The above picture is, of course, Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA, with his arm around the world leader I’ve seen him with the most often, Vladimir Putin of Russia.
By now, if you’re like me, you are just completely exhausted by the online takes about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The whole situation is horrible, heartbreaking, and was entirely preventable except for the vision of one despot who just wanted to reclaim the former glory of the USSR/Imperial Russia (I’ve changed a lot from my previous life as an international relations student, but I tend to think Putin sees himself more as a Tsar than a General Secretary).
I’m also not self-aware enough to spare you an additional set of takes, but it’s the offseason, and my newsletter, dammit.
I personally believe making an invading power an international pariah in any activity that can be used to project strength should be de riguer, and I think today’s news of FIFA and UEFA banning Russian teams from their competitions until peace is maintained was the right call. As an aside, this should have also applied to the 2004 Euro, and the 2004 Olympics/2005 Gold Cup for the insistence of the Coalition of the Willing to just fuck up Iraq in the most disrespectful way possible. Though the US won both of those competitions, England went to pens against Portugal, and that was the end of that.
Other than international pressure, I don’t really why FIFA/UEFA took a stand here the IOC refused to take, especially since Infantino is on the IOC board as well, and was reportedly squeamish about Russia suffering any real consequences for the doping scandal.
ANYWAY, this is indeed about soccer.
In July, the 2022 version of the EURO women’s championship kicks off in England. In Group C with 2017 (fucking Covid) champions Netherlands, Olympic silver medal winner Sweden, and qualifier Switzerland sat the Russian team. Russia qualified by beating Portugal in the playoff round of qualifying, 1-0 on aggregate with the only goal in the tie scored by Lokomotiv Moscow forward, Nelli Korovina.
Until today, when they were kicked out of the tournament due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The options here really for the EURO is to leave group C at 3 teams until Russia gets it’s shit together (for reference, as I’m writing this, Russian forces are just outside of Kyiv. It took the Americans 9 months to capture Mosal in Iraq, which was much less fortified), or giving their spot to Portugal, or one of the other two non-qualifiers, Czechia (the most annoying team Netherlands/Canada/US played in the last year), or, of course, Ukraine. I’m not going to get deep into what should happen here, just that those are options on the table.
In the aftermath of this decision, and all day, I just had a bunch of thoughts jump through my mind…
Russia already doesn’t invest in its woso program as much as they should…will this kill the team?
Why is Russia being suspended from soccer activities when they weren’t when they invaded Georgia, or Ukraine, why wasn’t Israel when it invaded Lebanon and Gaza. Why was the US when we invaded Iraq?
Does Putin even care? His whole deal is projecting strength from a place of traditional masculinity to mask his deep insecurities…to Make Russia Great Again…and uses sports to do that, between the push to win as many medals as possible (even if it destroys a 15 year old girl who apparently has a severe heart problem), to the shirtless pictures of him looking to wrestle a horse, to his judo belts, and pretty much anything else…does he even care about the women being booted? Or is it simply the men not being able to qualify for Qatar (speaking of sportswashing….)?
Being a Red Sox fan when the team won in 2004, I distinctly remember reading the Boston Globe about Mike Timlin having something in his locker with the peace sign and the message “The sign of the American Chicken” as the US invaded Iraq. Today, would he be questioned about that in light of the US as an invading nation? If not, why is Alex Ovechkin (I saw someone on twitter call him Russian Gronk) being held to a different standard.
I don’t have any answers to these questions, and I’m not sure there is even a point to this newsletter other than emptying my head. But I do know that war is bad, too many people are blasé about it, and FIFA has historically done the exact wrong thing in light of inhumane violence. Football is supposed to bring people together, the old saying goes, but it’s been historically used to tear people apart. Is FIFA finally living up to one of its mottos: For the Game, For the World? Or is Infantino nervous his buddy is going to cost him re-election to a cushy gig because his inaction pissed off Sweden, Poland, and Czechia?
I really need the NWSL season to start.