Kick to the Balls: MAGA’s World Cup

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This is a World Cup of chaos. Whoever wins this World Cup is gonna have to go through some serious serious chaos to get this done.

has put us in a place that it's already such a looking glass world that the fact that two of the competitors, the US and Iran, are actually at war, I mean it's almost a footnote at this point. You might have forgotten about the war, or even let the World Cup slip off your radar entirely while the UFC claw reared up on the White House lawn. So that the world's mightiest blowhard, Donald Trump, can blow out his octagenarian candles in an octagon.

One man who is an expert in both UFC and the beautiful game is journalist Karim Zadan. He's an investigative journalist covering the intersection of sports and politics, and his work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times and The Guardian, and he runs his own media platform called Sports Politica. Oh, and what about Canada? I mean, the US is just a co host. There's also Mexico and Canada. So I say again, what about Canada? Well, exactly. Where are we in all this?

I mean, we're actually co hosting the tournament, but what does that mean when it's clearly going to be a mega world cup? Karim Zidane will join me in a minute to kick off the conversation. This interview was recorded the day before the World Cup started. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the answer is no. Karim Zidane is no relation to that other Zidane, the famous and infamous French midfielder. Wait for it.

If you're into politics, comedy, or both. And you're in Halifax, come on out and bring your friends. You can RSVP by going to Canadaland.com slash live. And remember, supporters do get in for free. Okay, here's the question. Do you know someone who should work at Canada Land? Well, our Audio Journalism Fellowship is back this fall and applications are open from now till the end of June.

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Kareem, we're here to talk about the World Cup, but before we get rolling on that, I want to talk to you a little bit about your own origin story. Because you know, you come by your interest in sports and politics honestly. Could you share with us a little bit about the start of your career and in particular, how you got mixed up with Russian oligarchs uh via the UFC.

People who look just like me, young teenagers, fourteen, fifteen years old, and beat them with batons. That's how afraid they were of young men gathering inside stadiums. And honestly, Bruce, they were right to be afraid because This was around two thousand seven when these experiences happened to me and I was about fourteen years old. But by twenty eleven the Egyptian Revolution and the Arab Spring occurred, and these groups of young men, these football fans, some of them parts of these

uh hooligan groups called the ultras ended up being pivotal during the Egyptian Revolution. They actually knew how to uh handle street warfare and guerrilla warfare with the police. They knew how to not be kettled in or herded like sheep. And that was just essential to keeping people alive and safe during the revolution. They've been credited for that time and time again. So here you have an example of just football fans outright becoming revolutionary. So to me

Sports has always been political. Now this is the mentality I carried forth until I went to university in Canada. I was studying at the University of Toronto when I was introduced to mixed martial arts by my roommate. And I thought, you know what, this is an interesting sport. And I really had this passion to be a writer, not even a journalist yet, just a writer. And I thought to myself, well, we're in the digital age right now. Everybody's starting their own blog.

So why not start a blog about mixed martial arts and see where that takes me? So I did, and I ran that while I was in university for a couple of years, and was eventually signed to a bigger website from there. One of the first interviews I chose to conduct, and this is while I was still in university, was with this Russian oligarch named Vadim Finkelstein, and he happened to own the oldest MMA organization in Russia.

So in the midst of this interview, he stops it and tells me, Hey Karim, I actually really like your voice. Would you like to come do English commentary for us in Russia?

And that's really where this all begins. For the next two years I spend time going back and forth every month to Russia and the post-Soviet states that neighbor it, and sort of immersing myself in this world of sports and politics. And I say sports and politics because Russia's another one of those countries where those two things can never be separated.

The people attending these events around me were always other oligarchs, ex KGB officers, shady gangsters. I saw it all while I was there in Russia. And that's sort of what launched my career. Within a matter of years I was

you know, writing for The Guardian and then the New York Times and other major outlets. I've had my fair share of death threats from these Russian figures as well. But it's set me on the path that I'm on to this very day. But I've expanded beyond mixed martial arts now and I cover sports and politics generally.

So Donald Trump was president. He was in the middle of his first presidency when the United States wanted to bid for a World Cup. They had just worked out a new NAFTA deal with the Canada and Mexico, so the North American Free Trade Agreement. And Jared Kushner was involved in that and had sort of diplomatic leverage with the Canadians and the Mexicans.

So he reached out to both and suggested a unified bid. This would present the facade that North America is united and that this will be sort of the biggest, most successful edition of the tournament yet.

And that's sort of the the mentality he has approached all of this with. He doesn't care about allies anymore. He doesn't care about relationships that existed or the world order that existed. So that's a difficult position to be in when you're trying to host a major international event. Donald Trump's approach to this has been a focus on America's interests.

And that is all well and good. All World Cups and all World Cup hosts want to present their own countries in the best light. This is not limited to authoritarian regimes. The problem is in order to do this you actually have to be welcoming to others in your country. And that's something that Donald Trump hasn't actually even attempted to present as a facility.

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The basic idea is that spectacle takes people's eyes off of suffering. It's reputation laundering. And immediately before this World Cup we had the World Cup in Russia, Qatar, Certainly they had their problems and certainly they faced accusations of sportswashing. But it's an interesting question when we come to the US because this doesn't look like

Sportswashing. This is not putting your best face forward. This is not welcoming the world. There's a long list of problems that have already hit the headlines, as Ian Wright summed up at the top of the show. But you know, Karim, there is one headline I'd like to pull focus to. The recent case of the Somali referee was the

That's the dream of a referee to play in the World Cup. So that being said, this gentleman was just sent back to Istanbul and it comes under the wider scope of bands. and difficulties not just for fans, but actually for teams, for their support staff. And I think fans from about a quarter of the countries taking part in this World Cup are facing travel bans, tighter restrictions, or high visa rejection rates. That's reporting from the BBC.

This is not your best foot forward. This is not welcoming the world. This is not sports washing. This is this is the Mega World Cup.

You know, world with justice that would actually occur. But of course, that's not going to happen. This is going to be swept under the rug in a matter of days. FIFA itself. has already sort of washed its hands of this, saying, We have nothing to do with this. This was outside of our control. What do you mean outside of your control? You're supposed to be working with the host nation to ensure that everybody's invited to these tournaments. FIFA itself uses the slogan, Football Unites the World.

Football unites the world.

But interestingly enough, I think the term sports washing could still apply here, Bruce, and I'll tell you why. For me, sports washing means reputation laundering. It's distracting from human rights abuses. Honestly, I don't think Qatar or Russia or Saudi Arabia or a lot of these authoritarian regimes actually care very much about sports washing. Case in point.

they continue to commit far more human rights abuses after hosting and sort of securing these events and these sporting investments than before. There's no attempt to sort of distract from these abuses. When Qatar hosted the World Cup in twenty twenty two,

Nobody actually knew much about Qatar. Ahead of the event, nobody was thinking about human rights abuses in Qatar because they didn't know the country. If anything, it was hosting the tournament that actually brought that level of spotlight and attention to Qatar. What the country was actually interested in was announcing itself to the world. This was a major PR display, a coming out party for a nation that had been in the shadows of neighbors such as Saudi Arabia,

For decades upon decades. And it was extraordinarily successful for Qatar because of that. Russia as well had already annexed Crimea. It had already sort of invaded multiple other countries. Putin had already carpet bombed Chechnya in the past. He had gone to war with Georgia. This is a man who had already announced exactly who he is. What he was trying to do was to utilize the prestige of the 2018 World Cup.

to reaffirm Russia's status as a world power, which is something you can do with these mega events.

So to me, sportswashing doesn't really apply to these authoritarian regimes as much as others may think it does. But what's interesting is there's actually a role for it in this 2026 World Cup. I think right now the American administration, Trump and his MAGA cohort are going to hope that the football that actually takes place over the next few weeks will be able to distract from the human rights abuses that are taking place across the United States.

that would have crushed the tournament. Yet if you ask anybody about that World Cup now, they'll tell you one of two things. They'll talk about Morocco's incredible run to the semifinals, the first African and Arab team to ever make it that far in a World Cup. And they will talk about Leo Messi's exceptional run to lifting the World Cup in the end. Finally he had achieved his lifelong dream, and he did so in one of the greatest World Cup finals of all time.

Sometimes the sport, when it's as powerful as football and it's as loved by so many people around the world, it does have this power to sort of eviscerate all other concerns, even if only temporarily.

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It's had a wonderful female team in the past, but this is a golden generation of male performers who deserve to compete in front of home crowds at a joyful World Cup, an opportunity to celebrate with the entire world. Unfortunately, much like in many other factors, socially, economically, and politically, Canada is in the United States' shadow at this World Cup.

It has a disproportionate number of games, thirteen games in total in comparison to more than seventy plus games that the United States will get to host. Neither Mexico nor Canada get anything.

from the quarterfinals onwards, which is the most significant and and intense portion of the tournament, it's quite disappointing. And instead of You know, we might be getting a disproportionate number of games, but it seems like we're carrying a lot of the burden of the tournament, both the the cultural burden and the economic burden as well. Both Toronto and Vancouver are facing very significant costs associated with these events. And

That would be fine if you could gain the soft power associated with hosting a major prestigious event. Instead, Canada is now. on the hook for all this money and is hosting what is now known as the Joyless World Cup. And then of course there's the fact that tournaments like the World Cup are actually a cancer on the host cities that choose to take them on.

There's always the reports that emerge ahead of a World Cup, especially the ones from the government saying that the revenues will skyrocket and will far surpass the cost of the tournament. Bruce, I'm here to tell you that in my entire career, twelve plus years of covering sports and politics, that statement has never been true. It is not just a lie, it is utter propaganda.

And you can take that one to the bank right now. In a year, we will be able to tell that neither Toronto nor Vancouver have profited from this World Cup.

that's an a night I'll never forget. And I think Vancouver I don't know financially how it shook out with the Olympics, but I do know that socially, culturally, it certainly seemed to Pay that dividend.

There's really nothing like it. It's addictive. It's an extraordinary feeling. I've been there in places like Egypt when we win important games, we win the African Cup of Nations in football, and the celebration feels like Every cell inside you is screaming out in joy. That is a very special thing. But that's also why events like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games get co opted so much by authoritarian regimes. It's why

You know, that Donald Trump wants to host these events. He understands the prestige and he wants to be associated with that joy. But the problem is he's far too incompetent to actually let this World Cup happen the way it's supposed to. Imagine this, had he not launched ridiculous wars, had he not opened up trade wars with his closest allies, we would not be in these types of problems right now. He might have actually had the most incredible run of propaganda events.

in the history of an American president, from hosting a UFC event on the lawn of the White House to the World Cup in twenty twenty six and the Olympic Games in twenty twenty eight. Now it seems like all of those could be utterly chaotic.

But other than that, I think the team that will dominate is Spain, especially with the little eighteen year old Wonderkin that they have named Laminia Mal. I think it's inevitable at this point. Otherwise, I'd just like to see Egypt win a game. I won't even say more than that. Do you know we were supposed to be in the 1930 World Cup, Bruce, but we didn't actually go? Why? Because we missed the boat.

There was a boat, it was just one boat, and we missed it. That's the most Egyptian thing I've ever heard, that we missed the boat. So we've since participated in several World Cups, but we've never won a game. That's the thing I really want to see.

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