World Cup 2018 in Russia: to watch or not to watch?

Russia for the first time in its history will host the World Championship Football. It will also be the first to hold the Mundial in Eastern Europe and on the territory of two parts of the world simultaneously, Europe and Asia. As to the interesting nuances that could positively highlight the current World Cup among other ones, a system of video replay will be used for the first time at a tournament of this level. These facts seem to exhaust important details that would let Russia as a host country positively enter the history of the football world. Nevertheless, there are enough negative reasons such as the total boycott of the tournament by world leaders and thousands of sarcastic and corrosive photos and videos on the Internet about Russia, which could not decently prepare for the competition. However, about everything in order…

Scandal at the start

FIFA has already managed to “cause a stir” far from the start of the 21st FIFA World Cup. It all started with suspicion of corruption. The world press has issued dozens of serious investigations and analytical materials, in which journalists accused the globe’s football leadership of 2010 decision to hold the 2018 World Cup in Russia had a “corruption component”. The European Parliament in June 2015 even supported the chairman’s statement of the Audit Committee of FIFA Domenico Scala that Russia and Qatar may be deprived of the right to host the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 if the fact of corruption is proved. In addition, the Western world literally savored the facts of previously untold spendings on the building of stadiums and infrastructure in Russia. It was written that “Russian mafia” receives super-profits in the form of “kickbacks” and others.

Later, the global media erupted separate appeals not to go to the tournament in Russia because there is an inexplicable violation of human rights… After 2014, when Russia openly showed aggression to Ukraine, invaded Crimea and the part of Donbas, when it turned out that “Buk” which terrorists used to shot down the MN17 was in the service of the Russian army, calls to boycott the 2018 World Cup or an urgent change of venue only intensified. Indeed, England or Spain with Portugal (joint application) could quickly update the existing infrastructure and hold competitions, so that this was the political will of the world leaders (these countries, together with the Russian Federation, competed for the right to host the tournament). However, football, except for the athletic confrontation itself, is an element of dirty politics and big money. Very big. Therefore, European politicians, heads of states, world leaders, somehow reservedly called on the fans not to go to Russia and to the “holiday of football, hot dogs and beer”. In fact, it was not further than empty “diplomatic indignations”.

Although today, on the eve of the opening of the World Cup, almost with 100% certainty, we can say that at the opening of the final stage, none of the G7 leaders will stand next to Putin, the Kremlin partially achieved it. Almost a million and a half foreigners from all over the world will come to the tournament in Russia. So, football is easily used as an instrument of propaganda and PR, a desire to show the world that Russia is a peaceful and civilized country in which one can normally spend time.

Who are these Ukrainians?

Among the one and a half million sports tourists, who plan to go to the Russian Federation at the World Cup at least 5000 are Ukrainians. According to the first deputy chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a member of the humanitarian subgroup of Trilateral Contact Group at the negotiations in Minsk Iryna Gerashchenko, so many people purchased the tickets for the matches and… plan to use them. In social networks this news was met with extremely negative reaction. Hundreds of people wrote about the fact that the SSU did not let so-called “Ukrainians” in, because it’s cynical and mean to go to the football festival to the aggressor country. Officially, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ukrainian border guards, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and even the President of Ukraine called on compatriots to refrain from traveling to the aggressor, for “our country is unable to provide legal and other assistance in time”.

Although the national football team of Ukraine couldn’t get a ticket to the final stage of the competition, the World Cup topic in the country, waging war against us, still dictated the domestic agenda in the domestic policy. Some deputies call for boycotting and not watching football at all, others are trying to speculate with this topic to warm up electoral moods, saying that there is nothing wrong with it, because “sport is just a sport”. A peculiar culmination was the populist decision to try to prevent the broadcasting of the tournament in Ukraine. At first, the main broadcaster was supposed to be the “UA: First” national channel. When the newly made “Public TV” refused, the initiative was intercepted in the TRC “Ukraine”. Subsequently, the management of the channel also refused to broadcast and the right to broadcast World Cup in Ukraine was acquired by the Inter TV channel. A few days on all airs some people’s representatives “tore up their throats”, convincing the Ukrainians that the broadcast of matches that are taking place in Russia, is contrary to the interests of our country. And then… the Verkhovna Rada simply did not have enough votes to include in the agenda the draft resolution on preventing the broadcast of the World Cup in Ukraine. Why is this topic an ordinary populism? Because if there was a desire, the votes would suffice, and the decision can be made through the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

The FIFA World Cup will be held. And it will be held in Russia. Whether we like it or not. It will be broadcasted to the whole world, particularly in Ukraine. And thousands of our compatriots do not just watch the matches in pubs and restaurants, but they will also go to the aggressor country. This is the reality of our time. As well as the fact that thousands of Ukrainian, even remaining faithful football fans, do not consciously watch the Mundial. These people are active participants of actions in support of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, they draw posters (like the Ukrainian artist Andrii Yermolenko, who showed with his works that one cannot go to Russia through the annexation of the Crimea, support of militants in eastern Ukraine, knocking down Boeing over the Donbas, the bombing of the Syrian Aleppo and the poisoning of Sergii Skrypal in Great Britain), refuse to broadcast somehow their coverage of the World Cup 2018…

This is the reality of the hybrid time we live in. And the answer to the question is whether to watch or not to watch – everyone, of course, will find for himself. However, even if we focus exclusively on sports battles that unfold in Russian football fields, it will be difficult to distract and pretend that we don’t know that at least in three cities (Moscow, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don), where the matches of World Cup-2018 will take place, Ukrainian political prisoners are being scoffed.

Text: Vadym Lubchak