World Cup in Qatar
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Good sides and bad sides: my problem with the images of this World Cup
29.9.2022
Translation: Megan Cornish
There’s still some paper with faces on it that young people value: Panini stickers. However, they still pose an inflation risk, with 670 stickers in the album and millions of pictures in your head.
«No good ones,» grumbles my son, throwing the contents of the first Panini pack of the World Cup winter onto the dining table. I need to collect myself for a moment and I don’t want to show any disrespect to Hasan Al-Haydos, Abdullah Madu and Jonathan Williams, so I declare that they can’t really be that bad. After all, they’re playing at a World Cup. Whether that’s good or bad is, of course, open to debate. Even these little printed stickers have become political. No sooner were they available for purchase from Galaxus than the responses started to appear in the comment column. It didn’t come as a surprise.
The World Cup is just around the corner. And we all have a collectible picture problem. With millions of images, there’s the question of which of them will be beamed around the world and occupy our thoughts. Just the ones in the spotlight? Or the ones behind the scenes too? It’s not hard to guess which have the better cards. But this tournament is divisive. Everyone has to behave accordingly in the coming weeks. Watch? Look away? Protest? Deciding for yourself is relatively easy. But explaining to children that football is great, but a World Cup like this is unwatchable? That’s more difficult. I keep talking about the situation. Which is bad, of course. I talk about human rights, working conditions and corruption, and what that actually means.
The situation is bad, but we’re fine
Children of primary school age have been hearing that the situation is bad for as long as they can remember. At some point, their earliest memories will become interlinked with masks, the vague fear of a virus, war, an energy crisis and climate catastrophe. On the other hand, they’re growing up extremely privileged in this country. In peace, with holidays, hobbies and the freedom to invest pocket money in Panini stickers. The juxtaposition of things is sometimes hard to bear, but that’s why this World Cup has been talked about at home for a long time. And, of course, we will watch games. A great many will. In the end, the ratings will likely tell a different story to the surveys.
The players on the stickers, i.e. the ones who are expected to make a good impression at this tournament, are in a tricky position. Many of them were just ten years old when the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in 2010. Now they have to justify the deals of those who prefer to trade in the background, adopt a position, represent values and use their reach, all while not alienating sponsors, avoiding sanctions and, oh yes, delivering top performances that ultimately cover up all the abuses. Even though «One Love» is displayed on the captain’s armbands as a diplomatic form of criticism.
Source: Twitter/@nati_sfv_asf
The players are the poster boys for all kinds of expectations, which isn’t fair either. A few years ago they were probably the ones sticking Panini stickers in scrapbooks for more or less corrupt tournaments, where the promise of salvation for the population of the host countries and their migrant workers wasn’t exactly forthcoming. It will be the same this time. A tournament like this usually only makes life better for a few, who are neither on the pitch nor on the construction sites.
The other trading cards
South Africa (article in German) is just one example. The cost back then was 1,709 percent higher than expected. The loss for the host country: 2.1 billion euros. FIFA’s profit increase compared to 2006: 50 percent – tax-exempt, of course. Earnings growth of the country’s five largest construction companies: 1,300 percent. The salaries of the CEOs of those companies increased by 200 percent in five years. The construction workers had to mount a 70,000-strong strike just to ensure that their wages were adjusted to inflation.
And that brings me back to their colleagues in Qatar – and the collectible stickers. Whenever I see Panini stickers, another image comes to mind: the Cards of Qatar. They’re the result of investigative journalists researching the fates and stories of a number of migrant workers who died in the emirate and collating them in the form of trading cards. Give the video a watch – so far more people have died than it has views.
Numbers help us classify things, but they don’t convey emotions. That’s why stories like this are important. Each of them is a little stab in the heart. And yet they hardly stand a chance in times of multiple crises like these. The half-life of these topics is short and football will once again win the fight for pictures of the tournament in Qatar. Actually, it’s always been like that. And so it remains in a world that has become more complex. This is also clear from the Panini stickers that my son has today. When the first World Cup album came out in 1970, everything was different.
Sticker inflation
Back then, the world’s population was 3.7 billion; this year it will be 8 billion. In 1970, 16 teams took part in the finals; in 2022 there are 32. In 1970, there were 288 stickers to collect; in 2022 there are 670. Roughly speaking, the world today is twice as confusing as it was then and Panini just added a few extra pictures to its album. For Switzerland, there’s the Oryx Edition with 50 «special stickers» and «20 extra action pictures», including the «Timeline of FIFA World Cup» with pictures of all previous tournaments. Though not always exemplary themselves, the grass of history has grown over them, and people look back on them with rose-tinted glasses.
The 1934 tournament was played in Mussolini’s fascist Italy and a raft of stadiums were built for the glorious propaganda show, According to Wikipedia: «As a result of the construction boom, the lira tanked in value and workers’ wages were cut.» And some say that there’s no precedent for lousy treatment of those who work behind the scenes.
Next up, Argentina in 1978. A country in the grip of a military dictatorship, where people played games amid torture. A boycott was discussed even back then, but ultimately the event still kicked off. And, last but not least, Russia, where a certain Vladimir Putin left the rest of the world down, but it still flew in for the World Cup without much grumbling. The power of images.
We’re powerless faced with these old pictures. Who knows what will happen in 2026 when the USA is set to host the World Cup alongside Mexico and Canada, with 48 nations and political situations that can’t yet be foreseen. One thing’s for sure: if Panini is still around, we’ll inevitably cross the magical threshold of 1,000 stickers. Image inflation will continue, but it’s nothing compared to the explosion of online content.
The king of images
Today, around 100 million photos and videos are uploaded to Instagram alone every day, and the uncrowned king of the platform is Cristiano Ronaldo with 483 million followers, with whom he can share his latest underwear collection, his opinion or his self-image. Of course, his sticker is loudly cheered by eight Year 3 pupils when he beams back at them among all the «bad ones» in a gifted pack at a birthday party. Finally. One of the «good ones». Right?
In any case, he’s someone who can be portrayed either as a brilliant sporting role model and a big earner with a big heart (article in German), or a convicted tax fraudster (article in German) who was sentenced to two years’ probation, who had to answer to allegations of rape (in German) and who recently smashed the smartphone out of the hand (article in German) of a 14-year-old autistic boy. There’s no such thing as the right image. Neither of Ronaldo nor of the World Cup in Qatar. Every picture is only ever a part of the truth.
There are 670 of them in the Panini album. We don’t even know who’s going to the tournament. Perhaps the secret of their success is that they’re so reassuring and clearly structured. A direct gaze, frames that are exactly the same size, down to the millimetre. Ronaldo’s stuck in, now it’s on to the next one. The next pack, the next number. Tick. Everything looks neat and tidy. Unlike the millions of other images in our heads that we never get organised.
Sports scientist, high-performance dad and remote worker in the service of Her Majesty the Turtle.