For Canada the World Cup should be beautiful. But this one is ugly.

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings So it’s just about winter, the World Cup is being played in the Middle East, and everything is going just fine. Right? President of FIFA. Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker. In case you don’t care about soccer or even sports, you may not be aware that the premier sporting event, arguably in the entire world, is being played in a country where same sex relations are illegal and where construction of the facilities for those games is best known for the thousands of migrant workers who have died building them. And that press conference was Gianni Infantino’s attempt to get out ahead of all of that. Later on, beer was banned in stadiums, and it was announced that any team captain who wore a rainbow armband to support two S LGBTQ rights would receive an automatic yellow card. Not great. There are a host of problems with the host nation. And in the middle of all this, for the first time in more than three decades, is a team Canada has waited for. How should soccer fans feel about this World Cup? What about the long-suffering diehard Canadian soccer fans who want to savour this moment? What about the world in general? The billions of people being asked to overlook all sorts of ugly to enjoy the beautiful game? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Donovan Bennett of Sportsnet is our favourite person to discuss the intersection of politics and sports with, and he has a new show on which he does exactly that. It’s called Going Deep. If you listen to the radio, you can hear it at 11:00 a.m. Weekdays in Ontario on Sportsnet 590. The Fan. But for the purposes of this show, it’s also a podcast that you can listen to wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Donovan.

Donnovan Bennett Hey, Jordan. How are you?

Jordan I’m doing really well. And just so you know, in the intro to this episode, we heard FIFA president Gianni Infantino tell us that he feels gay and he feels like migrant workers. And for those listeners who have perhaps not been paying attention to the World Cup, can you explain what the heck he was attempting to do in that speech?

Donnovan Bennett I don’t know if anybody can. He did his best. Kyrie Irving impersonation of just blaming everybody but himself, it was bizarre. So for the listener who’s not used to what these speeches are, the beginning of every major tournament see for President has an address to the media. It’s generally opening remarks that span anywhere from five to 15 minutes. You do the things, you talk about how you’re growing the game, you’re excited for the new tournament. You thank the organizing committee and the host nation. You maybe sprinkle some pleasantries about how happy you are to be in said country. Gianni Infantino started with an hour long monologue in which, as you mentioned, he was all the things he just said, hey, I’m gay, evidently, and I’m disabled and I’m a migrant worker, as if these are just masks that you can put on for fun. I don’t think you, as a rich European man in your 50s, can equate to the atrocities that have happened to many of the people that you mentioned, because four decades ago, you were bullied at school because of the color of your hair. I’m not sure exactly what the discrimination conversion chart looks like, but I’m almost certain that that does not equate what it’s like to I don’t know, let’s just pull names from a hat. Be a migrant worker whose passport is stolen, whose contract is breached, who works for, at best, a dollar 25 an hour in the richest country in the world, or, I don’t know, maybe one of the members of the two s LGBTQ community in said country who their prize for coming out being stoned to death. So I’m not sure about how you equate personal prosecution, but those aren’t the same. Mr. Infantino and so next time you say, I feel African, try to go to the bank and get a loan and see how African you feel. At that point, I was reading some of the sub tweets and quotes coming out of the press conference to my wife, and she was like, well, that’s not real. She just assumed that Twitter has no verification anymore. And forget about ball sex. Sports people are just impersonating journalists at this press conference and making things up to showcase how ridiculous FIFA is. Like, no, no, this is verbatim. This is real. Wow. This is why we can’t have nice things, evidently, Jordan.

Jordan Yeah. Well, you touched on it. You touched on well, I guess Mr. Infantino touched on it in his own way, but there are a lot of issues around this World Cup being played in Qatar. Maybe briefly summarize why the world, not just sports journalists or fans of the game, are concerned about this tournament.

Donnovan Bennett Well, and I think it’s important to note that although most of the world, certainly Europe and the Western world, is concerned, arab journalists in the room after his sermon applauded. So people are looking at the games being in Qatar in the first place through very different lenses. And I think the biggest thing that has struck me is essentially this is worlds colliding in terms of what is and isn’t acceptable and what the rules of engagement are. And that’s why I think all of this was difficult to reconcile for FIFA because they’re trying to, in a way, serve two masters. They’re trying to say, we are inclusive and we are progressive and we stand for all of these positive ideals, but yet also take money from an authoritarian regime who doesn’t actually believe in free speech. So that’s why this has been awkward but there’s multiple controversies in terms of how the games got here. We’re talking about a country with no soccer tradition that is essentially smaller than the province of Nova Scotia. So how did they get these games, you asked? Well, The Sunday Times have done some reporting, and they got up based off of widespread corruption and bidding in the process that led to outright bribery of voters. Guardian has done lots of research and reporting on this, as has The New York Times. People have gone to jail because of the racketeering that went on in this case. So it is an open and case to the point. Their former FIFA president, Stepladder, who was in charge at the time, said that it was a mistake. I was like, well, yeah, no kidding. This is what happens when you run a sports organization like a crime syndicate. It’s funny that that’s the least troubling thing that’s probably in your notes right now. It actually is the least troubling. But part of the reason why it’s the least troubling is because it’s not new. When they announced Qatar as a host, they announced Russia at the same time. And so these are two nations again, authoritarian regimes run by essentially dictators with lots of money because of oil and gas deposits within the nation that are looking to launder their reputation in the world stage. The difference, though, is that Russia had the infrastructure, hosted Olympics, they’ve hosted major tournaments in the past.

Jordan They have major soccer organizations within the country. Qatar didn’t. So what does that mean?

Donnovan Bennett That means that in order to have the World Cups, you need, I don’t know, eight new stadiums that didn’t exist. You had to build literally, a new city that didn’t exist. All of this infrastructure, and you’re talking about in the summer, when the World Cup normally is temperatures that are around 122 degrees, not what you want to put some of the world’s best athletes in. What that means is you have to, one, move the tournament, which is why it’s being played in November off schedule for the first time ever. But two, you’re going to have to ask migrant workers to build these stadiums for you in the summer, many of which died, at least 6500 from Asian countries alone. And that’s not including the toll from North African workers, who also helped. We’re looking at one, two to 2 million fans coming to a country that is 3000 citizens. How do you get ready in time to have an infrastructure for that to make place? You have to fast track it. And so they spent $220,000,000,000 with a bee, 15 times more than the next most expensive World Cup to get ready. But the human cost was, as I said, migrant workers who went there often for the thought of creating a better life for the family, because there was work, there was vacancy. But when they got there, their passports were stolen, their contracts were ripped up. They were staying in terrible quarters. A lot of this is in the height of COVID and they were asked to work in oppressively hot temperatures and when many of them died, their bodies weren’t sent back home to their loved ones. There was no cause of death given because this is not an area where autopsies are a thing that is felt to be needed. And so they were essentially just lost for a cause of making a few powerful men more rich. So that’s why lots of people said this is not a country fit to host the World Cup because you don’t have the infrastructure and the way you’re going to do it isn’t acceptable in most areas of the world. But here we are. So given all that, and this is going to sound like an awkward transition, it’s not intended to be. There’s no other way to discuss this. For Canada, though, I feel like this is the best and worst that it’s going to get. I mean, the circumstances around this tournament are as horrible as you’ve just described, but Canada has been trying to do this for decades. This is the culmination of everything they’ve worked for. It is. And I want to feel bad for the players who just want to live out their dreams and compete at a high level and now are forced to answer geopolitical and human rights questions. I do think because it’s not our fault as fans, we didn’t take any money, we didn’t vote, we certainly didn’t steal someone’s passport and treat them like a modern day slave. I do think we can be passionate and cheer and understand that this team, although exciting, also represents the best of us. A team where the starting eleven essentially is exclusively first and second generation Canadians from the West Indies, from Africa, from Europe, from the Middle East. I think that is something to be proud of because we are a nation of people from elsewhere who when we work together, can achieve amazing things. And I think that is a great light. But I do think there is more that we can do. We can write to our national sports organizations or to our MPs and say, well, this isn’t right. We call ourselves a progressive country. There are many countries, whether soccer federation is on the record, progressive countries, UN countries, united States, Belgium, England, the Netherlands, Germany, who have all said what’s happening here is not okay, it’s not right. We want to put pressure on FIFA to at the very least, make some of those migrant workers whole. Create a fund, given that you are now making a billion in revenue, more than you ever have at a World Cup, create a fund for those families. That’s the least you can do retroactively. As someone who’s benefiting off of this, the least you can do is make a strong stance. Not to tell the people in Qatar how they should live or what their morals should be, but to make a strong stand that you support the two s LGBTQ community. And these are ways that you are going to make that stand, even though you’re in a country where that might not be the case. Those are things that you can do as a soccer fan. Because, quite frankly, what has been sad, maybe even shameful to me, is that Canada soccer, the CSA has been quiet. Human Rights Watch has reached out to them six times via letter, has not had a response. Amnesty International has been very critical of Canada soccer’s inaction. They released a promo, a trailer about Canada soccer being in the World Cup, and in it, I quote our strength is not in our numbers, it’s in our unity, a place where everyone belongs, our ambition only rises. Well, don’t sing it, bring it. Show us where you are in terms of pushing FIFA or at least making a stance. And it is very easy for you to put Pride uniforms on the women’s national team because by and large, half of the team and support staff is part of the two S LGBTQ community. But I don’t see those Pride uniforms on the men’s national team. They are one of the countries who did not step up and say, our captain will wear a one love armband with a Pride rainbow on it. And so I do think we can consume the tournament and not feel guilty about it. But I do think we do have a right, a role to play in pushing for some conversation and for some change. I wish that the CSA would be on the front foot the way that US. Soccer and the FA in England and others have. I’m really, really disappointed that we aren’t.

Jordan Given all of the stuff we talked about in the lead up to the tournament and how corrupt it is and how horrible the conditions under which the stadiums were built are. What’s happened since the tournament has started? You mentioned one love armbands. I understand there’s been a bit of cracking down on journalists, beer sales gang. It seems like there’s not a great energy to what’s been happening so far.

Donnovan Bennett Every time I open up the Twitter app, it seems for as long as I’ll be able to continue to do that right. There is another controversy around this. World cup fans haven’t had great accommodations or a great experience. I’ve had trouble getting in and out of stadiums, and again, we’re talking about the infrastructure, a lack thereof, of hosting an event this size. The beer guns. And Budweiser is a major sponsor. They paid $75 million to be the alcohol partner of the World Cup. The beer tents that were supposed to be around the stadium were moved a little bit farther from the gates to get in because the Qatari government was not comfortable with where they were. And then all of a sudden, on the eve of the tournament, they were gotten rid of altogether. I’m not saying that the government should change their ideals on what they want in their country. And there’s some thought that only alcohol will be consumed in the hotels, that’s the only respectable area or venue for them in the country. But this is not a surprise. I know we’ve had twelve years getting ready for this. This could have been handled in a much better way by all parties. Now, Budweiser, although I’m sure they could say this is breach of contract, is not going to walk away because one, I just said, but we’re four times on your show, so this is free promo. Two, the next World Cup is in North America where they have great dealings and want great marketing. So they’re not exactly going to say, well, this is it, FIFA, because beer gardens will be welcomed in the United States and Canada and certainly in Mexico. In terms of the One Love Armbands, all of the nations that I mentioned earlier, england, Wales, etc, and were prepared to wear this One Love Armband, seven European nations as a show of support. They’ve worn it before in the Nations League. This is not new. And on the eve of the first game, FIFA has said that if any player wears it, they will get a yellow card. And I put these federations in a predicament because as much as we want to do this, we want to penalize our individual players to have this message. So they relented. And FIFA said that they could only wear their anti-discrimination Armband. That has to be sanctioned. I was a bit disappointed, if I’m being honest, that all of the federations decided at the last minute, despite the penalty being higher, because they thought it was just going to be a fine, a uniform violation, that they changed course. And here’s why. Jordan imagine one, the power is to start a match. You know, Harry Kane, captain of England, is shown a yellow card and he touches that armband. Imagine if you were at any part of the globe and you were part of the LGBTQ community, how seen you’d feel, how iconic that photo. That would be the Tommy Smith John Carlos photo of our era.

Jordan Sure. I mean, it’s taken a real penalty on the pitch to show people that they matter.

Donnovan Bennett Yes. And when you say this is bigger than the game, that’s a chance to really show it and prove it. And two, even if you said the Netherlands, for example, their captain is Virgil van Dijk, he’s a defender. A yellow for a defender is a bit more precarious because one slip and it could be a second yellow, which meant being knocked out of that game, or you got another yellow in the group stages of potential suspension for a game down the road. Sure. You have five subs in international competition, have a designated yellow card taker who takes the yellow, wears the yarn van and then walks off the pitch and someone else is on the captain for the other 89 minutes plus extra time. Like there were ways to do this and prove a point and send a message that didn’t have to hurt the team tactically. And if it did, so be it. It is one match, hopefully for these nations, three, four, five. So I was a bit disappointed that none of the nations, although they put out a unified statement, none of them made a unified statement on the pitch. Yeah. And the most recent one is the first match of the second day. The Iranian players during the national anthem did not sing the national anthem. And for those who haven’t watched a World Cup, singing the national anthems might be, outside of penalty kicks, the most entertaining part of the broadcast, because all of these players, all of these millionaires, are singing it with their hearts. Fans in the stands are crying. That’s how much it means. And for those players to not sing it, theoretically in support of the antigovernment protests back home, which are happening because of the death of a 22 year old woman who died while in custody of the country’s morality police, that says something. I mean, we’ve already seen the Iran Football Federation make some statements. Star striker Sardar Azmoun did not start versus England, but was named to the squad despite reported pressure from the government to leave him out because he supported the protests before the tournament started. Right on the eve of the tournament, the Iranian captain, El Salt Hajjafi, he was the first Iranian player who we knew was going to play, who was outright in support of the anti government protest. And now we’ve all seen them by not saying anything during the anthem, show some support. And on the flip side, in that very same match, the England Reliance took a knee at the beginning of the match. And that is something that they have done routinely post George Floyd’s death. They haven’t stopped it while many other sporting bodies and teams have. They have taken a knee before every match and they continue to do so. Even though FIFA sent a letter to all of the football federations before the tournament saying, these games will not be political, please do not use them as a platform for anything other than sport. Essentially saying, you know, shut up and dribble the soccer version. England still took a knee. So we saw in match one, day two, that these games are political, whether you like it or not.

Jordant What do you expect from Team Canada? Is this their victory? Have they already won? And this is just kind of a victory lap because this is the pinnacle for them?

Donnovan Bennett Well, the group says goal one is to get goal. 136 years ago, when Canada was in the World Cup, not only did it win a game, didn’t score a goal, so they want to give that first moment of celebration for the country. And it really struck me watching the England match. England scored six goals in their first match, but every goal, when you cut to bars in London or Manchester or Liverpool, the scenes, if you saw them with no context, you would have thought they won the tournament. That’s how people were celebrating. And so for Canadians, for 30 plus million of us, to have that moment, I think is goal one, number two, and it’s a real goal to get out of the group. You’ve got a Belgium side, which has been previously ranked number one in the world. It’s now ranked number two. That is aging. The school and generation is coming to an end and still the best midfielder in the world, Kevin de Bruyne plays for their team, but their star striker, Ronald Lukaku, is not going to play in the first two matches, which includes the first against Canada. So I think they have a real opportunity. When you look at the second match in Croatia, again, a team that always gets to the knockout stage, but is aging, I think there is an opportunity to steal a match, get a draw, get some points, and maybe get out of the group. But the first goal is to get literally the first goal we’ll see. They have been pretty bullish about the fact that they’re going, and John Herdman is the first to say it. Not to be shy, not to be tempted, not to be happy, to be invited. Not only are you going to go, they’re going to go play, they’re going to be on the front foot, they’re going to be aggressive, they’re going to take the game to the opponent. That’s one thing to say it’s now, another thing to do it. Especially when technically you’re playing teams that are so good that you may never get the ball for half. But I expected them to be pragmatic, to park the bus a little bit, to try to use their speed, which they have lots of team speed, and they’re one of the fastest teams in the tournament. And counter on the break and score some goals against the run of play. Maybe smash and grab, get a one one tie or maybe a one nil victory. But they say that they’re going to express themselves, play positive football and have some fun. And so John Herdman is known for mind games. So we’ll see. The real question is, who will be playing? Because whether it’s the star goalie and Boreon, or the star midfielder and Stephanie Staccio, I think the most important player or the best player in Alphonso Davies, they have some injury concerns coming into the tournament. I expect all three to start game one. But how many minutes will we see? Throughout will be a question. But, Jordan, the fact that we’re having these conversations about who is going to start, about what the tactics will be like that in itself is a breath of fresh air for someone who has followed this program for a long time. And, you know, a lot of the time the conversation was, how are we losing by multiple goals to Panama and now we’re in the World Cup? Well, I wish the whole 25 minutes we just spent could have been about Canada and the World Cup and the pitch, but it’s not.

Jordan Donnovan, thank you as always, for digging so deep on this.

Donnovan Bennett My pleasure.

Jordan Donnovan Bennett of Sportsnet, the host of Going Deep, which, if you enjoyed this conversation, you will also very much enjoy adding to your lineup wherever you get your podcasts. That was the big story. Canada’s first game, by the way, at the World Cup will be against Belgium on Wednesday at 02:00 p.m.. Eastern time. This was a fascinating discussion. If you are a Canadian soccer fan who has suffered through the lean years and you feel conflicted about this World Cup or maybe you don’t because all that matters is the game, we’d love to know how you feel about it. You can find us on Twitter at thebigstory FPN. You can, of course, send us an email hello at thebigtstorypodcast CA and you can call and leave us a message. 416-935-5935. The Big Story is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you haven’t yet, please give us a rating and a review. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.