The Tournament of Diasporas
If you designed an event to celebrate the resilience of people when confronted with national borders, it would be the World Cup. Everywhere, borders are crossed.
I don’t normally write about soccer, but I do believe that sport is a microcosm of life. Indigenous peoples of the South called stickball “the little brother of war.” The World Cup is actually quite the opposite. Despite the flags and jerseys, it’s a coming together, where we know that the uniforms are just laundry, and beneath them we just want to play together.
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The fans
In Lawrence, Kansas, the university marching band arrives at the athletic fields, the US base camp for the Algerian team, and serenades them with the Algerian anthem. The rest of the town adopts the team. Restaurants decorate their windows with the Algerian flag and play Algerian music.
In Arlington, Texas, Dutch fans dance with their Japanese rivals. All of them are clothed and painted in their national colors. The street party spans several blocks.
In Boston, Scottish and German fans overflow a bar and sing “American Pie” together in drunken unison.
In Tijuana, a mariachi band welcomes the Iranian players as they walk down the aircraft stairs.
These are the moments that go viral, that make the World Cup special. The “beautiful game” is just a part of it; it’s also an opportunity to have an international party.
The players
The players are even more integrated than the fans. Because the athletes are allowed to play for the country in which they live, where they were born, or where their parents or grandparents were born, it honors the decisions of their families who left their homelands due to war or economic colonization, and doesn’t hold that against them. It’s been called the Diaspora World Cup, but it could also be the Cup of Ancestors.
Most of Europe’s stars are the children of immigrants. When Senegal played France, ten members of the Senegal team grew up in France, while several on the French team were eligible to play for Senegal. Most of them grew up in Paris’ immigrant suburbs together.
Though committed to play for France now (where he was born), Mbappe could have played for Algeria or Cameroon. Lamine Yamal was eligible to play for Morocco and Equatorial Guinea, as well as Spain. Jude Bellingham for England, Ireland, and Kenya. Ousmane Dembélé for France, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal. (Yes, players tend to play for the highest seed nation where they can make the team, which tends to continue colonization on the pitch, though the field is leveling. Morocco knocked out Spain four years ago. This year, Cape Verde and Curaçao have stunned higher ranked teams.)
When France won the World Cup in 2018, all but two of their squad members were the children of immigrants, mostly from Africa. To give an idea of just how good France’s youth development program is, an astonishing 98 players in this year’s World Cup were born in France.
Even the US, where competitive soccer is largely a boutique sport for wealthier families, is fortunate with one particular international player. Folarin Balogun, their leading scorer, only qualifies to play for the team because, one day in 2001, a Nigerian woman was deemed too advanced in her pregnancy to board her flight home to London from New York City. She returned to her sister’s apartment in Brooklyn, had the baby, and, after waiting a month, flew home to England. Balogun isn’t even an immigrant to the US; he still lives in Europe. He gains his eligibility through birthright. That’s the only reason he’s now scoring goals for the US.
We eat these stories up because they make a mockery of borders and divisions. The people, in all our complexity, triumph over artificial constructs meant to divide us.
The players, of course, know each other through their professional club teams. And it’s not just the stars of Barcelona, PSG, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich I’m talking about. Mid-level Sunderland has twelve players in the World Cup, representing nine countries: Switzerland, Netherlands, Morocco, Cote d’Voire, Senegal, DR Congo, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Haiti.
Going in the reverse direction, the US starting eleven features nine who play in Europe (for club teams in Germany, Italy, France, England, and Spain). Christian Pulisic, who plays for AC Milan, may run into teammates playing for Belgium, Croatia, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Mexico, or Ecuador.
The World Cup, in the stands, on the streets, and in the locker rooms, is an international party, a giant mix zone.
The powers that be
That said, the vultures hover. The World Cup has always been a target for dictators to sportwash their images. In 1934, Mussolini rolled out the red carpet for foreign fans, trying to showcase fascism in Italy. In 2018, Putin did the same.
Trump isn’t there yet. Instead of using the tournament to show how good the US is, he’s trying to use it to show how strong he is. (This is a sign of weakness.) His treatment of the Iranian team has appalled the sports world. They were denied visas until the last minute, and then forced to move their training camp from Arizona to Tijuana. Outrage grew when the US denied a visa to Africa’s top referee, who is from Somalia.
But the greatest party-killing move by Trump has been the restriction of fans, largely based on skin color. While Brazil created a special World Cup visa to facilitate traveling fans, the US has stuck to its new Trump-era restrictions based on race. The host nation has opened its arms to the white world, but most Africans face a de facto travel ban, forced to pay a $15,000 cash bond just to get a visa. That’s why the mother of Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper, had “visa problems.”
Morocco, semifinalists four years ago (and looking just as strong now), have seen a large number of fans turned around, many after buying airline and game tickets. World Cup 2026, at least the part in the US, is essentially an international party hosted by a racist pig.
At this party, Trump might be the host, but Gianno Infantino, the president-cum-dictator of FIFA, is the party planner. He coddles to such pigs. He says he has to. He fashions himself as a kind of Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He explained that FIFA’s “dynamic ticket pricing,” where they serve as their own scalper to drive the cheap seats to over $1,000, enables FIFA to give generously to less-developed nations’ soccer programs. Which they do. Yet FIFA is a non-profit with $4 billion in cash reserves and a record for corruption and bribery that rivals the worst nation-states (e.g. a current host nation).
It was Infantino who made up a fictious award – the FIFA Peace Prize – to give to Trump, a ludicrous gift basket to cultivate his favor. And it was Infantino who remarkably appeared in Iran’s locker room after their first match to inform them that permission to spend the night in Los Angeles had been revoked, and that the team must immediately return to Tijuana. “Show the world what good sports you are,” he cajoled. An equally ludicrous effort.
Subversion of the powers
The fans revolt. Twice every match, loud boos, directed at Infantino and FIFA, overwhelm the arena. They are booing the hydration breaks (even in matches in air-conditioned arenas), obviously created to allow advertising. While BBC keeps live commentary, Fox Sports cuts to commercials, reportedly bringing in $1.2 million per break.
This week, UEFA (the European soccer affiliate) announced it will not continue the new hydration breaks during league play this fall. A few years ago, it was fan outrage that killed a proposed “Super League” in Europe, which would have relegated most teams to an inferior status.
But it’s not just corruption that angers the people; it’s hypocrisy and racism. While FIFA proudly roles out its “NO RACISM” at matches worldwide, it strongly reduced the use of the slogan at the Club World Cup in the US last summer. Because, you know, the pig must be coddled.
While it’s common for teams to have uniforms and logos that commemorate their nation’s history or independence, Haiti’s logo, showing proud people (unarmed) raising a flag, was deemed “too political” and ordered the image removed from their jerseys. Haiti’s independence, making them the only nation in the world founded by a slave revolt, came in 1803. The US did not recognize them until after the Civil War. FIFA, apparently, isn’t there yet. Nevertheless, the company that made the banned jerseys can’t keep them in stock. FIFA’s ban has made them go viral among their fans.
Another small victory was achieved when Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has Cape Verde ancestry, heard about the visa problems of Vozinha’s mother. He reached out to the State Department. His efforts, combined with the public uproar, made a difference. A few days later, Vozinha’s mother was in Miami for Cape Verde’s historic 2-2 tie with Uruguay. Accessibility of foreign fans will no doubt be a major topic in future World Cup and Olympic hosting decisions.
These are small victories, weapons of the weak. They may not be a substitute for every league and federation simply withdrawing from FIFA and re-starting from scratch, but they lay a foundation. And soccer is just a microcosm of life. There are things bigger than FIFA that face similar struggles.
Who do I think will win? I love Spain for their style of play, but France looks top to me. This is, after all, a tournament of immigrants.
*The World Cup of Racism*
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/world-cup-racism-trump/
Terrific read. Thanks for sharing this!