Issue 57: Political Sport
Let's stop pretending. Sports and politics go hand in hand. And that makes for great writing.
Whether you like it or not, Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup.
And rather than try to spin some new perspective on what has already become a media circus and shameful episode in sports history, I’ll just make a few suggestions of what to read in advance of the tournament.
Football and politics go hand in hand with one another. Not just in the Middle East, which happens to be the focus of my work and this newsletter, but around the world and since the earliest days of the sport. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Instead, let’s try to better understand the relationship between the two. A failure to do so will inevitably lead to the same mistakes in the future.
There are dozens of articles explaining how Qatar positioned itself as the 2022 World Cup host, and just as many that discuss why that decision has proven to be an ethical and moral train wreck. But few did it quite as well as David Goldblatt in The London Review of Books.
Of the many squads carrying a nation’s hopes over the next few weeks, few shoulder a more complex burden than Team Melli, Iran’s national team. In their New York Times piece, Jere Longman and Farnaz Fassihi highlight the unique pressures facing Team Melli as it tries to focus on the pitch amidst nation-wide protests on the streets of Iran’s major cities.
Club football is also no stranger to the entanglement of politics and sports. Kaya Genç’s latest for Index on Censorship captures the colorful political roots of Turkish football and describes how these foundations were challenged over the last decade as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grip on power intensified.
I hope you find this newsletter’s content engaging. Feel free to share this newsletter with others.
-Gabi