World Cup in MAGAlandia

It is already customary at FIFA to choose pariah countries as World Cup hosts. The 2018 one was in Russia. The 2022 one in Qatar. The 2026 one in the United States. Compassion? Or, the usual, bribes?

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I want to believe that it is a benevolent impulse on the part of FIFA’s capo di tutti capi , Gianni Infantino. Look how nice the gesture he made with the infantiño of the White House was. Nobody wanted to give him that award he cried so much for, until Gianni appeared. It was a crude imitation of the Nobel, it’s true, but the child king didn’t notice. He was happy. Infantino has his place in Heaven assured.

What day does the US World Cup start? For almost my entire life, I’ve known months in advance. This time I had to Google it. It turns out it’s this coming Thursday. I don’t know about you, but with every four years that pass, I’m less interested in what once interested me more than anything else in the world, with the possible exception of my family, sex, or a Madrid-Barça match.

I’ll be more attentive to the presidential elections held this Sunday. I mean, Real Madrid’s, between Florentino Pérez and someone with even fewer brains, a certain Enrique Riquelme. Both candidates gave us joy this week by announcing, the first, that if he won he would bring Mourinho back as coach; the second, that he had already pre-signed Norwegian striker Erling Haaland.

Mourinho is more outdated than the Bee Gees, or Felipe González. But Riquelme made the biggest fool of himself. After declaring that he had the blond giant tied up, the player himself replied: “All very entertaining, but it’s not true.” The club where Haaland plays, Manchester City, threatened to sue the pretender to the Bernabéu throne.

Well, it’s understandable that Madrid needs to make noise these days, even if it’s with clowning around. It needs to distract its loyal fans, since for the first time in World Cup history, it doesn’t have a single player in the Spanish national team. But, far from embarrassment, it should be a source of pride. It’s more dignified not to be an accomplice to such nonsense.

I was presented with the opportunity, but I rejected it. I was invited, all expenses paid, to Miami in mid-June. I had a moment of weakness, I confess. But nothing to do with football. The idea tempted me because of the possibility offered to me that migration agents would not let me into MAGAland, and that they would deport me back home. I thought about it because then I could say that the only two countries that had done me this favor were Trump’s United States and Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. (No, I’m not immune to the glory that medals and awards confer either).

But not only will I not go, but I will boycott all the matches I can, which won’t be difficult, especially if we look at the June calendars, now that FIFA has raised the number of participants – out of compassion or for money, you choose – from 32 to 48. (Congo-Uzbekistan? Austria-Jordan? No, thank you). What I won’t be able to do later, I suspect, is look away from a possible Spain-France or an Argentina-Brazil. Or an Iran-USA, perhaps with a brand new trophy for the winner (Go, Gianni!), the Strait of Hormuz Cup.

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I suspect few Spanish fans will travel to the US, even though their national team is among the two or three favorites to win the tournament. Real Spaniards, the authentic ones – that is, those from Madrid – I doubt they will make the effort. Those from Barça, or a good part of them, will always want the rival team to win, despite eight of the squad playing for the més que un club . Which means that fans from half of Spain won’t even consider letting themselves be extorted – absurdly expensive tickets, transport and hotels too – by Yankee capitalism.

And they will do well. There are better things to do during the next six weeks, for example, watching a five-day cricket match between, say, Afghanistan and New Zealand. Even, if we fall into despair, watching Wimbledon without Alcaraz. The reasons why I plan to dedicate less time than ever to a World Cup, and I hope many think the same, are the following.

First, it means giving a vote of confidence to the most ridiculous country in the world, if we understand the phrase “making a fool of oneself” as the disproportion between what one is and what one thinks one is (“the last and best hope of the world” etcetera).

Second, enough with giving this historic and once glorious tournament to the pariah countries of the Earth. Let’s send a message that enough is enough.

Third, during the half-time of the final, a half-time show is planned with the participation of Shakira and Madonna. Nothing against Shakira and Madonna, but football is a serious matter, which awakens the most elemental passions of the human being, not an entertainment for children like the Super Bowl. The BBC, from the country where the king of sports was invented, has said that it will not broadcast this sordid spectacle. Let’s hope that more television channels have the seriousness to follow its example.

Fourth, and most importantly, and related to everything else, the World Cup must be held in countries where they understand the centrality of football in human life. Football is the religion that unites the most faithful, but the US is the country with the highest proportion of pagans. Otherwise Muslim and cricket-loving Bangladesh, for example, will be paralyzed when Argentina or Brazil play. The population of the Asian country will be split in half between those who support one team or the other – almost, as appropriate, to the point of civil war –.

But in the United States, for the vast majority, the World Cup will be a circus of minority interest. It’s like holding the great annual celebration of Islam, the hajj, in Ibiza instead of Saudi Arabia, where by the way the 2034 World Cup will be held, for Allah’s sake. Before that, in 2030, the host will be Spain, which is indeed a football-fanatic country. But was it chosen for being another pariah? The country with the most corrupt government in the world? That, at least, is the image that those Spanish patriots who have never looked beyond their navels seem to want to convey.

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