THIS IS A World Cup where so many people’s contradictions and hypocrisies are laid bare.
For the first time, the tournament will be played in winter, during the middle of the season for most major European leagues, yet that is only one element of the shamefulness.
“The feeling is good. It’s interesting, it’s a challenge. It’s different. In my mind it is good. The weather for me is not the issue,” Cristiano Ronaldo said in a short promotional video on his Instagram page as part of a paid partnership with a football results app.
Rather than elaborate on what the actual issues might be, the 37-year-old clarified: “I prefer warm weather. That is not a huge problem.”
Qatar is a country where it is illegal to be gay and migrant workers have been dealing with conditions equating to modern slavery for more than a decade, according to Amnesty International.
Last year, the Guardian newspaper reported that the death tally in the 10 years since Qatar won the rights to host the World Cup to be in the region of 6,500.
Ronaldo was asked about the issues around the tournament in one big interview he did do this week, when Piers Morgan broached the subject in what amounted to a vacuous 60-second soundbite out on social media.
Piers Morgan: “Is it weird playing in winter, do you care, do you care?”
Cristiano Ronaldo: “I don’t really care to be honest. We should focus only on football. The competition, for the people to enjoy.”
PM: Do you think all of the politics and morality debates should be left aside now?
CR: 100 per cent.
PM: Focus on the games. I feel that.
CR: Of course, of course. They should do that.
PM: That debate should be had before you award the World Cup.
CR: Exactly, exactly. They should concentrate in all competition on all of the national teams, the people to be welcome in Qatar. I see a good tournament to be honest. I think Qatar are prepared for that.”
Gary Neville, for example, didn’t seem to be ready for what came his way when he had a far more unforgiving mirror held up to his involvement. He was excoriated when he was guest host on Have I Got News For You for choosing to work for Qatar’s state-owned broadcaster BeIN Sports during the tournament.
For someone using the BBC panel show as a vehicle to enter the mainstream political sphere, it was the sort of brutal takedown that was welcome.
Ronaldo, of course, was never going to face similar rigours sitting across from Morgan. The player is nearing the end of his top-level career and could well find himself unemployed by the time he takes part in his fifth World Cup, should Manchester United find legal cause to terminate his contract following the interview.
But the Portugal star is at least on record with his thoughts on Qatar, even if his preference is to not use his profile as the most globally recognised footballer in the world as a means to highlight the abuses taking place.
On the pitch, one of the top billings for this World Cup has been the final battle with his great rival, Lionel Messi.
The nature of this tournament means Googling ‘Lionel Messi human rights’ is a prerequisite for any kind of preview. You will find that the greatest player of his generation is a myriad of troubling contradictions.
The unsettling background to this tournament means everyone’s inconsistencies are to be examined. Human rights debates and set-piece deliveries are pored over in equal measure because no one can claim ignorance about what is going on.
Unicef is one of the first newsflashes that pop ups relating to Messi, with a glowing tribute from his unveiling as a goodwill ambassador in 2010, after which he visited Haiti “to bring public awareness to the plight of the country’s children in the wake of the earthquake.”
“In addition to his work with Unicef, Leo founded his own charitable organisation, the Leo Messi Foundation, which invests in health-care services to improve children’s lives. Most recently, he supported efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, sharing prevention practices and promoting fundraising messages to support Unicef’s emergency response plan.”
On the pitch, you could simply point to his willingness to become the face of Qatar’s primary sportswashing project in European football, Paris Saint-Germain, following his Barcelona departure.
As the renowned Argentine football writer Marcela Mora y Araujo said on Off The Ball recently: “In the pinnacle of elite sport that he (Messi) is in, that’s not a world that is concerned with human rights issues, and never has been.
“I think Messi is very much a celebrity at peak value at the moment and looking at that value decreasing. It’s a World Cup year, his last one… This is FIFA’s biggest business and it’s a money game.”
This was on the back of Messi being announced in May as the latest tourism ambassador for Saudi Arabia during a trip to Jeddah. He does not discriminate when it comes to oppressive regimes, at least.
“This is not his first visit to the kingdom and it will not be the last,” Ahmed al-Khateeb, the country’s minister of tourism, said at the time.
Messi, the Unicef goodwill ambassador, has form for such questionable partnerships. In 2015 he had to deny reports that he was paid €3.5 million for a visit to Gabon, which was criticised by activists for endorsing the dictatorship of Ali Bongo in the central African country.
No matter what happens for Ronaldo and Messi in Qatar, their football will no longer be enough to do the talking.
Especially when they say so little of relevance.
Naive ideals, perhaps, but imagine if the two icons of their generation spoke out to set an even bigger kind of example for those that they have inspired through their capabilities on the pitch.
They have redefined what it is to be great, setting new standards for those who follow them to strive for.
Messi and Ronaldo have changed the game, but their hush weighs heavy now.
Were either to get their hands on the World Cup come 18 December, it would be a fitting final act to a career, both of which have been defined by extraordinary brilliance over a remarkable span.
It would also be an appropriate denouement to a tournament where, from a long way out, we’ve been encouraged to look past the working conditions, the deaths, the persecution. In one of Fifa’s most grim adventures yet, the two most sure-footed players of their time are right there, in lockstep, silent.
