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Comment by m12k | Hacker News Reader

It seems pretty obvious that a totalitarian petrostate, that bribed its way into using a global sports event as a massive PR push, doesn't care. What matters is whether we care that they don't care. What matters is whether we care that our sports institutions are massively corrupt.

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> bribed its way into using a global sports event as a massive PR push

So common that it has a name.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing

The lists in that article are absurdly tendentious. Except for Berlusconi, there's very little reason given to justify inclusion.

You seem to have read a different article than the one I linked, since your comment is incoherent given the contents of the linked article.

E.g. the lists literally include the 1936 (Nazi) Olympics, which is just about the textbook example of using a global sporting event for the sake of propaganda. Jesse Owens certainly threw a wrench in those (white supremacist) plans, however.

It's not that it's a petrostate, it's that this has been the view of the region forever. This region did not come to the moral conclusion that slavery was wrong, they only stopped when Europeans showed up with gun boats and forced them to cut it out (Also, why isn't anyone asking these guys wtf happened to all the black slaves they imported because basically none of them exist in the region today despite the region likely taking more slaves during the slave trade than the USA. The answer is obviously castration and murder if one looks into it). This attitude has been present in this region since antiquity, finding oil just caused a white washing of the practice to something just below causing European gun boats to show up while expanding the practice dramatically.

Quite the shortcut you took there mate... Europeans stopped slavery when it was no more economically interesting for them to go on. Still they kept going in their remote colonies (Brasil, USa,...)

Everyone knows FIFA is a deeply corrupt organization. There is also not much anyone can do about it.

But I don't think "we need to care more" is a good mental model for the issue

> There is also not much anyone can do about it.

For start, do not watch their events, and ignore them as far as possible.

---------------------------------

Reject hosting events organised by them. The same goes for olympics, fortunately most people are noticing that it is a waste of money.

(my city overwhelmingly rejected applying for winter olympics hosting after grassroot campaign by local people - I also participated in it a bit)

69.72% against, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Krak%C3%B3w_referendum

Reducing public funding for professional sports would be also nice.

You know, the FIFA is an association. It has members. The members either set the rules, or they are complicit.

Now you say, oh, the members won't do anything. They are willing complicits. Guess what. They are also associtations and have members. In the end your local football club is a member of a local association, that is member of a national association, that is member of FIFA.

Why not start there. Start an initiative in your local club, that they take action on the next level, that they take action on the next level, etc. If you local club takes that up, but the next level ignores it, use your contacts to neighbouring clubs. If still nothing happens start an initiative that your club leaves the association.

If your local club prefers to do nothing, they are complicits as well. But you can leave. Get your friends to leave. You can still play football. Just meet up at a field. Place some posts. But stop complaining about the corrupt FIFA.

But it's the members that are where the corruption comes from - they're the ones that elect the executive committee and the president, vote on proposals such as World Cup locations, etc. etc. FIFA is just a reflection of the corrupt state of world football federations.

Teams can quit FIFA, like academics quit Elsevier.

Fans can quit paying teams.

But teams don't care and fans don't care.

Reducing their public funding, ignoring their events is more feasible.

Surely there are, say, British, European or American FIFA representatives who can be tried for taking bribes, or for being part of an organisation which takes bribes? Why are those people immune? They're complicit.

The US has wide latitude to investigate corruption worldwide under FCPA and RICO, and did just that:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-...

For better or worse, it's one country, one vote for a lot of this stuff. You can bribe the entire Caribbean for the cost of bribing France (Qatar did both).

This does occasionally happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Blazer

UEFA is considering quitting FIFA:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/story/4501424/uef...

In any case, professional sports is intrinsically corrupt, and the billions in broadcasting rights money sloshing around the trough are a magnet for scum.

Quite a lot of really simple solutions actually. But modern reasonable people who are offended by evil are too nice to get rid of it like they should.

Not too nice but too cowardice, they don't want to deal with the moral psychological fallout of killing evil people, they rather sit in a corner and weep about how evil the world is.

That's "nice".

----

You're so nice

You're not good

You're not bad

You're just nice

I'm not good

I'm not nice

I'm just right

I'm the witch

You're the world

--Into the Woods, Last Midnight

We care but do we care enough to do something and what would that be?

Not watching and giving them your attention (which equals advertising dollars).

Which isn't likely - all the people I know who were upset about Qatar hosting are sports fans in the first place and all got together to watch it regardless.

We could refuse to participate in their sporting events.

What seems pretty obvious is all the globalist institutions, everything from FIFA to the UN Human Rights Council, which are happy to take bribes from unashamedly totalitarian petrostates and worse, don't care.

That's what gets me. Qatar can Qatar in Qatar, but the disgusting, corrupt, hypocritical ruling class who would preach to me and claim to be the "experts" on how I should live my life and to be my moral superiors is what gets me. And they're the ones who really enable and legitimize these regimes too. They're the real evil, and it's high time to put an end to them.

So, putting FIFA aside since it’s not a public institution, you’re saying that because some institutions have a problem with some of their workings, that they should be abolished?

We need to strengthen our democratic institutions and of course also be more demanding of honesty from their leaders.

Just saying they’re evil and we need to put an end to them sounds like people saying the police is evil and should be abolished. A really bad idea in my opinion.

I'm saying that all institutions which support and enable and legitimize brutal theocratic dictatorships like this should be purged of the parasites which infest them, yes.

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