
{"id":185575,"date":"2018-07-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/four-reasons-why-this-world-championship-was-political-2\/"},"modified":"2018-10-02T14:56:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T18:56:15","slug":"four-reasons-why-this-world-championship-was-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/sports\/soccer\/four-reasons-why-this-world-championship-was-political\/","title":{"rendered":"Four reasons why this World Championship was political"},"content":{"rendered":"<ol>\n<li>Money and Passports<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While European countries are closing the door to hundreds of thousands of refugees and letting many of them drown in the Mediterranean, its soccer federations are taking advantage of the immigration. 24 of the 32 teams had foreigners in their ranks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Switzerland has several Albanian players in its team: Xhaka, Shaquiri, Behrami and Dzemaili. The country with the most complex migration laws in the world has a total of 13 nationalized players in its team, more than any other team in this Championship. In addition to the Albanians there are Mvogo, Embolo, Moubandje and Oberl\u00edn from Cameroon; Fernandes from Cape Verde; and Djourou from Ivory Coast.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132252\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132252\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Inglaterra-AP-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132252 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Inglaterra-AP-2.jpg\" alt=\"The British team listens to the national anthem before playing against Sweden in the quarter finals of the World Championship, in Samara, Russia. Photo: Matthias Schrader \/ AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132252\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The British team listens to the national anthem before playing against Sweden in the quarter finals of the World Championship, in Samara, Russia. Photo: Matthias Schrader \/ AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In France Mandanda is from Zaire and Umtiti from Cameroon. Lemar is French but from the \u201coverseas\u201d territories: he was born in Guadeloupe. In Spain Diego Costa and Rodrigo are Brazilian. Like Fern\u00e1ndes, the Russian defense, and Pepe, the Portuguese defense. In Portugal there are also Martins from Cape Verde and Carvalho from Angola. Sterling, the British 10, is Jamaican.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In almost all the \u201ccentral\u201d countries there were national players or descendants of the \u201cperiphery.\u201d But in some from the \u201cperiphery,\u201d like Senegal and Tunisia, it\u2019s the other way around: in each one of those teams there were at least seven players born in France. Although the difference in level between the nationalized who play for France and the African nationalized French is big, in soccer the passport is increasingly less important and money increasingly more.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132232\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132232\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Umtiti-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132232 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Umtiti-AP.jpg\" alt=\"French Samuel Umtiti after scoring the first goal of his team in the game against Belgium in the semifinals of the World Championship in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday July 10, 2018. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko \/ AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132232\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">French Samuel Umtiti after scoring the first goal of his team in the game against Belgium in the semifinals of the World Championship in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday July 10, 2018. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko \/ AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nine of the last 10 world club champions are Europeans, 11 of the latter 12 semifinalists of the World Championship teams were Europeans. As Fern\u00e1ndez Moores wrote in The New York Times, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/mikeozanian\/2018\/05\/26\/champions-league-final-money-winners\/#412c5f0147e6\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">money from European football<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> today breaks all the records, and football, which compensated inequalities, is increasingly starting to resemble the world of the increasingly richer rich, and increasingly poorer poor.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All against Serbia<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Switzerland and Serbia playing in the second game of Group E for a great deal of the classification to the second round. It was unexpectedly the most politicized game of the Championship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Serbia does not recognize Kosovo, with 9 out of 10 inhabitants of Albanian origin, as an independent State. The wounds from the Balkan war still haven\u2019t healed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Serbia put itself in front rapidly with a goal by Mitrovic 5 minutes from the first time. Mitrovic himself is who, in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/elpais.com\/internacional\/2014\/10\/15\/actualidad\/1413377588_232317.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the game<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by Serbia against Albania for the 2016 European Cup, had been in charge of taking out to the field a drone that overflew from the Albanian tribune with the flag of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gran_Albania\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Great Albania<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (which comprises Albania and the territories that the Albanians are claiming).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seven minutes into the second time, Switzerland returned to the game with a goal out of the area of the 10, Granit Xhaka. Xhaka went running after scoring making the gesture of the two-headed eagle on the Albanian flag. He was born in Basel, Switzerland, but his parents are Albanian. His father was a political prisoner in Kur\u0161umlija, in the south of what Google Maps marks as Serbia.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132230\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132230\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Xhaka-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132230 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Xhaka-AP.jpg\" alt=\"French Samuel Umtiti after scoring the first goal of his team in the game against Belgium in the semifinals of the World Championship in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday July 10, 2018. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko \/ AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132230\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">French Samuel Umtiti after scoring the first goal of his team in the game against Belgium in the semifinals of the World Championship in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday July 10, 2018. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko \/ AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the celebration, boos were heard each time the Swiss had the ball. In addition to the Serbs present in the stadium, many Russians were in favor of Serbia. The Cold War is not far back. It is still ongoing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The game was dying in the tie but at 92 minutes, Xherdan Shaqiri in an unstoppable and memorable run escaped from everyone and scored the 2-1. His celebration was like that of Xhaka. A month before the championship, Shaqiri had posted on Instagram <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BjINvT0nPLl\/?utm_source=ig_embed\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the picture of a pair of boots<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, with the Swiss flag to the left and to the right that of Kosovo.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132233\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132233\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Shaqiri-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132233 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Shaqiri-AP.jpg\" alt=\"Xherdan Shaqiri after scoring the second goal for Switzerland in the 2-1 victory against Serbia in the game for Group E of the World Championship in Kaliningrad, Russia, Friday June 22, 2018. Photo: Laurent Gillieron \/ Keystone via AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Xherdan Shaqiri after scoring the second goal for Switzerland in the 2-1 victory against Serbia in the game for Group E of the World Championship in Kaliningrad, Russia, Friday June 22, 2018. Photo: Laurent Gillieron \/ Keystone via AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the game, the general secretary of the Swiss Football Federation, Alex Miescher, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/article\/uk-soccer-worldcup-swi\/swiss-fa-official-suggests-players-should-drop-second-nationality-idUKKBN1JX0DQ\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">announced<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that Switzerland would seriously evaluate not allowing, from now on, that those players who have not declined a second nationality play in the team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn\u2019t the only controversy around Serbia. Nolan Djokovic\u00a0posted a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/sports\/tennis\/wimbledon-2018\/novak-djokovic-under-fire-for-backing-croatia\/articleshow\/64934269.cms\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">twit<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with a photo of Modric and Rakitic, the Croatian stars, before the game with France, wishing them luck. He was insulted by a surge of Serbian trolls nostalgic of the ex-Yugoslavia. This World Championship was Balkanized.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Feminine irruption<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132234\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132234\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Kolinda-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132234 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Kolinda-AP.jpg\" alt=\"Xherdan Shaqiri after scoring the second goal for Switzerland in the 2-1 victory against Serbia in the game for Group E of the World Championship in Kaliningrad, Russia, Friday June 22, 2018. Photo: Laurent Gillieron \/ Keystone via AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132234\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Xherdan Shaqiri after scoring the second goal for Switzerland in the 2-1 victory against Serbia in the game for Group E of the World Championship in Kaliningrad, Russia, Friday June 22, 2018. Photo: Laurent Gillieron \/ Keystone via AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is one more fan of her team. She doesn\u2019t go to see the games with the protocol of a president but rather with the passion of a supporter: no suits, she puts on the red and white checkered T-shirt. She screamed, jumped, suffered and celebrated. When the game against England finished she went down to the dressing room but not to greet but rather to celebrate with the players. For the game against Denmark she avoided the VIP zone, bought a ticket and went to the stands; afterwards she went to the Fan Fest of Moscow\u2019s Red Square to see the Russia-Spain game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kolinda traveled to the Championship on commercial flights paid with her money and docked from her salary the days she didn\u2019t work. Although her party is center right \u2013 conservative in several issues like the opposition to same-sex marriage \u2013 the figure of Kolinda implies several progressive changes: she is, for example, the first Eastern European woman president.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PMetroPlay\/videos\/2050086718590667\/<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Croatian president\u2019s wasn\u2019t the only feminist irruption of the Championship. There were also several denunciations against male chauvinism. Before the World Championship the Argentinian Football Association printed a handbook with \u201crecommendations on how to win over Russian women\u201d which was repudiated even by the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires. Several women journalists reacted in the face of the fans\u2019 groping, like a Spanish journalist who screamed live to a harasser. And quite a lot of fans, almost all Latin Americans, have been sanctioned with expulsion from the country for making fun or taking advantage of Russian women or from other non-Spanish-speaking nationalities. The German DW site concluded in an article that the Latin American public was notably the most sexist of the championship.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Putin and the dedications<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132236\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132236\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Putin-Copa-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132236 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Putin-Copa-AP.jpg\" alt=\"Vladimir Putin speaking during the FIFA congress, Wednesday June 13, 2018, just before the inauguration of the World Championship in Moscow. Photo: Pavel Golovkin \/ AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132236\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vladimir Putin speaking during the FIFA congress, Wednesday June 13, 2018, just before the inauguration of the World Championship in Moscow. Photo: Pavel Golovkin \/ AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kolinda isn\u2019t the only president who came out winning. Putin also. Organizing the World Championship can benefit a bit the presidents who head the host country or can do a great deal of damage, as happened to Dilma Rousseff with the Brazil 2014 cases of corruption.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the organizing politicians, the expectation of making profits is low and the risk is high. It depends on the sports results, the economic results of such an effort and normalcy &#8211; in terms of safety \u2013 with which the championship takes place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before the championship there were many controversies that ranged from the arrest of the deputy governor of St. Petersburg <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.crimerussia.com\/financialcrimes\/confessions-of-marat-oganesyan-who-had-paid-to-whom-and-how-much\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marat Oganesyan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for fraud in the reform of that city\u2019s stadium, to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/mundo\/noticias\/2015\/07\/150722_trabajadores_norcoreanos_esclavos_rusia_ac\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the exploitation of North Korean workers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. But Putin closed this World Championship with positive results. There were no attacks or episodes of violence. The infrastructure functioned rather well. And the Russian team was about to reach the semifinals.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132235\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132235\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Putin-AP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-132235 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Putin-AP.jpg\" alt=\"Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev watching the field during the Russia-Saudi Arabia game that started off the 2018 World Football Championship in Moscow\u2019s Luzhinski Stadium, on June 14, 2018. Photo: Alexei Druzhinin \/ Sputnik \/ Kremlin Photo Pool via AP.\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132235\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev watching the field during the Russia-Saudi Arabia game that started off the 2018 World Football Championship in Moscow\u2019s Luzhinski Stadium, on June 14, 2018. Photo: Alexei Druzhinin \/ Sputnik \/ Kremlin Photo Pool via AP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was enough for Putin to confirm among the Russians the overvalued sensation that they continue being a power. Abroad it served him to clean a bit the image of Russia, after its intervention in the war in Syria and the economic sanctions after the Crimea conflict with Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Domagoj Vida, the Croatian goal post guard, recalled the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. In a video he posted on the web <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Am2hia_3kwM\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">before the game against England<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, he dedicated the victory over Russia to the Ukrainians: \u201cGlory to Ukraine,\u201d he shouted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vida has no Ukrainian origins or descendants who lived Stalin\u2019s Holomodor in 1932. But he played in Kiev\u2019s Dynamo four years (2013-2017), he made friends there and then became a bit Ukrainian.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are all types of nationalized players. This World Championship has always been a political and economic event. If not, how can it be explained that the next World Championship <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/deportes\/rusia-2018-cinco-claves-politicas\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">will be held in Qatar<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">See OnCuba\u2019s complete coverage:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/tag\/mundial-de-futbol-rusia-2018\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/tag\/mundial-de-futbol-rusia-2018\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Money and Passports While European countries are closing the door to hundreds of thousands of refugees and letting many of them drown in the Mediterranean, its soccer federations are taking advantage of the immigration. 24 of the 32 teams had foreigners in their ranks. Switzerland has several Albanian players in its team: Xhaka, Shaquiri, Behrami [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3475,"featured_media":185576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13928],"tags":[14934,14935,14931,14936,11661,14938],"ppma_author":[33938,13369],"class_list":["post-185575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer","tag-fifa-worldcup-2018","tag-football","tag-politics","tag-russia-2018","tag-sports","tag-worldcup-2018"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Four reasons why this World Championship was political | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/sports\/soccer\/four-reasons-why-this-world-championship-was-political\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four reasons why this World Championship was political | OnCubaNews English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Money and Passports While European countries are closing the door to hundreds of thousands of refugees and letting many of them drown in the Mediterranean, its soccer federations are taking advantage of the immigration. 24 of the 32 teams had foreigners in their ranks. 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