VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

Several footballers are bringing their political leanings to the pitch

- ANIRUDH MADHAVAN

An angry Irishman is said to have kicked it off. The practice of using a sports event to voice one’s politics. It was in 1906, at the Intercalated Games—held between Olympics, but matching the scale—that Peter O’Connor won silver in long jump. He was miffed for two reasons. One, that he did not win gold. Two, the flag that he stood under was the Union Jack. As Ireland did not have an official Olympics council, the athletes had to compete under the British flag. He added high jump to his repertoire that day as he leapt up the flagpole to replace the British flag with the Irish 'Erin go Bragh'.

More than a century later, we find ourselves on the cusp of possibly the most politically charged championship of all time, at least in a performative sense. This is primarily because of who is hosting this tournament— an Arab nation with no real footballing culture, and one that makes the west’s moral compass go haywire.

Human rights were the sticking point when Qatar got the go-ahead in 2010 to host the World Cup. Twelve years later, it still sticks. A recent Amnesty International poll found that 84 per cent of fans who plan to attend at least one World Cup match think that FIFA should compensate workers who suffered during the preparations in Qatar.