The World Cup Was Never Just Football | Season 3 Finale

How political was the 2026 FIFA World Cup? In our final episode of Season 3, FootPol Podcast co-hosts Guy Burton and Francesco Belcastro look back on a tournament that was as much about politics as football. From US visa restrictions, the treatment of Iran and FIFA's ticketing and resale system to the expansion to 48 teams, the growing role of diaspora players representing countries such as Cabo Verde, Curaçao and Morocco, and controversies surrounding Folarin Balogun, Palestinian flags and killings, Argentina's Las Malvinas banner and racist attacks on Kylian Mbappé, they ask whether football can ever truly be separated from politics. Along the way, they examine FIFA's consistency on issues ranging from LGBTQ+ inclusion to accountability when players face allegations of rape or sexual abuse, and what the tournament revealed about the governance of the global game.

The episode also reflects on some of the highlights from Season 3 and points listeners towards the FootPol back catalogue while the podcast takes its summer break. Thank you for listening this season—we'll be back in September with more conversations exploring where football and politics collide.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Football Podcast, the podcast with Football Meets Politics. I'm one of your co-hosts, Francesco Belcastro, and here with me is my other co-host, Dr. Guy Burton.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Hello guy, how are you? Hi Francesco, I'm fine. How about you? How was the World Cup for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

It was alright. I've watched um not so many matches, a few compared to previous editions. Um I've seen some interesting ones. And uh for us, working on football and politics has been uh an interesting uh tournament with some disturbing aspects, I think we'll we'll talk about uh um today. Because what's the episode about today, guys? It's a special one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah, it's basically kind of a recap of the World Cup, of the politics around the World Cup. And I mean, this is kind of also our last episode as well of the season, isn't it, Francesco? So it's an opportunity to you know let listeners know that um you know we've been watching it, we've been thinking about it, and we wanted to share some of those thoughts before we disappear and come back in September, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, which is a very the first important thing to say that's the last episode before the summer break. Um we're gonna be back at some point in September. I I don't have the calendar in front of me, but it's it's sort of around the half of September, the first half of September. Um, so yeah, listeners should take advantage of this time to go and check our uh catalogue of episodes. There are some fantastic ones, many of them relevant to the conversation we're gonna be having today. So that's one thing. I think all the other thing is that we'll be back in September. Um, the podcast is gonna be the same. We might change a few things around. There might be a few um fresh things, but um uh we're gonna be back for the fourth season, which is um for a small independent podcast. It's uh something to I'm very proud of, I have to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

And we've got a bunch of guests and topics who've we've already lined up, people who are willing to go, so we will you know be putting those out from sometime in September, but we need a break first, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

We've got some interesting ones, I'm really looking forward.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

So, yeah, so what's so how shall we start to do this, Francesco? Because I thought you know, there's a bunch of things that I sent to you that we should discuss. And the first thing that suggest that I thought we should talk about was um you know the extent to which football and politics were very much entwined in in this in this event. Um, did you feel that that was the case for you as well? I mean, even though you know there was a lot of criticism before the competition actually started, and then once the game started happening, people felt, oh yeah, it's all about the football, let's focus on the football. But was it ever really like that for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So it's an interesting question. I'm glad you asked it because I've actually um I've been interviewed over the weekend on pretty much the same topic of so the differences between this World Cup and the other, and you know the the others in terms of the relation between football and politics. And you know, what we always say on the podcast is that it's really impossible to separate football and politics. Um so I think it's a matter of what kind of uh interaction we have rather than thinking that there was a an ideal moment in history in which football and politics were completely separated, and some people seem to pretend that you know. Um having said that, I think there are there were in this World Cup a few aspects which are particularly negative in terms of the relation between football and politics. Uh we're gonna discuss some of them. Um I think for me the the main one is that, or the first one I would start with um is the idea of what a host country should do and what a host country should provide to the countries and their supporters, the countries participating and their supporters, which it's it's incredibly political, and and this world cup has been um let's let's not let's be clear about it, it's been a disaster, a shame from this point of view. I think that the first thing we would probably mention is the the issue of Iran, right? That's that's the first one that comes to mind. So the Iranian team. Uh I don't know how much listeners have uh followed the issue. Um so obviously we covered this before the World Cup, didn't we? There was a whole issue of whether we everything okay? Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, sorry. Yeah. Um whether the Iranian team would be allowed to travel to the US, um, whether their staff would be allowed to travel, uh the kind of how this has affected their preparation um the Iranian supporters being not able to travel, and the the role of the Iranian diaspora uh in some US cities which traditionally is not exactly uh pro um the current Iranian government, the current Iranian regime. Um I think it's from my point of view, it's I mean it's obviously quite a unique case the fact that the host country has been waging war on all the participants. I cannot think of any um similar case. I don't know if whether you can, uh but obviously it creates a massive problem. And I think the the right of of Iran and its um the Iranian team and its their supporters to enjoy the World Cup has not been guaranteed, then for me that's a massive problem.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah, yeah. And I think it also set points to another something that you were you were hinting at, which is kind of the relationship between FIFA and and and national governments, right? Because in this instance, this was a case of you know, Infantino, the president of FIFA, has been making such an effort to uh get a good relationship with Donald Trump. And we've seen that through things like you know, sort of the FIFA Peace Prize. And so you would have thought that he would have an entry point to talking to Trump and sort of you know getting him to go easy. But it seems that uh FIFA just rolled over in this respect. Uh so it seemed that FIFA wasn't actually trying to use its influence with governments here, it wasn't trying to impact, you know, sort of uh use any kind of leverage, which is quite striking because if you think about previous World Cups, I mean up until about Qatar, it was very much the case that you know host countries would have to almost take dictation from FIFA. FIFA would say, this is what we expect from a host country, this is the this is the setup that we require in terms of you know uh in terms of stadia, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of pricing, in terms of our sponsors being allowed to, you know, to to run writ. And it seems that in this instance, certainly of the last couple of World Cups, um you know, FIFA has sort of taken a bit of a step back in terms of playing a greater role with governments.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

It has gradually changed, you're right. And I was personally surprised by the sort of power relation between Infantino and Trump. As you I was expecting Infantino to be able to exercise more leverage over President Trump. We I thought that he had invested a lot and he would be able to use this diplomatic capital a bit more, but it doesn't look like it's uh is this way. Maybe it just really likes to be cozy with the most unpleasant people on planet Earth without getting anything in back back in in exchange.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

And we saw that not just in the in the instance of Iran, but a couple of other cases as well, right? So, of course, there was before the World Cup um you know the the denial of a visa for the Somali referee Omar Abdul Qadir Atan, he had problems getting a visa to you know to to participate, despite having been chosen by FIFA to be a referee.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, you'd expect that FIFA in this case would be able to have some leverage. I mean, we didn't say it for listen, it might be useful. What happened with the Iranian team in the end is that they they they used to go for the US for to the US for matches and they just traveled back to Mexico essentially immediately after the matches with uh with a lot of loss of energy and uh Yeah, and not not great, not great for preparation, not great for after after mat after match recovery.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

It's it wasn't good at all. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

They were definitely at uh disadvantage over the other teams in their group. There's no doubt about it, which is it's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah, and and on top of that as well, we also had the instance of uh, I mean, talking about political controversies, the one that was particularly prevalent once the knockout stage happened, um, with Follerin Balogun, uh the American player, when he was sent off in his game and then was reinstated for the American US match against Belgium. Uh, and again, this was an instance of FIFA claiming that the disciplinary committee had gone through it, had reviewed it, and then had reinstated him, and then it subsequently came out that Donald Trump had made a call to Infantino, which obviously upset not just not just the Belgians but the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

And it's it was extraordinary, guy, because it's it's I'm I'm sure there'd been other attempts to influence uh um but the fact that it one of the people involved not only confirmed it, Donald Trump, but bragged about it. Yeah, and the fact that it was consequential, so that the red card was effectively uh choked off, it was is quite extraordinary and it does cast quite a lot of doubts on the uh um on FIFA's ability to guarantee uh uh a regular tournament. I mean in this case uh I think Belgium had uh gained uh way more uh way more support than it would have had otherwise, and they were able to defeat the US. But think about think if if um Balogun would have scored and and the US would have qualified, would have not been a massive um point of view from the massive product of sports fairness, it would. I think it's this World Cup has confirmed or has strengthened uh the conviction a lot of people had that FIFA is not um looking after football um and is not fit for purpose, really.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah. But also on other things, and it's not just that, it was also I think in other uh political controversies as well, where FIFA either sort of chose to um avoid making a decision. So in this in this instance of the Balog Balogun one, they made the decision. Um in the case of Iran, they chose to not take action, but it was also in other things as well. So if you think about the quarterfinal between Argentina and England, um, you know, after the game, the Argentine's players brought out a banner saying Las Malvinas son Argentinos, you know, the the Falkland Islands are Argentine. And this goes against FIFA's um own claim that you don't have political statements on the pitch. Um English, there were English representations made against this, including going as far as the British Prime Minister, well the ex-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer complaining about this. Um and FIFA had pretty much done nothing. I mean, there's a bit there was no nothing nothing said or done prior to the prior to the semifinal or the actually no, it was a semi-final, prior to the final, and we still haven't heard anything about what what FIFA intends to do with that. Uh also worth keeping in mind as well that this was, you know, uh from the American perspective, the White House put out a statement that they were quite happy and comfortable with the with the Argentines making uh that statement on the grounds of free speech.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Interesting because obviously we had a similar debate um regarding Qatar 2022. People might remember the the use of um uh the Palestinian flags by the Morocco team, right? Yeah, and this was obviously tolerated by the Qataris and uh and FIFA, and that I mean that's that's a flag, is that a political statement? This is even clearer case. I mean we could say that our English friends are a bit of bitter losers, and they probably are, but other than that, I think that there is a massive issue of selective um selectiveness by FIFA on what can be said and what can be not. You could you could imagine in other cases that there would have been a much much harsher reaction. So I think regardless of what happened on on the football pitch, there is an issue there of lack of consistency and which reflects you know what happens at in cases before the World Cup. It's not it's not new, right? It's not the first time that we talk about FIFA deciding where it needs to be political or not. So I think it also has to be taken within this context. There's a quite long history of absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

And I think if I can if I can also come back to that, because there's two points that you've just made about this question of consistency/slash versus inconsistency as well as Palestinian flags. The first thing to say about Palestinian flags, you mentioned, of course, at Qatar that a lot of them were present. Um, it was notable at this World Cup that uh there were restrictions around Palestinian flags, people be, you know, various fans being harassed about the ability to bring these flags in or not. Um and if and if certainly it was the case that if we go beyond the Palestinian flags to talk about Palestine more generally, uh the Egyptian manager in his press conferences frequently spoke up to talk about the issue of Palestine, and this got very little coverage in the mainstream media. Um, and I think this so I think it's worth us just flagging that up in this podcast because we do talk about football and politics, that something like this, that you know, that that the Arab world representatives of Arab teams were keen to talk about Palestine and it was not getting a lot of coverage.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

At least some of them were. I assume in some cases there might have been a bit more um pressure by the national federations than there was in previous occasions. Because if you remember in Qatar there was a much much uh very strong sort of surprise effect at the beginning, I think in this case there was more awareness, particularly because we are you know during a genocide. So I think that that kind of um people were a bit more prepared, both in terms of repression, people as in authorities, but also in terms of informally discussing what could be said and not said by players and managers. So congrats to the um Egyptian manager for being brave. I I don't know whether he's gonna get in trouble when he goes back home, but I I mean it's something that certainly um might create problems. So well done to him for speaking up so bravely.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

And I would also add to this, it's not just beyond beyond the the football pitch itself, it is worth, I think, at least we should acknowledge the killing of Mohammed al-Wahidi, uh, who was a Gaza-based aid organizer who organized many watch-along matches in the in the strip during this World Cup. He was killed uh during an Israeli airstrike against um in in in supposedly against a Hamas operative, and he was presumably collateral damage, along with a couple of uh of children, uh, eight and ten-year-olds who died. And I think it's important we flag men mention that because of course, you know, one of the things that we often do come back to in this podcast is about Israel and what it is doing in Palestine, um, and FIFA's inability or incapability of responding to that.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, very important. When we're talking about that uh that inconsistency compared to other cases. Did you want to add anything on the on whether the English are good or not good or bad losers?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Well, I was I was I'm I'm going to leave you out to hang with our listeners on that.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Um, you know, if it's a bit too it was a bit too much. Every single politician going on on TV saying they should be disqualified.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Yes, but this is how sensitive things are, Francesco. You're you're wading into a very sensitive political interest.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, but also like for every for every politician everywhere in the world, it's a very easy way of scoring political points, isn't it? Wow. You know, it's it's kind of uh it's not uh this is not only in England, it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Speak speaking of scoring political points, can we talk a little bit about the Mbappe uh Paraguayan Senator uh uh controversy?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Sure, you got two minutes, guy, to explain to our listeners what is this about and why is it important.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yes, if you recall um when France played Paraguay, Paraguay decided to bring their thuggish game into town, and uh, you know, in an attempt to sort of you know out you know, sort of outthug France. Um Mbappe's you know played a great game and he was criticized and condemned afterwards by the Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, who launched a racist attack on him, calling him a quote, colonized Cameroonian pretending to be French and questioning, so questioning both his identity as well as his education. Um you would have thought Mbappe would just leave it there, but no, he responded and he criticized, he condemned her, but didn't criticize the Paraguayan nation. He criticized her personally. The Paraguayan Senate itself censured Amaria and French prosecutors said they were going to open up an investigation. Now Amaria subsequently regretted her language in a statement, uh, but claims that Mbappe owed her an apology. Um but what I think is really interesting about this point is not only the egregious racial racism that is out there and we just disgusting comments, can we add?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Absolutely disgusting comments.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Absolutely. But it but the point is that you know this prompt this prompts discussion about you know the issues of race and national identity. Um because actually one of the striking things about this World Cup, if you think about it from a globalization perspective, is how many of the players uh came from you know outside of, or I mean, if you're going to be very simp simplistic about this, came from outside the countries they represented, whether that was the diaspora in the case of Kuraçan and Cabo Vergi, or whether it was um the Moroccan team, you know, sort of going to second and third generation uh Moroccans in in France to join the team.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

It was a really diverse encourage uh listeners to check some of these episodes out, right? Um definitely the Kuraça one that you mentioned, yeah, and the Cabo Vergie. The one on Iraq as well. Uh we we spoke a lot about uh we haven't had one on Morocco, but it's on our list for next year, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah, well I think we're gonna have to, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

I mean, as sort of such a quality team, but this is this is actually one of the points about the World Cup that was interesting, as I've as I've mentioned, you know, how globalized uh many of these teams were. And that in a way, that's really quite interesting when you think about the the nature of the the competition itself, which was you know up from 32 teams to 48 this time round. And so, you know, you we had some of these clues like you know, Courassan, the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup, you know, and it didn't seem to do it that it wasn't disgraced, it managed to you know keep keep up with with with the with the teams that it was playing against. Okay, yes, it got hammered 7-1 by Germany, but so what? I mean, the quality was up there. So even though the the tournament was expanded, the number of teams uh taking part was bigger than ever before, it wasn't it was you didn't see this the same size of gap as you would in say, you know, when when when I which I remember back in the mid-80s when you know teams you know were regularly getting hammered and you could see a disparity between the top teams and the and the smaller teams.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, I think if you go if you look at this sort of beyond the football pitch, there are very interesting questions about national identity, yeah, but also about global north, global south relations, aren't they? Because in a way, uh there's there's historically been kind of a talent drag from the global south to the global north. Think about Spain, Portugal, Italy, how much they have benefited from you know the talent in the global south at one level or the other. Um I mean other European countries as well. In a way, there is kind of there is a pushback against this from the from the global south, and people are um a lot of countries are getting much better at at recruiting uh players that have roots from that particular country. So it's it's an interesting development. Uh as you said, it speaks about the sort of the globalized world we are living about, but I think it's also it it within this context, it says a lot about north-south relations, yeah. And a kind of we we often think about ways sort of things sort of unilaterally, just going one way or the other, but it's a much more complex relation.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah. Well, unf yes, absolutely. But there is a obviously a flip side to this, you know, sort of globalization expansion debate as well, which is that in many ways, this expansion of the World Cup, increasing the number to 48, ties in with what effectively FIFA has been doing for the last 50 years, which is to keep expanding the competition, bringing in more teams, and through it not only generating more matches, but more revenue. And through that revenue, then um, you know, parceling it out to national associations um for development purposes. And that that client-patron relationship is one that Havalange did back in the 1970s, Setblatter did, and now Infantino does. And so the problem so there is a downside to this expansion, which is that in a way the people that are running FIFA are consolidating their power base by expanding it, generating more money, and then dispersing it to the national associations who vote them back in.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, and next next season will certainly uh follow the campaign for the next election of FIFA president, which if I remember correctly is in March of next year. Yeah. So that's gonna be an interesting one. I mean, there are already talks about expanding the the cup to 64 teams, which it probably from a football point of view, it's a step um too much. I think 48, in my view, for what I followed, uh worked quite well. Um I think it's sort of it it followed quite organically from the growth of the of the global game, as we have seen in many episodes. I think 64 might be at the moment, maybe a bit of a push. Um but there is the aspect of money distribution that you were mentioning that it's um maybe Italy will get in with 64 teams. So that's the best.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

That might that might be the only way, actually.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

And the moment, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

But I mean, but I think you know, there's there's going to certainly I expect you know other other people, other podcasts to discuss the various merits of 48 versus 64.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

I think for us the really interesting thing is You should take advantage of having a real football expert in on your podcast, guys.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

No, I think the real interest for us though is this is the is the sort of the political and economic uh practicalities uh that are taking place behind this decision.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

So as you mentioned, the two things are connected because then the kind of wealth distribution has played a role in in increasing the level of football in some in some countries. So it's it's more complex than people often often say it is like we're not saying in any way that the sort of corruption that goes around FIFA is acceptable. Just that there that there is a positive aspect in this system, which is the sum. Of the smaller federations are managing to emerge more than they used to. True.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

But I mean, sort of, but if we can come back to the point about sort of you know uh commercialization and revenue of the of this tournament, I mean we saw that come through particularly in this event with the the pricing for tickets, right? So I mean, prices for this World Cup were far higher than they've been for previous ones, including the most recent one in 2022. Um, I mean, I have some of the figures here that if you were to buy the tickets, you know, the cheapest tickets that were on sale at the time, uh, cheapest group get group stage tickets that didn't involve the hosts were $60, uh, round of $32, $105, the final, over $2,000. But this wasn't the problem. The problem was the secondary market because you could only buy these tickets, you know, through the FIFA designed app. And the FIFA arranged it in such a way that if you had to sell your ticket on, uh, FIFA would take a 15% cut from the seller and 15% cut from the buyer. So the FIFA was getting two bites of the cherry when it came to selling tickets, to thereby max to maximizing the amount of revenue it could generate.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

And it also got a lot of troubles in terms of discrepancy in prices, and more matches.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yes, and this is also compounded by the use of dynamic pricing, which is of course the higher the demand, the more expensive the ticket was. And so that uh I mean, I know that in the previous episode we talked to Gabri Gabby Blacamonte, who said that yes, at some of the group stage matches there were gaps in the crowds, that there were not all the tickets were necessarily uh had people sitting there. But one thing that I I was struck by, I don't know about you, but it did seem to me that most of these stadiums were full or more than more than you know, 3%, three quarters capacity. So in that sense, FIFA might well turn around and say this was a success. And if it does so does so, then this kind of model of pricing could very much remain in the c remain for the future. And we may also see it starting to be introduced into other tournaments like the Premier League, for example, or maybe even Serie Art.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Well, that's kind of that's all that's sort of Infantino's winning card, isn't it? Because he he took over an organization which was in debt and is now uh running a massive surplus. So that's kind of that's how he goes back to the Federal Football Federation and says, Well, actually, there's gonna be more money for everyone. Um, but yeah, I think it's I think it is problematic. Um the next World Cup in four years is gonna be an even more interesting case because we will have you know it's gonna be in four different countries, five different countries. Six. Six, okay. Six different countries. I lost truck, so yeah, because the first two matches, three matches are gonna be in in South America.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

I think they're gonna have group stage now in South America as well? I think because they can't, I mean it's a little bit too much to expect just you know one game and then fly the team over to Morocco and Spain, Portugal. I will see. We will see. We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

With more countries, and and the these effects of differences among prices and and the possibilities for it to go wrong will just increase. Yeah, so it's something we'll definitely have to keep an eye on. Could I also encourage listeners to go and check the episode that we did just before the World Cup uh with Tamir Baron and Daniel Reich because we discussed a lot of these issues before the beginning of the World Cup, and and it's quite illuminating how they were actually mirrored in the actual so um listeners should go and check these out as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

I mean, also another point to make about this is that of course, as you flagged up, the next World Cup is going to take place in the middle of what is effectively a European summer and an arj and a South American winter, right? So there is, of course, that going to be that discrepancy. But it's also going to be, I mean, if you look at the the the summer, summer temperatures in Spain, Portugal, this this is, you know, we are now, for those of us who've been in the United States and Europe for the last couple of months, will have been highly aware of the heat waves that have happened. This is not a unique phenomenon anymore. This is becoming mainstream, right? So we're having extreme temperatures, and this makes it dangerous for players to be playing uh over a certain temperature, over a certain humidity. Uh, before the World Cup actually started, um, some some analysis was suggesting that you know around 28 degrees Celsius wet bulb go wet bulb globe temp temperatures is about the highest you can expect players to be playing at elite level. And they were expecting around one in four games, so that's 26 games to actually exceed that. And we saw that. I mean, you know, the in Miami, for example, I mean, playing in humidity, it's mad. And this does pose a question for future World Cups, which is, you know, how can we, I mean, is the world can the World Cup be a summer tournament anymore? In Qatar, they decided not to. We've got Saudi Arabia in 2034. It's highly unlikely we're going to be able to play in the middle of July. So we're going to now need to see tournaments taking place in the middle of the season, which is going to be more disruptive to, you know, national leagues, particularly the Europeans and the South Americans, which, you know, despite the expansion of the tournament, they are still the countries that dominate this this World Cup.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is one thing that you know the the the geopolitics of uh of FIFA and the politics of on uh the results on the football pitch are still quite different, aren't they? So in terms of results on the pitch has been a very tournament has been really dominated by some of the traditional football powers, which um yeah, I think it's I think it's important from a political point of view, guy, because as we have seen, as whoever has followed the news during the World Cup, we tend fans tend to project quite a lot of their ideological views and positions and whatnot on the countries that are playing. So you know, it's country B playing country A. Um one is rightly or wrongly labelled as a progressive country and the other as an authoritarian one, then it kind of attract support. So I think it's uh this has been interesting to witness for me. The kind of how much people project on different countries, yeah. Uh sometimes based on quite uh simplistic assumptions about the politics of that particular country.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

And can I just come to that to that? Because this also tied ties up with the point I wanted to make earlier, which is about this issue of FIFA consistency versus inconsistency. When we were talking about in the context of um you know Iran and the Palestinians, I think it's also worth talking about Pride and LGBTQ plus issues, right? Because um, you know, what was very striking was that uh the that back in November, I think it was, Pride uh in Seattle decided to make their the game, I think it was on the 26th or the 27th of June, the Pride match. Now that's something that happens without FIFA endorsement. That's Pride making the decision. But FIFA can actually go along with it or just say, no, we don't, we don't, we're not interested in it. Now, the interesting thing was that this particular match actually meant Iran against Egypt. Um, two countries where homosexuality is still remains criminalized. Um, interestingly enough, both the Iranians and Egyptian national associations criticized this. They didn't want their match to be the pride match because they didn't want rainbow flags in the stadium. And interestingly, FIFA ignored them and just went along with Seattle organizing committee on this. Great, you would think. Here's FIFA being progressive. And yet, if we go back to Qatar back in 2022, um when European countries, their captains were going to wear one love armbands, FIFA said yellow cards if this happens. So there's a real contradiction here. You know, when FIFA talks about um it it when FIFA talks about principles, is it applying them universally or selectively? When it talks about respect for local customs, is that a genuine principle or is that a selective justification?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

That's a very interesting point, Guy, and it's something I think that we should uh we should keep um analyzing and and criticizing when when FIFA's being uh unfair on this. Was there a last point that you wanted to raise?

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Yes, I did actually, and this was about um you know gender, which I don't which I don't think got enough attention in the in the World Cup. I mean it's been talked about a little bit in some of the sports media, but not so much. I don't think it got a lot of you know mainstream attention. So obviously there's the the sort of the the connection between I mean it was the men's tournament, so you know women tended to get overlooked in this tournament. Um, you know, it's focused, I mean, FIFA obviously, you know, for it's the men's tournament is the biggest cash cow for for FIFA. Um but you know, you didn't really get a sense of sort of you know equal, you know, equal messaging from FIFA, but more importantly, I think, was the the the issue of some of the players that had been chosen by their countries uh to play. Um a number of players, and I think there was around nine, um who were all under investigation for um you know uh rape or sexual assault. Some of them are actually undergoing investigation, have court cases against them. Um others, you know, they had uh investigations have been started, have been stopped, you know, agreement, you know, sort of you know, agreements have been signed, hushed, hushed. That doesn't necessarily mean that these players were innocent. But the point I think the point stands that um, you know, what is uh the role of FIFA when it comes to these kind of issues? You know, they didn't talk about it at all. But is it appropriate for us to be you know celebrating a player who is has has who is accused of uh sexual abuse, of of rape?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

In one case, Thomas Parti of Ghana, there was an an issue with the visa at the beginning, wasn't there? Because of his because of his so in this case, is it Canada, I think? Yeah, Canadian authorities um uh looked into this matter, but FIFA didn't or didn't really yeah, we didn't really hear much about it. And as you said, it's I think it's it's a quite important um issue to look at. And then uh how many cases, guy, there were is it four or five?

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Uh there were nine nine figures connected to the to the 2026 World Cup who faced allegations of rape or sexual assault. Those included players.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Four or five were the ones that were um open cases, I think.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

So yeah, there were two there were two that are open cases. Um, and then I think the others were cases that had either been opened and then closed, others which had uh where where no sort of further action had been taken. Um and and obviously, you know, just because the action has not been taken doesn't necessarily mean they were innocent. But the point is that you know, should national teams be selecting players who are facing serious allegations? And then for those who are currently under investigation, so those who are currently facing you know sexual assault charges, you know, there is a problem here, which is that yes, of course you can say they haven't been, you know, they're innocent until proven guilty, but you know, that show shows something about the problem of the time it takes for these cases to get to get dealt with, right? So some of these allegations, I think, in cur in in in terms of Thomas Parti, for example, took place about a year and a half ago. So it's you know, it's for him it's a problem because he's got it got it hanging over him. And so it does raise questions, it does pose problems about the um Can I add one thing on this guy?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

And the Thomas Party case is quite telling because part of Arsenal supporters have been very critical of their club for how they dealt with this while the allegations were basically public, uh, and I think their point of view was the club should do a bit more uh in terms of how to how to deal with a player that it's and it's not not it's not only a legal matter, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Yes, exactly. And so then if you extend that beyond clubs, you know, do national associations not have a responsibility here? Does the international football governing body not have a responsibility here?

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Yeah, I took Arsenal as a as an example because it's a very high-profile case in the um the UK, and because some of the Arsenal fans have actually been really good in and kind of highlighting this part of the Arsenal supporters, but uh you're right, it applies across the spectrum and says um there are responsibilities there, uh, which as you said go beyond the the only sort of the legal aspect um because it's about what kind of models we we we sort of promote and and making the game inclusive for everyone. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah. Well, that was all I wanted to talk about, Francesco. Unless you've got anything else you want to bring up, because I know that I mean I should tell listeners that Francesco is constantly pushing me to keep to time, so I think I managed to get it all in for 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Absolutely great. And I'm sure listeners want to listen more and more uh from you, want to hear more and more from you, guy. But uh we we have uh we'll have to keep them waiting next season. Yeah, actually the last thing is do we need to uh remind listeners anything before we go?

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Well, of course, if you if you want yes, if you want to hear any more from either me or Francesco, you know, go and listen to our previous episodes.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Or our fantastic guests.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

And exactly, because you know you won't hear as much of us, you'll hear from the guests. But there's plenty of topics out there, well worth exploring. We've got over a hundred, hundred and ten episodes now, so there's we've been doing this for three years, so there should be something there for you to listen to.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Yeah, can I just start that we focused on this episode for this episode on the World Cup because it's been the the big thing in the last few months. But there were a lot of interesting political themes throughout the year that the listeners should go and check out. So so perhaps it's worth having a look at what we did this year and previous years, and uh and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

And can you remember what we did this year, Francesco?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, I remember the episodes we did, but I wouldn't be able to tell you what was this year and what was last year, other than the last couple of months, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Yeah, yeah. So we've got a couple of episodes where we looked at countries that were had qualified to the World Cup for the first time, so that included like Kurasan, Cabo Vergi, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. We also looked at Pride in the game, so we talked about pride in football, um, you know, from the players' perspective as well as the fan perspective. We also talked about heritage in football, the politics of heritage. We talked to Felipe Tobar about stadium tours, about museum, you know, football museums. Yeah, we just did that. Uh we included talked to talked to an active football player, didn't we? Um Sydney Minerich, who's playing out in Australia.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I thought it was I I was uh the active football player you were referring to. No, you're Sydney.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Well, yes, you're yeah, but you she plays at a higher level than you do.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Just because I'm busy being an academic guy in Oceania. We did talk to Sydney, it's interesting. We had an episode on New Zealand as well, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

We did as well, talking uh talking a little bit about Oceana. Um this that was with um JC, and we talked a little bit from him from also foot involved in the foot in the game as as kind of a manager director of football rather than a player. But we also talked, we also had some uh some gender gender-related ones. So we talked to Asile Toufi about uh women's football in the Middle East. Fascinating topic, gives you a different perspective from football in Europe, um, as well as um climate change. Yes, we also talked about climate change, and I'm sure we will come back to that uh in the in in the coming season as well. So I think other than that, let's just we should probably just remind listeners that yes, we'll be coming back in a few months' time, but before then, um, of course, you know, check out our previous episodes, but also you know, um feel free to get in touch with us with any suggestion of topics or guests that you you would like to hear on the podcast, and you can do that how, Francesco.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Footpoolpodcast at gmail.com is our email. So that's for me of contacting us. We are on Blue Sky and we're quite active there. We are individually, we are on LinkedIn. We might have a LinkedIn page uh for the podcast by the time we go back. We come back in September. Um we are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, um, we got our personal emails that people can find. So there are many ways of getting in touch with us. And the other thing people please get in touch with us, tell us what episodes we should be doing, what topics, guests. But please also remember to rate, like, follow, subscribe, share the podcast on whatever app you're getting it. It's that important for us. It's um we are small independent podcasts surrounded by big giants. Yeah. Um, so please help us.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah, and uh, I mean, we should point out that you know, with your listening, with with people take you know downloading it, subscribing to it, and we have built up a bit of a uh an audience to the point where we're now within the top 25% of the Buzz Buzz Sprout platform that we use.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

So which is impressive because as as I was saying, like there are some big guys with with sponsors and with with big structures behind them, and we are two academics. Yeah, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

So anyway, so anyway, it leaves it just as for us to say thank you for taking for listening to both this episode as well as listening to us throughout the season, and um Francesco, have a great summer.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, and thank you very much, guys, for your very hard work on the podcast. I appreciate it. Listeners appreciate it. You really are the heart and the soul of this podcast. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Not at all. So that's the it's both it's a joint joint exercise by both of us. Thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Thanks, listeners. Take care.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Bye.