On Tuesday 29 in November, the decisive match will be played between the teams of the United States and Iran in a challenge marked by controversy.
And it is that, in recent hours, the Asians asked the organizing committee to expel their American rivals from the competition for sharing on social networks an altered image of the Iranian flag without the emblem of the Islamic Republic and the saying: “There is no god but God.”
The petition is one more of the non-sporting episodes that have surrounded the World Cup in Qatar and that started from 2015 when it was awarded to that country the headquarters Then he warned about the absurdity of the tournament being played in a country with no soccer history and also located in the middle of the desert.
Very soon it was known that some votes of that award were conditioned by bribes allegedly distributed by the Al Thani family that, for 29 years, has directed the destinies of the small nation. That corruption led prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York to enter into 2015 an opinion with dozens of defendants, including the once-powerful president of CONCACAF, Trinidadian Jack Warner.
Human rights defenders have wondered how FIFA decided to give the seat to a monarchy where the rights of women and homosexuals are outlawed. Criticism intensified when it was discovered that the families of thousands of workers killed during the accelerated construction of the stadiums were left homeless.
For all this, in countries like Germany some citizens have decided to boycott the World Cup, reaching the claim even the members of the national team of that country who posed for the official photo with one hand over their mouths after the organizers prevented their goalkeeper and captain, Manuel Neuer, from wearing a rainbow-colored bracelet, a symbol of homosexual resistance.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has stopped the criticism and in a speech given hours before the start of the The tournament called Western companies doing business in the country, human rights groups and the media “hypocrites” for wanting to “give moral lessons.”
As part of the politicized environment, the USA vs. Iran is played, a confrontation that in the World Cup in France 2010 had the same ingredients of politicization caused by decades of political and ideological clashes between the governments of both countries. Against all odds, 29 years ago Iran won 2-1 and now the United States is going for revenge.
Even the Iranian players themselves have avoided singing their national anthem as a way of claiming their government for the repression of the protests after the death of the citizen Mahsa Amini. Players from the USA have said that the flag was in support of the Iranian women’s movement so it seems that both agree that violence and discrimination against women must end.
Better roll the ball and win the best.