Football, FIFA, Racism, Economic Genocide, And The Convergence In Brazil
Today the worlds' attention is going to shift to Brazil for the beginning of the month long World Cup championship. That South American country will host 32 footballing nations for the most popular sporting competition in the world. In Brazil we will see the emergence of a 'World Champion' in the real game of football unlike in North America where the highlighted term is callously used for league finals.Football alias soccer is more popular than the summer and winter Olympics games combined with basketball (NBA), American football (NFL), and baseball.
Football has a gigantic following with the various Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) competitions such as women world cups, world youth under 21 championships, and under 17 tournaments.
But this hitherto named beautiful game has a gray side that is synonymous with the current state of global governmental structures that has produced racism, economic genocide, corporate greed, and the corruption of the worldwide 1%.On the surface it seems remarkable that this every 4-year Mundial went from South Africa a majority black country to Brazil which has the highest population of African descendants outside of the African continent.
Several investigative reportconfirms that FIFA decided on these locations based on their abilities to maximize revenues while ensuring limited accountability.
Consequently, the decision of FIFA to move the World Cup from one BRICS country to another should not obfuscate the twin reality of racism and economic genocide that has accompanied football for many generations. These aforementioned systems have continued unabated despite the beautiful chants in the stadiums of 'all we are saying give us a goal' and 'ole ole ole ole' by football fans.
At least in Brazil some players might be able to tap the round leather without fans making monkey chants and throwing bananas on the football fields. Such attitudes appear to be the norm in some European stadiums where soccer leagues are billion dollar businesses but seem spineless and wanting in providing hostile free working environments.
The football industry has embraced the prevalent commercial practices of most multinational companies without the incentives of engineering meaningful changes. These companies entice countries and/or communities with prospective jobs and development opportunities, if they agree to host them but turn around to exploit them by securing massive profits.
For example, the Brazilians like the South Africans were promised investments in new infrastructures/constructions, roads, livable communities, water, investment in transportation, and more electricity grids. But those promises have not born out and the authorities have responded by attempting to place the poor, the Afro-Latinos, and the favelas on lock down.
Brasileiros are now realizing that major conspiracies have occurred in the planning and execution of the world cup competition. Comparable to what happened in South Africa, local companies and their foreign partners have used their capitalist play book to embezzled most of the allocated resources with little or no improvements in the lives of the regular folks. Two prominent figures were used to accomplish these immoral schemes.
In South Africa, the ANC used the status of President Nelson Mandela to facilitate the fleecing that transpired whereas Pele was the go to guy in Brazil. Both international heroes were leveraged to sell their countries the bill of goods,though it could be said that the former was appropriated with limited intent while the latter actively partook of the bounties.
Recently, there have been rallies and protests all over Brazil against these criminal theft of public resources associated with the world cup. Labor strikes have targeted the government and the corporations of so-called elites who are robbing the country blind. Brasileiros to their credit have not used their frustrations to lash out on innocent economic immigrants from Venezuela and Argentina as was the case in South Africa. Some South Africans who were economically marginalized took out their frustrations on other African immigrants before the beginning of the 2010 FIFA world cup. This was prior to the introduction of vuvuzelas into the global lexicon. They massacred fellow Africans from countries that gave South Africans moral, tactical, and financial support during the days of apartheid.
Unfortunately, South Africans did not recognize the links between the prevailing economic genocide and their history. There were failures to connect the dots between the same capitalist systems and byproducts which produced racism, segregation, and injustice for the benefit of the few with their predicaments.In some instances FIFA operates with the blueprints of those European (British, Netherlands, and Portuguese) shipping and expedition companies such as the Royal Niger Company and Royal Dutch Company that invaded other continents. These companies like FIFA partners with corrupt domestic elites, rulers, and governments to further their own goals of reaping maximum profits from host communities with the aid of other conglomerates.
However, 99% of humanity can still fight to regain the edge over the economic, environmental, and political malfeasance of the global elites and their organizations.Folks need to make the linkages and identify the real foes that are desecrating football and societies. Instead of allowing the global political and economic 1% to continue to divide and conquer us, we must be prepared to issue them two yellow cards before a final red card, unalike the prevailing FIFA rules.
Local football leagues should be supported rather than used as pipelines to siphon players to Europe. People outside of Europe should go back to viewing Liverpool and Arsenal football clubs as instruments of pooling/gambling houses and not deities to be praised on social media.
Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist
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