“Why is it that African teams and Middle Eastern teams have to answer for what their governments are doing but European teams don’t?” South African comedian Trevor Noah asked recently during a World Cup watch party.
He was reacting to the questions Western journalists had lobbed at Iranian players following their games. But the question goes far beyond Iran. It speaks to a familiar hierarchy in global journalism: Some players are allowed to be athletes. Others are turned into ambassadors, defendants and moral exhibits.
The World Cup is often sold as the place where football rises above politics. This has always been a canard. Politics, and hypocrisy, have always been part of the sport. Teams have boycotted or been banned from the competition because of the policies of their governments. Russia is banned for its invasion of Ukraine. South Africa was eventually banned for apartheid. Israel, however, gets to play in qualifiers despite occupying Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, bombing Iran, and despite findings by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN experts that it is committing genocide in Gaza and maintaining a system of apartheid at home and in the occupied territories. The United States, too, has never been banned despite its many wars of aggression.
Nor is the World Cup unique. International cultural and sporting competitions are full of politics and hypocrisies dressed up as principle. Just look at the controversies around Israel’s participation in Eurovision.
Noah’s question is an indictment of a journalism that likes to imagine itself as challenging power but often mirrors its assumptions. Much ink was spilled over the propriety of Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, given the policies of those governments. Yet there has been far less interrogation of the propriety of the US hosting this tournament while it attacks Iran and Venezuela, deports asylum seekers, and blocks or restricts the travel of tournament officials, players and fans.
The selective accountability that runs through the institutions – who is banned, who is allowed to host – runs through the press box too. So it should not surprise us that some political questions are reserved for some teams and not others.
Ahead of their match against Egypt in Seattle, branded locally as a “Pride Match”, Iran and Egypt were both asked about LGBTQ rights. A FIFA official even read a statement saying Iran wished to answer only questions about the game. Still, the media persisted. Egyptian officials also shielded their players from similar questions.
Again, the point is not that LGBTQ rights, war, repression, discrimination, apartheid or genocide are unimportant. They are profoundly important. Journalists should ask difficult questions. But difficult questions should not become a ritual reserved for some passports.
American players are not routinely asked to account for US bombings, border policy, racism, police violence or support for Israel. English players are not habitually asked about British arms exports or colonial legacy. French players are not expected to answer for military interventions in Africa. German players are not pressed on Berlin’s crushing of pro-Palestinian protests.
And when European teams have been pulled into politics – the OneLove armbands and the German squad covering their mouths for a team photo at Qatar 2022, England taking a knee at Euro 2020 – it was a protest they chose to make, not a confession demanded of them before they were allowed to speak. No reporter required them to denounce their governments as the price of discussing a match.
Western footballers are treated as individuals who happen to represent a country. Players from Iran, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Senegal or Ghana are more easily turned into representatives of regimes.
For many players from the Global South, the tournament press conference becomes an ideological checkpoint. Before they are allowed to talk about tactics, injuries or the opposition’s midfield, they are asked to explain their governments, their societies, their religions, their laws and their wars.
Sound familiar?
Remember Palestinian interviewees being required to condemn Hamas at the start of any interview before they could speak of the genocide in Gaza? The purpose was not clarification. It was classification. It established the moral hierarchy before the conversation could begin: Israel good, Hamas bad. Palestinian suffering could be heard only after passing through the checkpoint of Western approval.
The same logic is visible in these World Cup pressers. The Iranians must condemn Iran. The Egyptians must condemn Egypt. Africans must prove they understand the West’s moral vocabulary before they can be trusted to speak. But Americans will not be asked to condemn the United States, nor the English the UK.
This is the real answer to Noah’s question. The issue is not whether politics belongs in sport. It always has. The issue is who is made to carry politics, and who is allowed to simply play.
Western media is not merely asking questions. It is enforcing a story long carried by Western governments and institutions: the West is the measure of morality, and the rest of the world must constantly answer for itself.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
