup. People want to watch that. Iran, I mean Iran always. participates in the World Cup, so people don't have to rush to go and watch it. But generally, I know there are teams that are participating for the very first time. However, we need to understand that our collective duty is to respect the loss of life, is to show some compassion to the people who have been killed, is to show solidarity with the players and the fans that have been killed. Fans in Gaza have been killed in mass. Football and the World Cup and football teams are very popular in the territory.

People have been watching, you know, the game for many, many years. Football isn't part of our identity in Gaza. So what are we going to watch after all this? Why do you want to watch? You can't really bar yourself from watching a tournament for a month. Why? Like, it doesn't make any sense. worry, if you are going to watch this world come and make it change to stop the United States

from committing war crimes across the world and to stop the complicity of these governments, okay, then go ahead, watch it. But you're just going to watch it. You're just simply going to watch it. You're just going to invest in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, coalition of three governments. I think if this happened, as I said, like I've called out the hypocrisy of the sports journalist, Lewis, and the Arab ones as well. And the emotive language they have used to describe, quote-unquote, Qatar's abuses of human rights, right? Which I can't really deny or I'm not really aware of, to be honest.

It has disappeared when it comes to the United States. They're using emojis and they're using general public, vague, like general vague language to describe what you know. it's doing. Even iron riots, sorry, like even iron riots, people have been, like, have praised them for his video today. It's nothing. It's nothing. What is he talking about? It's nothing. All of them are punch of cowards. Like, they have been screaming at the top of the longest bar in Russia. But no, no. They don't care about Palestine. They don't care at all. Believe me or not, if it were, like, if you see it, they have. They have. having shown a pro over Iran, you know why?

Because it depends. They have limitations to what they can speak about. If it was just around Somalia, because it's safe. It's safe zone. You can talk about Somalia. It's fine. It doesn't have any relation to the geopolitical events that are happening right now across the globe. But if it's Iran, Palestine, or Lebanon, believe me, 100%, which has happened,

it's not about believe it or not, which has already. happen. They will never say what. How many Lebanese players at least have been killed? I think over 20 or over 10. I'm not sure about the number. Also, stadiums were destroyed. One of the stadiums was also destroyed. Did they utter a word about it? Of course not. Because Somalia is safe and Senegal is safe to talk about it. But they will never talk about something that is in relation to Israel. That's interesting and a good point because there has been. you know, some, as you're pointing out, Ian Wright, but, you know, on X and other social media, you can see people are commenting as the developing news comes out about the humiliation of the

Senegalese team at the airport and denial of visas to Moroccan fans. There's been at least some, you know, kind of coverage of these things. But while there has been some coverage, people feel inhibited to really call out the horrific treatment of Iran. And Iran's team, one of their kind of staff was prevented from even traveling. And of course, the fact that they are not allowed to stay in the United States, even though all of their matches are in the U.S., they have to stay in Tijuana close to the border in Mexico and fly on the day for each day and then return no matter where their match may be located. If they were to make it into the knockout rounds, it could be all the way far on the east coast.

And, you know, so this is, you know, an imposition on, you know, them. And there has been much less discussion, really, an outrage about it, about the abandoning of the host's responsibilities, you know, in the way that they're treating. But some people think, and I wonder what you think, Abu Bakr, you know, some people think, you know, that maybe Iran shouldn't have subjected themselves to this. you know, while their nation is at war and they should have withdrawn. And in fact, actually, earlier in the winter, there were indications potentially at the outbreak of the war early in March, statements made by the Ministry of Sport and so on, that it may be intolerable to actually participate in the World Cup

being held in the United States, you know, given the behavior and the, you know, assault, you know, aggressive war against Iran by the United States. Other people have different views and think that, well, you know, there will be an example in some ways of the defiance and the resistance, you know, that they will continue to kind of represent their nation proudly on the world stage. I'm wondering what you think about about this. I mean, should it have been maybe part of the larger boycott? And perhaps you can also tell us a little bit more because you alluded to Iraq and Jordan as two countries from within the Arab nations who are participating for the first time. what kinds of discussions are being had in Arab media among Arab fans about the participation of these two countries when, you know, the genocide in Gaza has been taking place and continuing even to now.

To be honest, I think both options can be true. It can be a sign of defiance and resistance and resilience by the Iranian team if they part spate. But I would honestly go more for a boycott by the Iranian team. I think the level of humiliation that they have been subjected to is astounding. It's something I don't think I've ever seen in my lifetime before a world cop happening. And I think Iran in the end, it just, like as I said, like Iran is a great team in Asia, they've always competed on the international level. They've always been in these world cults.

But the circumstances that are being forced upon them will not help them achieve anything in this competition. So I'm just afraid that if they stay in this competition, I know this will give them motivation, but probably the circumstances would even make it worse for them, not to perform well and then just be kicked out of the group stage, which is going to be useless for Iran and the Iranian team.

But it's, as I said, like I'm not speaking on behalf of Iran and the country. It's up to them in the end, but I would definitely love to see a boycott of the whole competition because, like, they're treating them as subhumans, like as war criminals, and they are the war criminals. Like, they're treating them as they are holding bombs

and coming to America to, to mass bomb America or something, which is absolute garbage. So I think the level of inhumanization, as I said, is really, really outstanding. And this should be a response. But back to the point, I'm not sure what kind of journalists you have alluded to it. But honestly, they have been bothered much more about the pin, the 168 pinned, the Iranian players have put on their jerseys more than on the ban and the degrading of Iranian players and stuff.

So there is a lot to talk about when it comes to Iran, but in the end, as I said, like the decision is definitely up to them. Now, when it comes to Jordan and Iraq, now, Iraq is a very warm. torn country until now, unfortunately, although there's no war in Iraq, but the scars of the wars that have happened to Iraq over the last decades, a few decades, are still haunting the country. And I can't really have much to say on Iraq, also they have one of the armed groups there, armed resistance groups in Iraq. We saw the striker, how he was detained to the border.

utterly disgusting. I mean, like, as I said, like on Twitter, like if a player during the Qatar World Cup was held at the border or was held at the airport and interrogated for seven hours, the competition would have been immediately canceled and taken to another country.

100% this would be the case. And for Jordan, I mean, I have a lot to say in Jordan, but this is the first time participating in the competition. And there's a very important fact that Jordan, the vast majority of the Jordanian population, have Palestinian regions. So I think it's a lot but for them to bulk of this World Cup. Well, I understand the significance of this competition for them, given the fact that it's the first time they're participating in it. However, I actually, as I said, like, this World Cup, whoever is bartaping in it. it, the fans who are going to follow it.

And look at the prices. I don't think people come from West Asia. Even Western people who are taking very, very much higher salaries are unable to go on to the World Cup matches and stadiums. So how would it be for people coming from West Asia? Like the average salary in Jordan is around $1,200. Do you think people in Jordan would be able to go to, uh, to go and pay tickets and tickets for the marches, tickets for the flights,

an accommodation for over $3,000, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. They can't afford it. So I don't even think that the presence of Arab fans and those countries and the fans of those countries participating from West Asia and the Arab world, I don't think the presence would be valuable or will even be that visible. on this World Cup, I think this is a project for

the elites, for the imperialist, billionaire elites, this is a World Cup, not for the ordinary people. It's definitely, it's clearly, obviously, for those who have a wealth of money, who can come and

watch the game, if you're talking about the least ticket is around 400 to 800 dollars, how can people really afford that? It's absolutely impossible. Also, more Importantly, as I said, like, as, sorry, Infantino said that everyone would be welcome in this World Cup, FIFA is lying to the audience. FIFA is lying. FIFA does have the authority to go and tell the United States, well, you have to get those people in towards this World Cup.

FIFA is benefiting from this project. FIFA is 100% complacent to all what is happening at the moment, because we've seen it. it in Gaza. Like, people don't have to be in need. We've seen it in the so-called Buddha Peace when Infantino signed a $75 million project to reconstruct

the sports scene in Gaza, which was 100% and not a reconstruction plan. It was more of an expansionist than colonial project, but it's embedded within football terms to deceive people from what is actually going to happen. You cannot

really built in 10 clubs instead of 51 clubs. How come are you lying to? How are you really lying to? So FIFA has always lied and it's been clear when Infantino was seen with the red, like with the red cab with the Trump. And I don't know how people can really, I know that trouble means a lot of people across the globe, but the end saving lives is really, really far, far more important. And you can't really, I mean, I absolutely, I would say it's very plainly and very clearly. Anyone going to this world's car, been marching it has to be shamed.

Has to really, really be shamed. Yeah, I mean, definitely very powerful words. And just before I let Indy go to respond and pick up on some of those very important points, Abu Bakr, I just wanted to mention, you know, that you are saying, you know, lives matter more. And in light of that, I neglected to emphasize, though I've been putting it in the chat, that we are running as we have been this whole month on every live stream. In every program, a fundraiser for Dhanun Mutual Aid in Gaza. I've put the link in the chat to their Instagram page where you can find out how to make a donation through Chuffed

to provide potable drinking water and cash support to find out. families in Gaza. So please do be generous. That's more important than, you know, anything else that we can do in support right now. So please do be generous. Indy, you wanted to yeah, respond. Yes, Abu Bakr, of course, makes a lot of very good points. I think chief among them is that we've talked about visa issues. We talk about humiliation. But this is a situation where the host of the World Cup is bombing football stadiums in Iran, is destroying football, football clubs in Palestine is killing footballers. This is an unbelievable situation.

Even I think just last week, a female Palestinian, someone from the female national team in Palestine was, let's just say, kidnapped because they have no right to detain her in any way. This is coming from, and this is all, so Abu Lacher was saying, Canada, Mexico, you can say Europe as well. they're all equally implicated in this. And this is just a crazy situation, right? You would think that the line is you can't kill people from the other team. And sports historically, going back to time immemorial, is you set stuff aside, you set war aside, to have this sort of controlled, civilized competition.

And we're just fundamentally not dealing with civilized people here. What they're doing to the Iranian team, it's not just humiliation. If you're forcing a team to fly in and fly out after every match, you're weakening them. You're weakening your competition. Even when you detain someone for seven hours at the airport, you're weakening them. They're attacking the competition before the competition. So this is where we're in really uncharted territory here. What I've been saying is the Nazi Olympics was far better.

The Nazi Olympics allowed people in and they at least try to hide their overt repression at home to some degree. The Americans are not hiding anything. They're not letting people in. And they're actively suppressing the competition while killing footballers and killing sports people and arresting sports people all over their wretched collapsing empire. I want to add in just a small bit on the issue of boycotts and specifically in the context of the United States and the abdication of responsibility of journalists. So boycotts, of course, need to take place, but we need to think about who should be conducting these boycotts and to what end the boycotts should be taking place. Boycotts, if they are actually economically damaging

for FIFA and for the United States, should be taken out in any context. But if we're not talking about the economic side of things and the impact of them beyond economics, we have to think about what the narrative of it will be. So if we're thinking about Iran's national team, boycotting the World Cup and not participating in it, that should be a huge story. And that would be a really valuable message if people were given that message. However, seeing the way that the story is being covered by the U.S. media, which is they give a small clip here or there. I just saw this morning, I see some people in the chat talking about it too, but I saw it this

morning from Reuters that the latest news is that ticket allocations. for the Iranian national team supporters have been revoked this morning, like two days before the World Cup starts, their ticket allocations are being revoked. So those who have already bought tickets may not have the right to those places anymore. It's still seemingly slightly unclear of what that actually means from a functional standpoint, but with only two days until the tournament starts, that's a really big escalation.

So that was reported in Reuters this morning. I know some people know about it, But if you have a team, a multiple-time continental champion, by the way, the Iranian national team is a very strong national team, has been present at the World Cup continuously for years and has had good showings. You know, they don't make it like to the end stages of the tournament, but they do fight valiantly in the groups. I remember a few, a few years ago, it took a wonder.

Yeah, it took, yeah. I watched that match. 98. And then even more recently, I remember. it took a Lionel Messi wonder strike for Argentina to sneak past Iran and the group. And I mean, really a terrific goal, but, you know, they were really in at with Argentina until this really late messy strike from outside the box. In any case, the point is that if Iran is boycotting the World Cup, that would seemingly

be a really powerful message to send. However, I would worry that there would be a complete abdication of responsibility or a near complete abdication of responsibility of U.S. journalists. I'm sure it would be in the newspaper. Iran is boycotting the World Cup. And then they would move on and they would find a replacement. For example, Italy, a team that has missed the World Cup a couple times in a row. And I say this is somebody who's half Italian.

So, you know, I have some sentimentality with the Italian national team. But Trump's special envoy for Italy and for football suggested, even before Iran, Iran had made any statement about whether they were going to be pulling out of the World Cup or not, that Italy should be granted Iran's spot in the World Cup as the war had just begun, said that Iran should be removed from the World Cup, a team that qualified for the World Cup. And again, a very strong team that has won their continental competition numerous times. In fact, the first team to qualify actually. Yes, that's right.

Or early, you know, because they're so dominant in the Asian Football Federation. So they were the first. Exactly right. And on the other hand, we have Italy, a team that has failed to qualify for consecutive World Cups. And their idea is to just replace them. Now, unfortunately, I have a feeling that if this actually did happen, the vast majority of Americans who are watching the World Cup wouldn't know that that happened. They wouldn't know that Italy had been granted a spot without having qualified for the tournament. and Iran had been either removed or were boycotting the tournament.

In fact, I'm quite sure that the majority of Americans who tune in for this World Cup will think that Italy is boycotting the World Cup because they're not in it. You know, the level of consciousness of what is happening is something that really has to be understood in the U.S. context, and that has to be something that's taken into account with boycotts as well. So just to add in to what Ardi was, sorry, Abdoubacher was saying, we have to understand that boycotts should be happening. But we also have to understand what the impacts are and who should be conducting the boycotts. Of course, people should not be traveling and going to the World Cup. People should not be supporting the World Cup.

But in my view, if there was teams that were going to be boycotting the World Cup, it would be much more impactful if we had European nations, for example, who were boycotting the World Cup. because that would be covered. Iran, unfortunately, I am sure the U.S. media would just sideline that discussion and the functional point would just be Iran is not in the World Cup. They're making a statement, but nobody hears it. Abdu Bakr talked earlier about the pin that the Iranian team was wearing. More people will see that as a result of their inclusion in the tournament than any message that would be made by them making the righteous stand to boycott it. But unfortunately, that's how the media works. Would have been nice if, say, the Spain team, you know, they have a government that has

made some noises about, you know, the terrible war in Iran and the horrific genocide in Gaza. That would have been a very impactful statement. But anybody else want to talk about that? And Abu Bakr, if you have any other follow-up points on this question, the floor is open. Well, you're right, but I don't think any European team will just boycott the World Cup. The European Union is the coalition of... Absolutely.

I mean, you can't really expect them. I wouldn't expect any. Even if you look at, for example, the Spanish government, this Spanish government, even if they have given some mere platitudes recently, they have still undeniably participated or funded the genocide in Gaza. They have allowed military ships to go through, you know, to go through the waters to Israel. They have allowed air spaces to be used for American military jets to go through to Israel. So the point is that there's one thing that people have to always put in their mind that

even if people change, that doesn't erase their history. That doesn't at all. Even if this Spanish government has become so supportive of Palestine, they also have to be held accountable. The European Union has to be held accountable for what it has done in Gaza and across West Asia. The United States officials, either the Biden administration or the Trump administration,

but have to be held accountable. So the thing about it is that, to be honest, I hate it when people start praising someone and they are completely, and they've been completely silent or they've been completely complicit in something, and they start, you know, praising them like Taka Kalsen and the sort of people who are now,

who have jumped on the bandwagon to become, you know, pro-humanity stars, which is simply untrue. true, but then we have, as I said, we just have to be a turn on our mind that, well, this World Cup, what is it going to happen? You're not going to die if you watch the World Cup. So you're not going to die actually if you don't watch the World Cup, but you're going to kill people if you watch it. So this is a thing that we really have to understand. You will not die if you don't watch the World Cup. But if you watch it, you will kill people by it, by watching the world go. So this is really important that people, for people to understand, if there is something that is going to cause harm to the people, your joy shouldn't be soaked with the blood. Your joy shouldn't come out of the suffering of other people. Your joy should not also contribute to the plight of other people. Even, to be honest with you, like even these things

of Iraq, Jordan and others, it's very contradictory and very conflicting that we're talking about fans who are going to watch the World Cup for the first time, whatever, whatsoever. But at the same time,

they're going to make suffering for themselves. It's like, I'm paying for this service, for example, I'm paying to buy, I'm paying to buy this product, but it's poisoned. So I'm going to kill myself. I can see it's poisoned, but I still want to watch, someone to purchase it.

I don't understand the logic of people, to be honest with you. Even if Palestine were participants in this work, I definitely haven't watched it. I definitely not watched it. So, as I said, like when I wrote that piece for Palestine Deep Dhab about the West, the thing that I said clearly that people are very visualistic and materialistic. and they have become so. They have become so, and they've been so, right? So I just have to be really, really realistic with myself.

We've been screaming at the top of our lungs for people to do something. But unfortunately, there hasn't been, you know, much change or much action. People are free to sacrifice. People are keen on their instant gratification. people can't think past the survival in the West. So if you want to tell them to boycott something, we'll find a hundred excuses to tell you, well, the boycott is not going to work.

Well, it's not going to help. It's not about that it will help or not. It's about where you stand. It's about your moral stance. It's about your human stance. As somebody who wants to watch this World Cup. I mean, you've watched bloody three, four, World Cups before.

It's not going to be the end of the world if you don't watch this, you know, this World Cup. It's fine. It's absolutely fine. Like, we have to be people, one thing in the West that a lot of people are unable to maintain their principles

or defend. Yeah. They just simply give them up. They just simply give them up. Whenever it is the chance, they give them up. And this is the problem. And I really,

I really, really want people to hear to that because in the end, as I said, they've always said it. But if people stay like this numb to what is happening without any action, it will hone them. What is happening in West Asia will haunt them. What is happening in Palestine, the genocide, the comp bombing Lebanon and Iran will come and harm them one day. And this is absolutely something that I can clearly foresee. Absolutely. I mean, humanity has already been scarred, you know, by its complicity and silence and failure to stop the genocide in Gaza. You know, I mean, but I guess that means we're not going to ask you for your predictions on this World Cup, Abu Bakr.

I'm kidding. But we had a good question here. I know we were focusing on the World Cup, but can you speak a little bit about the Stop the Game campaign that is heating up in Ireland? You have a government that is cowardly and complicit, a government that just wants to peace the United States and it's a lies. It's not ready to listen to its people. The vast majority of the Irish population want this game to be banned, not to be moved to a neutral stadium. The Irish media is also a punch of stooges for America and Israel as well. So the people from what I've seen in the streets and in the protest and to talk to different people across Ireland

They want this game to be banned They really wanted to be banned They're not really like they're not really at all to play or to see their team the favorite team To play genocide or regime So this game This campaign has been going on since the Since the draw happened And Israel and Ireland

and were put in the same group in the way for a nationalist league. Now, there has been a decision by the Football Association in Ireland to move the game to a neutral venue. There has been no aim to do campaign and the campaign has just gone much bigger because they want the game to be banned

but to be moved. There's pressure from the opposition parties in the Irish Parliament to this and they are trying to pressure the government, the current government, the Finnafo and the Finnago parties, to ban the game completely. So far, there hasn't been much progress, but from what I see, they have got something at least out of this campaign, which have also governed in one of the parties, have also met the coordinators and the organizers of this campaign. And you're really, really, like, adamant that we will never

late this game go ahead. And I think even the Irish team players, they also acknowledge the horrific trustees that are being committed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, and they really don't want this game to happen, I think, I wouldn't speak on their behalf. But I think from their statements, like James Collier,

former Everton's right back, from their statements, you can see clearly that they don't want this game to go ahead. head and they don't want to play it even behind closed doors because it's wrong and it's morally wrong and people don't want it to happen but it's still growing people are still talking to make sure that this game will be banned there's a lot of heat going on as as the question suggested and we're just going to continue that I'm also in talks with the campaigners and hopefully we can do something giving much more bigger of course there's a

still undoubtedly a presence of this really lobby in Ireland and those who support the fascists' Israeli regime and they want this game to be played and they're saying, well, you know, this like banning the game will not help the Palestinians. Well, no, you're writing about it will help the Palestinians. So, you know, it's growing and I hope that this game will be banned.

Of course, I think it's going to be a stain, a shame in Ireland, and the Irish government particularly. If this game goes ahead, even behind closed doors, they have always maintained a position of a neutrality and an imperialist, colonialist position. They've also been colonized. We know the history of Ireland and the British occupation.

I just don't think Ireland or Ireland would be happy for Palestine to play Britain or for any other country to play Britain during the British occupation of Ireland. And so we have to be really morally consistent about that. And the Irish government have to know that it's not their job to be the US government, but more to respect to people's demands and listen to them, which hasn't actually, which has really happened even when it comes just finally,

when it comes to the occupied territories bill to impose bans on goods and services coming from the illegal settlements and occupied territories, especially the West Bank. They have excluded the services, which constitutes most of the bell. And last time there was a sanctions bill presented to vote for or against side of the Irish parliament, and then the same ministers who have publicly opposed what Israel has done, and Bingavir did to the flutela activists, they have voted against the sanctions. as well. It's really a facade, wherever it is in the West. Like the same people are being voted in, the same people are supporting Israel. All these governments and parties across the West,

they will disagree on their national issues and interests, but they will never disagree on supporting Israel. Yeah. And I just want to add on some statistics that I came across recently regarding Ireland and Israel. So as you mentioned, as you mentioned, mention Abdul Bakr. There's this narrative that Ireland is neutral and anti-imperialists and that they stand for some sorts of rights. But on the other hand, despite the fact that Ireland is doing things like banning Bezal Smotrich and Ben-Gavir from coming into the country, at the same time, Ireland is one of the largest trading partners with Israel. And the statistics that I just saw recently is that Ireland is Israel's second largest export market globally. The only country

that's a bigger export market for them is the United States. And in 2014, Ireland took in $4 billion with Irish exports to Israel. The bilateral goods trade was five to six billion U.S. dollars. And Israel runs a surplus with Ireland. So at the same time that we have this narrative out of, you know, Ireland's government is anti-imperialist and stands against war crimes and they'll make these statements and they'll ban people who were never going to go to Ireland anyway.

At the same time, they are a huge trading partner with the Zionism. But believe you or not, we, our throats have been shorn speaking against the government touches. I believe that. I believe that. I know all this. I know all this. Like, I know what they have been doing. I know that the government is not complicit, but they're trying to show the people

otherwise, which is factually incorrect. I mean, it's really, really not sad, but it's, the world is upside down. I mean, I just hope that I live, and I hope you will also live, the day that we are seeing just as, because it's really like I'm, like I'm a Palestinian from girls and my family is there, watching your people being killed every single day and people are still intent on watching the World Cup, it hurts. It really, really hurts beyond words. I mean, like, those, like the $100 that you're going to pay or the $400, a part of it, even if there's a tiny portion of it, will go to the taxes, the taxes will go to serve

ventures with Israel, then it will go and turn into a piece of a rocket, and then this rocket will build somebody. Why do you want to enjoy at the expense of the blood of people? It really shocks me beyond what. So, as I'm saying, like, we have to really respect the lives of people. I'm really heartbroken for Beirut and Lebanon. Look at what they are going through. It's the same Gaza playbook has been repeated over.

that. Well, what? Like, if, like, I really don't know what to say, but if you really care and if you have really cared since, I mean, October 22 and 3, and you should have done that before, I should have heard before, then the least you can do is such things should be because of it. And as I said, you're not going to die if you've got the World Cup, but you're going to kill people if you watch it. I think one thing we can point out is that. that whether or not people decide to boycott the games, the U.S. is kind of forcing people to boycott them. They're forcing people to not be able to attend. With the pricing, as we discussed, they're forcing people within the U.S. to not be able to attend. Even the act

of having it in the U.S. So the Qatar games were for most for fans in Europe or Asia. Those are like at watchable times. The games now are for me at like 3 a.m. or 6.30 a.m. more randomly like 10.30 p.m. So my kids can't really watch them anyways. But one thing you were saying, I want to ask if there's a loophole, but you said that paying is bad. Is pirating the games?

Okay. Sorry, I didn't see the last thing. It's pirating the games. Okay, but you get an illegal stream and you watch it on your computer, which is actually the only way I watch anything. I live in Russia. Everything is pirated.

Yeah, so I don't know. know how to get the games to do what sports normally actually like well i think so yeah la foote you know basically can you go on yalla foot and yes i know these things to be honest but uh in the end frankly i have lost a lot of passion towards football yeah probably i would have a look at the highlights or have a look at the scores in the end but definitely i'm not going to work going to work any matches. I think we can talk about that because I've also lost a lot of passion for football. To be honest, it's, so to say this, but it's good to Steve from the United States, but the

whole idea is, you know, the whole idea, it doesn't make any sense to me, to be honest, because it's like you're just going to watch it, you know what I'm saying? I know people won't escape, but like, for example, in Gaza there was a report to the age of Zara that people are ready to watch the weather. Now, we can't really tell the people of Gaza, well, boy could the World Cup, because they're trying to find any escape from the horrors that are being inflicted upon them. They'd be really stupid and very dear to give people to sell. A bit of people of Gaza to dictate them that they should boycott this World Cup.

Because they are, like when I was in the evening in Gaza and I knew of all the atrocities, I was watching football because football is definitely one of the three main outlets. and entertainment sources for the people in Gaza. Now, I can't blame them, and I had an exchange with the report and said to them, like, we are telling people to support because you are telling the world to say what shit. But, like, for people outside Gaza, I mean, it's really more valuable, like, whether it's, like,

you know, you want to watch it legally or something. But it's really more valuable for yourself. you will live 100% you will live at more peace with yourself when you just don't watch it. You feel like you have done something. It doesn't matter, as I said, like this, I hope,

Henry's really right and spot on on this point that there has to be more unity within the Prophellstein movement and the anti-imperialist community. So there has to be definitely more unity and more organization. There has been a lot of like this organization over the course of a,

the past few years and I've seen that myself, have observed it. But in the end, like, any sort of matters. Like, it's about you. If you do it yourself, then it matters. But if you don't do it, it doesn't actually make, it's like, it doesn't actually make any sense, right? So I just want people to understand this, that it's for yourself. It's just for your humanity.

It's to save the least, like the last bits of your hands. humanity just to boycott this World Cup. Like it's like I, like as I said, like if this World Cup were held in an uncomplicit country alone or in its own, then I'd be probably more flexible with people and understandable people watching this, you know, this tournament. But I'm seeing it like it's going to be a really like disastrous World Cup beyond world. I'm seeing it 100%.

Like everything is in decades. of this badness of this World Cup. And we will see it. And hopefully we see something big and then we see something because like we all have to remember like Avatar West Africa, sorry, South Africa.

The sports pocket was a prerequisite to the dismantling and to dismantling Avatar South Africa. So sports poikers do really work. And if FIFA had banned Israel from all competitions very early on, this would have absolutely helped.

So people have to, instead of people going in FIFA's ways, no, people have to go against that way and put cold FIFA and not help FIFA invest in genocide and invest in all these war crimes that we are watching every single day. I don't think if this were, God forbid, your parents or your sons or your relatives, being killed and bombed every single day, you would be happy to watch the outcome.

And I'm really, like one last point, it really astonishes me. And it's very newsyating to see that we are seeing even like pro-Palestine, public figures, going for fun in the middle of this suffering. This has happened during the genocide and after genocide.

I don't think you would do the same post-spictures from the restaurant or from somewhere else, playing football, playing tennis, whatever, while your people are being called or while your neighbours being called bombed. So, like, we really have to respect people's feelings. Like, we really have to respect what they are going through. And the least you can do is to refrain

from showing your opulence to the outside world. It's to stop swooning over things that are utterly inhumane and detrimental to the whole world. This is the world we live in. This is the least we can do. And I hope people really understand that. Yeah. We're getting close to when we should maybe be wrapping up this really amazing and interesting discussion.

And so somebody posted here and I thought maybe this is, one thing we might also think a little bit about is in addition to the moral stance that we have to make, as you've been saying, Abu Bakr, you know, to, you know, affirm our own humanity and also, you know, reflect on, like, what's important for us in this world. I mean, I think you've been very eloquent in pointing out that in many ways the joy is gone because of, sorry, It seems like there's my son is mowing the grass outside the window. Oh, I thought it was a Shahid or something or a Lewis. It's not, it's not, yeah.

He's not in Russia. That's, you know, something that we deal with. All right. But yeah, that's right. And where Henry usually is. But I think, you know, one other, you know, kind of point about it is is that sport has this capability of really mobilizing the sentiments and the passions of people and feelings of solidarity and great energy when you see fans chanting and cheering and, you know,

sometimes even in very organized and choreographed and sophisticated ways, it shows that there's, it's harnessing some great energy of human spirit. And so Gundersons, you know, asked this question, you know, couldn't this sports fervor be compost, I don't know if compost, It is exactly the word we would want, but at least convert it into revolutionary spirit. How do we try and build something positive and effective and world transforming in these energies that people have? Is there some way we can think of turning solidarity? I just want to answer quickly to this.

Do you really think, well, this question for the four of you as well, do you really think, Do you really think that we would see support for Palestine more than the support for Palestine that we have seen in Qatar? Yeah, I mean, I was at Qatar World Cup and I tweeted after the Qatar World Cup. I said, whatever has happened in this World Cup, Palestine won this World Cup because everywhere, every match, every stadium in the street, people were showing their love for Palestine. It was great to see. It was 100% great to see. I agree with you. It was really overwhelmingly emotional

because I watched it with my family back home. Of course, I wasn't able to go outside the World's Club. Also, you've really evoked something in me, which was the piece that I did before the World Cup in 2022 about how fans in Gaza are really, like do you really have dreams of going to Qatar, which is just nearby. It doesn't cost much,

but they are still facing restrictions. where they needed, and of course they still need an approval by Israel, but at that time, they needed an approval by the Israeli army by the Kogat to go for the World Cup in Qatar. A lot of people have been denied exit outside Gaza to watch the World Cup back in 2022. And this wasn't reported 100%, but it's something that I mentioned in one of the pieces that I did at that time for Doha News. And it's like, as I said, there was great support. The people, because it was really happy, especially with Morocco.

You know, they reached the semifinals. After most every game, they were showing and raising the Palestinian flag. It was really great to see. But then the problem with this kind of support, back to the question that she has asked, is we haven't turned it into actions, we haven't turned it into something tangible and effective. And that is the issue that, okay, well, we all love Palestine, we saw us really so-called journalist being shouted at it in the streets,

being refused and rejected by the vast majority of the community. I'm really astonished that they were allowed into Qatar in the first place, but anyway, but it was really good to see. and nonetheless, as I said, like we haven't turned into anything. We haven't turned it into anything that could really be productive and helpful to the cause that we are raising our voices for. So the question is, okay, if we do this in the United States, like, what are we, like, what is the final outcome of this support?

If we are going to show just Palestinian flights in the stadiums and out to the streets and everything, right? I don't think that I would see the same scale that I've seen in Qatar. I don't think so there would be so much repression on Palestine, on showing support for Palestine in this World Cup. I don't think I will see it on the same scale. However, but if we see it on the same scale, then what, like, other than raising the flag

and shouting for Palestine in the stadiums, or even let's pretend, which I'm sure would not happen, that players, when they will score, or when they scored, they would show the Palestinian flag or some board for Gaza, then how can we materialize this? What is the final outcome of all of this? How is it going to have some pressure

or effect on the United States and the hosting countries? This is the question that we need to ask ourselves. We don't have just to do something without knowing what it will lead us to. This is really significant to know. But in fact, when you see it that we have gone to the stadiums and we have done this and we have just chartered for Palestine, we have actually done the negative effect, not the positive effect. And that is the whole, the core of the issue that I'm trying to address here is that we're going to chat for Palestine,

but at the same time contribute to the killing of Palestinians. And it's like we really have to be realistic and, you know, give reasonable, like, reasonable logic to something that we are trying to implement in this, you know, World Cup. But as Henry said, and I think all of you do agree with that, to be honest, I know that Iran boycott in the World Cup is not going to be majorly covered in the Ministry of Media. Western media outlets, whatever, but it will have undoubtedly a great effect. It will. And I think South Africa should do that. I mean, South Africa, they have also delayed the RCG case. I don't know why it has really been appalling to know, very shocking to know.

South Africa, it has stood with Palestine, like, it should do that. But as you said, and then like, imagine if Spain withdraw from the World Cup, then this is the biggest blow to this whole tournament. But if South Africa, which has joined the ICJKs, which has demonstrated unwavering support for Palestinians during the genocide, it should work at the World Cup. So if you have South Africa and Iran, for example, By cutting the Swalt Cup, then you will have really a priceless outcome out of all of this.

But then if you have a run, you will have an outcome 100%. But then it's about the strategies that we are going to implement in this World Cup to make a positive effect, not to make a counter effect. Yeah, any other kind of final or concluding thoughts as we round this out? I will make one prediction, which is that, It will be Iran versus the U.S. in the final, 2-1, 1998 again. Let's see that, inshallah. Or not, we won't.

We'll be boycotting. We'll watching. But I'd like to find the news that happens that that's the outcome of the final. But at any rate, any other sort of final concluding thoughts. Yeah, go ahead, Henry. Adnan, you have far too much faith in the wretchedness of the American national team. There's no way they're getting anywhere near the finals. Iraq should be in the final against somebody else.

Against somebody else. Certainly not the U.S. But in any case, I do want to take us a little bit afield from the World Cup just to talk a little bit about this idea of sports and then political movements, of fervor for sports and then political fervor. It's related to football, though. So I'm going to shoehorn it into this conversation. There was a team that should have qualified for the World Cup, but didn't because of a rule change. Anybody have any ideas of who I could be referring to?

to. It's something that was almost completely unreported in Western media. It was only briefly talked about in sports specific media. Not Russia. They were banned from participating. There was a team that literally was set to qualify for the World Cup, but then there was a rule change that took them out. Any ideas? Nigeria was the one who qualified in their place. So it must be an African country. It is an African country. Cameroon. Good guess. Burkina Faso. Now, here's what happened. It doesn't have enough force, wasn't it?

No, right now. Burkina Faso was set to qualify for the World Cup. They were in second place with a very good goal differential in their qualifying group and were set to qualify just ahead of Nigeria. However, Djibouti, which was the team that was last placed in their group and had gotten absolutely destroyed by Burkina Faso both times that they played for them, refused to finish the qualifying site. and pulled out. And so what happened is there was a rule change where they said, well, you know,

Djibouti is last place in the group and they're not finishing their group. So we'll assess their games as forfeits, you know, for ones that were going to be played and we're going to remove the points from other teams that had already played against them, which removed points and goals from Bikina Faso after they had already played their games, which then moved Nigeria above them in the standings to qualify for the World Cup as a second place team based on goal differential. So Nigeria got moved ahead of Burkina Faso. And Burkina Faso, which was set to qualify going into the last stage of the game, last game of qualifying, got removed.

It was a ridiculous rule change that should be really widely talked about, not only in sports media, but just in media generally that this team that was set to qualify had a really strange rule change that just took them out. And I see some people in the comments. Actually, that was you, Adnan,

anti-triori shenanigans. You know, I do think that there is a political component to it. Burkina Faso was set to qualify. They hadn't qualified previously. We know that there is a really strong political movement going on in the country right now that the West is not particularly happy with. There was an ability to make a rule.

change that would ensure that they weren't going to qualify. And magically, this rule change comes into place that removes them to it. Now, the question is, could any sort of anger about this decision be transformed into any meaningful political movement? And that's where the question becomes trickier, because unfortunately, this wasn't in the media almost at all. I mean, like, I'm bringing this up now. You can go online and look for it. You may be able to find the information that this happened, but there are almost no articles that are written about the travesty that took place in removing Burkina Faso from qualifying for the World Cup. You can find that this happened, but you won't find anger in the media about it. Now, if there had been discussions in the media

about this travesty, and if people were really angry about it, because, you know, we like the sanctity of sports and we like our sports to just be a reflection of the best team has the best results and well they were set to qualify and then kind of a political rule change took them out. That goes against the spirit of sports. Okay, people might be angry about that. And maybe many people that are angry about that also stand in solidarity rhetorically with Burkina Faso and the government of Burkina Faso. But is there a way of translating that anger about this decision in the sporting context

into material support for the country? And I'm not sure if there is a very easy way of doing that. Even if you had a large group of people who saw this news, said that's a travesty, and looked at what was happening in Burkina Faso, and they decided collectively, well, you know, we support the steps that the government is taking. It's certainly more positive than the pro-French regime that had been in place under Blais Campaiore previously prior to a couple of coups. Are they going to be able to actually do something materially to support the government? There's still, you know, military insurgencies in the northern part of the country. There is still like a locking down of any sort of connection between Burkina Faso and non-sanctioned countries because the West does not want what they, you know, call a military authoritarian regime to have connections internationally. So Burkina Faso's government really only has connections with people like Russia, which is why earlier on in this, I mentioned that the Russian national team just played against Burkina Faso.

I don't think that the fans would be able to harness the fervor of feeling the wrong with a sporting context into any sort of meaningful political movement. They may even understand the political component to it, but if we're talking about materially, I don't see that that is a possibility there. I know that this is like a very random example to bring up, but I think that it speaks more to the almost siloing of the way. that sports is felt, which is all emotional, but there is nothing material that you as a fan can do other than go to the stadium and rah, rah, support your team vocally. You're not going to materially do anything to support your team while you're there other than, you know, buying a ticket. So how do you transfer that emotional feeling that is connected with sports into something

that is material? Because if we're talking about changing the world and changing the political landscape of world. It's one thing to have an emotional feeling. It's another thing to do something that has some material impact and thinking about how material impacts must be felt is a completely different thing than the way that we experience sports. So yeah, sorry for that long tangent, but there you go. No, that was really interesting, Henry. Great example. Indy or Alex, any, you know, final thoughts, either on this question of sports and politics or, you know, more broadly, our discussion about the World Cup 2026. I think watching the Mexico hosting of the World Cup,

there's, there have been mass popular protests and that will continue to be mass popular protests led by teachers, peasant movements. Right now, there's also movements of family relatives of the disappeared because Mexico has experienced or has witnessed the enforced disappearance of more than 100,000 people since the so-called war on drugs began in the mid-2000s. So one of the creative things that I've seen that mothers of the disappeared have done is to use the Panini, like those Panini cards, but instead of having players on the Panini cards, they have the photos of some of the people who have been disappeared since 2006 and a really, like, I think, emotional, really powerful, evocative way.

And the other thing I'll just say, you guys probably know. this because you're all a bunch of historical soccer nerds, football nerds. But the one national team that I can remember, not remember, but that I know about in terms of doing a boycott was a Soviet Union in the 1974 World Cup. And they did took a highly, they took an ethical stance in refusing to play the World Cup qualifying match in Chile in the fall of 1973 because that happened right after the, the, overthrow of Salvador Allende by General Augusto Pinochet. and they used the national stadium in Santiago as a torture center and a concentration camp.

So the Soviet Union refused to go play that final World Cup qualifying match. And you had this ridiculous issue. The Chilean national team actually lined up against no opponent and scored the goal so they could officially occupy that last space. And then some of those Chilean national team players used the 1974 World Cup in West Germany as an opportunity to protest against their very government. right and some of them actually suffered some pretty horrific direct consequences of that activism, particularly striker Carlos Cashezli, whose mother was because of his activism and his vocal opponent opposing to the Pinochet administration, his mother was kidnapped and tortured while he was at the World Cup. But just in terms of boycotting and teams boycotting, that's like the one big example that I can think of is the Soviet Union in 1974 or the entire African Federation in 1966 when they boycotted the

the English World Cup because of a, I think it was over like the insufficient allocation of, of spots for African teams, right? So it would have been, it would have been really interesting to see, um, one, two or I mean,

ideally even more national teams for this World Cup to boycott it, um, for a variety of different reasons, all of that we've discussed today. But primarily with what Al-Bacher has been so, you know, powerfully and, powerfully and evocatively saying,

like over the question of Palestine. Like, that should be an easy call for, a national team to boycott. Yeah, I guess just in conclusion, I guess it's fascinating to see, you can see the international order what was breaking down through this World Cup. It's, I guess perhaps it was an illusion all along, but they're giving up on the illusion now.

And it's just naked humiliation and power and dominance. And the U.S. is still scheduled to host the Olympics in 2028. so I don't see them getting better. And I think we maybe need to think about how much humiliation we are willing to take because they're really rubbing it in our faces. Yeah, very important points. You know, we have these sessions to talk about the geopolitics of the World Cup or of a major tournament as a preview.

This one has been pretty politically, engaged in, you know, the very idea that we should boycott this one. The U.S. in general should be under boycott, you know, divestment and sanctions. The rest of the world has to wake up to its crimes and treat it as the rogue state that it is not only for its own behavior, but its support and complicity with the worst elements, the worst regimes, including, of course, the Zionist entity and its crimes and crime of genocide in Palestine. So, you know, this is an opportunity for us to, you know, reflect and think about how so many elements of our culture,

you know, of entertainment, of these industries are really, that are meant often to be about like either escape or art history and imagination or peaceful competition between, you know, different countries and people to get to know one or all these values that are promoted they are totally undermined by the actual geopolitics and the economics of these entertainment industries and sport has been introduced. The only way to really restore it and to recover it is to boycott this corporate, you know, corrupt takeover of these pastimes that have a wonderful history and can do wonderful things and restore them to, the people, you know, popular, the people's game. This is the beautiful game. It's been disfigured by its association with FIFA, its mismanagement, the corruption of FIFA, and of course, also

all the things that we've been discussing today. So I think this has been a really fruitful and valuable conversation. And we can say, though, that if it is the end of U.S. being interested in any soft power, as I think Alex was pointing out, I think a very very, important point earlier in this conversation. You know, the fact that it's going to be the worst World Cup, possibly in history, is something that, you know, like so many things, where the things have become so clear about the hypocrisy of the liberal order, you know, about international law and that, you know, whether it actually means anything or not, international institutions like the UN that have sat by, you know, on the side and watched and allowed

the genocide to continue is that, you know, there's no more illusions. And so it's now time, I think, for action as people have been calling for here. And I hope people have found this, at least a helpful, you know, conversation to, you know, fabbit aaddamakum, you know, like to make your, you know, legs strong in your stance morally, you know, to reject, as Abu Bakr put it, I think so powerfully. And, you know, we had that up, you know, a comment or quoted it, you know, that you're not going to, you're not going to die if you don't watch the World Cup. But you may participate in killing people. So think about that. And, you know, I wish everybody, I want to thank all of you for being in the chat. It's been great discussion there.

I want to thank the panelists, Abu Bakr, for making time. Henry, co-host, Indy from Resistance as Fertile, and Alex, you know, a friend of the show. And, you know, you've been ever present in these discussions and always brought such wonderful analysis. We appreciate you all participating and giving us so much to think about. And for all of you out there, until next time, peace with justice and solidarity to you all. And don't forget to support Dachnoon mutual aid in Gaza. Please be generous. Okay, Salam, everyone.