Qatar World Cup 2022: Globalization of football

Big surprises and more dramas in the World Cup. Every day has been a day of a number of twists and turns in the Qatar World Cup 2022. The scenario is rapidly changing with full of surprises as no one is in a position to predict who would win or lose. If Thomas Piketty, a renowned French economist known for bestselling book Capital in the 21st Century who focusses on income and wealth inequality were to cover the first two weeks of the Qatar World Cup 2022, he would have found something odd in the ongoing World Cup – the diminishing inequality of footballing prowess among the 32 national team playing at Qatar.
In recent time we have been witnessing fabulous rise in the wealth concentration of a tiny percent of people resulting in rising inequality within and between nations. Billionaires keep amassing wealth, while the poor is gettering poorer. Economic growth of world history has given enough traces about wealth creation and concentration of wealth in the hands of capitalists whose roots are entrenched in the economic philosophy and ideology of capitalism. As against the backdrop, we need to bring-in Qatar World Cup-2022 to the fore. Football fans are still unable to digest some of the unexpected surprises happened in the early days of the tournament where the underdogs defeated some of the highly fancied teams.
These up-sets, especially Saudi Arabi defeating Argentina and Japan’s win over Germany has rattled Nassim Nicholas, the Lebanese-American with his familiar analysis known as ‘black swan events’ – high profile, hard-to-predict ‘rare’ events. Like black swan events, what happened in the first two days were regarded as two major shockers in World Cup Football can be – and are being – wrongly rationalized. Others pundits and analysts in football b brushing aside as ‘poor play’ on the part of Argentina and Germany as these names have been dominating the game of football for decades.
Since the World Cup is repeatedly won by national teams in Europe and in South America, and the tradition of analysis and predictions based on one-hundred-year-old supremacy that makes them not to accept when something like this happens – topsy-turvy. When some major reversals happen that too from Asia and Arabia those pundits and analysts who have monopolized in giving all sorts of commentaries and analysis offer flimsy grounds for the defeats of high-staked footballing nations situated in Europe and South America. Usually the ‘blame game’ in foot-ball is divided and shared in such ways that will usually be irrational and subjective in terms of its explanations.
Usually, performances when it comes from the non-European and non-South American nations are given no proper endorsements and credibility. The mind-set is such that they hardly give any credibility to the prowess for the underdogs. So, what has triggered in footballing capabilities is to rely on the old categories of ‘favorites’ or back ‘underdogs’ who are insignificant and outside of recognition. This has raised a pertinent question: FIFA WORLD CUP QATAR – Should we Praise or Blame Globalization? This is the singlemost important question surface as the mega-event is going on. Take the Japanese squad that trounced Germany. Out of 26 players only five players in the J-League – eight including both goal scorers Ritsu Doan (Freiburg)and Takuma Asano (Bochum) play in Germany’s Bundesliga. At the same time there are players from Japan, Iran, Canada, USA, Cameroon, Morocco and Senegal scattered across playing in the first division in Europe such as Belgian, French, Turkish, Portuguese, German and English leagues. When it comes to India how many ‘local talents’ is represented out there.
Goals scored by the Japanese, Korean and Saudi Arabian were outstanding. Nine out of eleven players who played against Argentina come from one Saudi club. FFA-22 Qatar exposed the local talents of those countries that were according to many ‘insignificant’ and ‘underdogs’ This assumption has now been totally erased and now in the center-stage. If these are the reversal, India has more than half of the population comprises of young millennials able and filled with potential. North-eastern belt of India is rich with foot-ball potential that needs to be tapped and trained. India should identify the potentials at the entry level and not wait till they prove in the leagues. This is what the so-called ‘underdogs’ like Japan and South Korea did.
The term ‘upset’ is gaining currency is Qatar’s World Cu-2022. A number of ‘upsets’ which could perhaps be linked to another term ‘globalization’. I am reminded of Thomas L Friedman, who wrote a book titled The World is Flat a decade ago wrote saying that the forces of globalization are engaged in flattening the world. He says that globalization is good and would help to remove he inequities and divides. Globalization as an idea and a theory in our midst and so we should accept it as a pragmatic tool so that all of us would be benefitted. In globalization there are no-winner or losers – it provides to all win-win situation. Take for example, players such as Lionel Messi whose worth is $120 million. Apart from his earnings and record deal with Adidas, Messi, 35, has $14 million yacht, and his $50 million car collection includes the world’s most expensive car.
Neymar Jr, $87 million, Brazilian superstar, 30, owns three lavish homes in Parisis, Beverly hills and Brazil, a yacht, a private jet and a dozen supercars worth over $10 million. Kylian Mbappa, $128 million, who also made history as the youngest player to score over $100 million in one year. Christiano Ronaldo, $100 million, the hero of Portugal’s earnings off-field are even higher than on-field – about $60 million this year, thanks to his $1 billion lifetime deal a big sporting brand. Marcos Llorente’s of Spain whose net worth is estimated to be around $13.3 million. He also earns a staggering salary of $87,000 per week.
Dutch footballer and FC Barcelona player Depay, 28, has a net worth of approximately $20 million. His salary at FC Barcelona is speculated to be $5 million annually Jack Grealish, English footballer is reported to net a weekly salary of $464,000. Ronaldo definitely tops the list of elegant footballers.
With the group stage of the FIFA World Cup is over, World Cup—2022 ha already seen the best-ever performance of non-European and non-South American teams in the history of the tournament. Qualifying to the knockout stage are Morocco and Senegal from Africa, and Japan and South Korea from Asia, making this a truly Asia-Africa entry in the world stage of football deem to be historic. In the initial stages Saudi Arabia and Australia posed stiff challenges to their opponents. No team outside Europe and South America has even won the World Cup so far. In fact, only two team outside the two continents have ever made it to the semi-finals of the tournament – the United States in 1930 and South Korea in 2002. World Cup in fact is dominated by Europe which gets 13 slots compared to four or five for Asia and five for Africa – holds more than two-thirds of the population.
Europe may be boasting of its financial, top-notch coaches and infrastructural facilities of the footballing world, but currently players from two-third world players for their leagues and their countries. World Cup slated in North America in 2026, it will have 48 teams, instead 32, so that more space be created for the two-third world. However, Qatar 2022 World Cup has changed the very face, fabric and rubric of football. In the quarter-finals, we will continue see more surprises. Has globalization changed the equations and thus flattened foot-ball? It is still the looming question.
Dr. John Mohan Razu