The FIFA Men’s World Cup kicked off today, and we're covering its politics in depth: how the Trump administration tried to block players, support staff, and even a referee from entering the US; how unionized workers staffing Los Angeles’ World Cup stadium won raises and the right to walk out if ICE threatens their safety; and how Trump is leveraging the event, like Vladimir Putin before him, to whitewash an ugly record on the world stage.
In an interview out today, Jules Boykoff, an academic and former soccer pro, talks about FIFA's legacy of sportswashing—which dates back to 1934, when Benito Mussolini used Italy's team at the second-ever World Cup to sell the world on the concept of the new fascist man. The players, Mussolini said, were “soldiers of sport.” They were also soldiers of propaganda.
But Boykoff also speaks to the sport’s power for good: the way it forges interpersonal bonds and builds community: Soccer activists in Oregon, where Boykoff lives, got their women's pro team, the Portland Thorns, to replace leadership that reportedly defended a coach who abused players.
And my colleague Tim Murphy found a different joy in the World Cup: exploring cultures around the world through food over a three-month journey of attempts to cook a dish from each of the 48 countries competing.
“Spend enough time poking around for recipes,” Tim writes, “and you start to learn a thing or two about tradition, migration, and common bonds.”
Despite the political grandstanding and corporate greed, soccer is for the people. Read our coverage to learn more.
—Alex Nguyen
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