Por Stephen F. Eisenman
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Ancient ball court of Monte Alban, in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Photo by Bobak Ha’Eri. Wikimedia Commons. |
There are reasons to love and reasons to hate the current World Cup, the six-week, quadrennial football match organized by FIFA, Fédération Internationale de Football Association. I’ll start with one of the second: corruption of a Trumpian scale. Atop the ticket-price gouging, fleecing of host cities, and migrant labor exploitation, (more on these below), Trump added his own je ne sais quoi by making FIFA capo Gianni Infantino an offer he couldn’t refuse: rescind the red-card suspension of American star Folarin Balogun so he could play the critical, round-of-sixteen match against Belgium — or else. The threats included mid-match lawsuits, bogus claims of match fixing, and possible Justice Department investigations. Infantino, who previously awarded the bellicose president a “FIFA Peace Prize,” didn’t have to be asked twice. He required his Disciplinary Committee to delay the ban for one year, implicitly accepting the legitimacy of the red card while delaying the sanction until it was more convenient.
Belgium delivered rough justice by trouncing the Americans 4 to 1. Afterwards, they celebrated in their locker room by performing the “Trump Dance” to the tune of YMCA — a better mockery than Democratic Party consultants been able to muster in a decade of trying. There’s little question that “Trump’s Foul,” as it shall forever be known, severely disadvantaged the U.S. side and motivated the Belgian. Balogun himself, it’s only fair to add, accepted the original suspension with grace. He and his coach, Mauricio Pochettino however, should have refused the pardon and rallied his team by video streaming a meal of frites and mayonnaise served in paper cones.
East Rutherford and “the beautiful game”
The final match of the World Cup will be played on Sunday, July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (pop. 10,522). MetLife, the insurance company after which the arena is named, is notable for its deceptive practices and the $21 million annual compensation package of its CEO, Michale Khalaf. The average salary of East Rutherford residents, few of whom, it’s safe to say, have ever seen much less played a soccer game, is $48,000. That also happens to be the official price of four of the best tickets to the World Cup Final.
The borough of East Rutherford, New Jersey is otherwise notable only for being adjacent to Rutherford, New Jersey, birthplace of the great, imagist poet William Carlos Williams, who wrote “The Crowd at the Ballgame” (1923) which includes the lines:
The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly
by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them—
all the exciting detail
of the chase
and the escape, the error
the flash of genius—
all to no end save beauty
the eternal…
Williams’ ballgame (he had baseball in mind) has “no end save beauty.” The Brazilian footballer Pelé, perhaps the greatest of all time, called football “The beautiful game.” As far as FIFA’s concerned, the end of football is money. The expected revenue from the current World Cup – ticket sales, broadcast rights, corporate sponsorships and licensing fees – is about $13 billion. Because FIFA is a Swiss-registered non-profit, it must spend all that money, except a one billion cash buffer. This it does, doling huge payouts to the national football federations to earn their loyalty, prize money to teams (partly dispensed to players), and large executive salaries. Infantino makes $6 million, his lieutenants in the lower millions. So avid is FIFA for money, that it violated its own rules in awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, confident that the country and Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, would be willing and able to shell out the hundreds of billions required to build new stadia, hotels, transportation and other infrastructure deemed necessary for the games. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as Prince Bonesaw for his complicity in the murder of Saudi-dissident, U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, will personally ensure the construction proceeds quickly, regardless of risks to the safety of low-wage, migrant workers. An estimate 6,500 were seriously injured and 40 killed in the construction of World Cup facilities in Qatar in 2022.
The affection for money has corrupted the players too and undermined any working-class solidarity they might feel. While the elite layers, for example those in the English Premier League, earn three to four million pounds a year, (and some, much more, like Erling Haaland’s 27 million pounds), most players around the world make far less. Players in developing nations may earn as little as a thousand dollars a month. And while the payer’s union FIFPRO has no power of global collective bargaining, it could certainly demand that the wealthiest national associations share more of their profits with the poorest. Argentine Lionel Messi, (who plays for Inter Miami) makes about $80 million per year, and Christiano Rinaldi from Portugal (who plays for the Al Nasser club in Saudi Arabia) is paid $300 million. Some of the best players in the world, including Amad Diallo (Ivory Coast, now playing for Manchester United) and Ademolo Lookman (Nigeria and Atlético Madrid) come from West Africa, where players rarely earn more than $10,000 to $15,000 per year.
There is thus an enormous drain of athletes from lower to higher income countries. While the FIFPRO has managed to wrangle some concessions from FIFA concerning player safety during the World Cup, it has done nothing to change the global disparity of income between the different national teams. To do so would require it to recognize the nature of the capitalist labor arbitrage and “football neocolonialism.” Wealthy nations exploit low production costs in poor nations to extract raw talent, refine it, and capture nearly 100% of the value it generates. The less valuable remainder is left for the local population to support.
But don’t expect Ronaldo or Messi to demand better support for African players. The former is a friend of Trump. At a dinner with the president and Bin Salman last year, he said of the president: “He’s someone I like a lot, because I know he can help change the world and bring peace!” Messi, in the meanwhile, has always sworn off politics, but in March he attended a celebration of his team at the White House, and politely applauded after Trump boasted how well his bombers did destroying Iran. A few days before, the U.S. killed 165 schoolgirls at the Minab Elementary School. Then Messi handed the president a pink, Miami soccer ball.
Football in Zumbagua, Ecuador
I gave up watching sports some 40 years ago about the same time I stopped playing it. My golf and tennis games were increasingly more frustrating than relaxing, and as a young professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, I had little time for them. My last serious engagement with sports was probably the 1986 World Series. That was the one made famous when poor Bill Buckner at first base for the Boston Red Sox allowed Mookie Wilson’s slow ground ball to pass between his legs in the 10th inning of game six, giving the New York Mets the go-ahead run. Two days later, the Mets (my home team and Queens neighbor) won the seventh game and the World Series.
In the decades since, I’ve occasionally watched parts of baseball, football or basketball games in the company of family or friends or in bars. However, my most vivid memory of sports back then was watching the televised Copa América tournament in summer, 1993 in Quito, Ecuador. I was there with my then wife Mary, in between visits to her friends (aka “informants”) in the indigenous community of Zumbahua, in Cotopaxi Province, about a three-hour drive from the capital city. We’d see the televised games in various bars and restaurants in Quito and cheer lustily for the national team. (Argentina won the final game, naturally, by 2-1 over Mexico.)
In Zumbahua (elevation 11,500 ft), where there was limited electricity and no television, fulbito was played more than watched. Driving up though the páramo — the high-altitude, alpine tundra grassland of the Northern Andes — you’d sometimes see clouds of dust rising from Zumbahua in the distance – that usually meant a football game was being played on a bare, dirt field. They’d play in shorts and shirts, but spectators would wear traditional clothes, including the ubiquitous felt fedoras. I’d rarely watch the matches except in passing – these were purely indigenous affairs, and unless I was in the company of our hosts, I’d be unwelcome. Mary, who spoke both Spanish and Quichua, undoubtedly felt more at ease than I did, but had little if any interest in the games.
Before coming up to visit or stay with Mary’s local friend Alfonso and his family, we’d typically buy presents for the children. These were usually foods that were hard to obtain in the highlands, like oranges, pineapples and bananas, as well as toys and games, coloring books and many, many crayons. On this occasion, inspired by the Copa América, I decided to buy the kids a good soccer ball. I remembered from a previous visit that the children usually played with a red, rubber kickball that bounced too much, or else just with a discarded can or something similar. Though Mary thought any soccer ball would do, I dragged her into successive sporting goods stores in Quito to buy the best one. Finally, in a high-end shop on the Avenida Naciones Unidas, I saw what I was looking for: A professional-standard, hand-stitched, Adidas Etrusco Unico, costing about 50 bucks. Mary told me that was more money than Alfonso made in a month doing construction work in Quito, but I insisted the kids deserved nothing but the best.
A few days later, we were up in Zumbahua handing out our gifts. The oranges were given to the eldest daughter, who in turn handed them out to each of the children. The crayon boxes were opened and the crayons handed out, again by the oldest child, to all the others with attention taken that each got a fair share of the best colors – red, yellow, blue, pink, and green. Finally, I tossed out my soccer ball to one of the boys, who happily received it and took it outside to play with whatever other boys were around. I was pleased.
About a year later, we came again to Zumbahua, as usual, bearing gifts. I didn’t bring another soccer ball because I presumed the professional model from the previous year was still being used. But when we arrived, I saw that the kids were playing football with a beat-up, red rubber ball. I asked one of the children (with Mary’s help) – his name was Lenin (a common appellation for generations of class-conscious peasants) – what happened to the Etrusco Unico? He took me into a dark corner of one of their traditional, mud and thatch chozas, and showed me a sad, shriveled thing that used to be a football. It turns out that professional-grade balls quickly deflate with use and require a pump and special needle to-re-inflate. Such pumps are unavailable in Zumbahua and would anyway be far too expensive for a family member to buy. It was my own pride in buying an expensive gift that denied the kids the pleasure of a cheap, but durable soccer ball.
Watching the beautiful game
Now retired, I think I’ll take up watching football. The World Club games my dear wife Harriet and I watch have for the most part been thrilling. We see them on my laptop during dinner or in bed, and yell, complain and cheer just like people who have been watching for decades. I’ve gotten to know who many of the best players are, learned what’s offside – though I couldn’t explain it to anybody – and the meaning of yellow and red cards. I’ve delighted at crisp passes from the French and Spanish teams, and the defensive prowess of the Cape Verde squad.
At first, I hated Erling Haaland – I thought he was just a big, arrogant stiff – but the two winning goals against Brazil were impressive: a header in the 79th minute and a few minutes later, a low rocket to the right corner of the net. I reluctantly admit that Messi is impressive. He can’t dribble for shit, but give him the ball near the net and he’ll put it in. Now, Lamine Yamal of Spain and Vinícius Júnior from Brazil can dribble; like in basketball, the key is to never look at the ball.
I can’t stand all the fouls in football – it slows up and game. But what’s worse is the players who fake being fouled – the divers. A supposedly fouled player will scream in agony, fall to the ground, and clutch his foot, ankle, knee, or back. Then, after a visit from the trainer, but before the referee can force him to leave the game, he jumps up as if nothing happened. Worse is the player who collapses to the ground after getting hit (supposedly) on the side of his face or back of the head. Unless it was a truly concussive blow, why are you on the ground at all? “Get up, ya bum! I’d say, in true, New York style. “Look, he’s hurt, poor man!” Harriet would say with sincere concern. It’s the only thing we ever argue about.
Football played well is a beautiful game – a game to be loved. But it would be far more beautiful if Infantino were gone, FIFA went on a diet, elite players used their clout to support the poorly paid ones in the global south, and football neocolonialism ended. While we’re at it, dump Trump, slash the U.S. defense budget (and that of the U.K. too), abolish nukes and stop global warming. They are all about equally likely to happen soon.
Stephen F. Eisenman is emeritus professor at Northwestern University and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of a dozen books, the latest of which (with Sue Coe), is titled “The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism,” (OR Books, 2014). He is also co-founder of Anthropocene Alliance. Stephen welcomes comments and replies at s-eisenman@northwestern.edu
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