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By Tony Attwood
It is one thing to disagree with a topic, and put forward evidence and from that explain your point of view. It is quite another to pretend the topic doesn’t exist. Yet that is what we see in the new Fifa report on Saudi Arabia’s bid for the 2034 World Cup finals; a report which reminded me exactly why I call this blog “Untold”. Because journalists can refuse to debate certain topics. Like the utter corruption of Fifa and Uefa.
In the most simple terms, although there is a physical world out there which in many regards can’t be doubted (the sort of world described by the sentence “in my garden there are three trees which are each over 80 feet tall”), the way in which one writes about football, and the way we choose which are the important issues to put in what we write, reflect he way we see the world.
To give one clear example: the decision by the mass media and most of its hangers-on, never to discuss PGMO, referee bias (in terms for example of having a propensity for away wins), the deliberate restriction on the number of referees so that the same refs keep overseeing matches of the same clubs etc etc etc, is a decision made by the media.
As a result of that, when Untold spends a lot of time analysing referees and reporting on their biases and variations in approach, we can be condemned as “typical Arsenal,” “paranoid”, “always complaining,” and “always looking for excuses.”
But the simple point is that when the media has a bias, not in the sense of supporting one club rather than another, but in universally refusing even to contemplate such topics as referee bias, the ludicrously low numbers of referees, the difference between results of games without crowds, and those played in front of crowds etc etc, and indeed the secrecy of PGMO, there is an issue.
Now of course in times of war, no one demands that the enemy’s point of view is heard. The nation is at war, and we expect the media to support our country no matter what.
But in other matters, we do expect a balance – not just on dealing with a specific topic, but in terms of which topics are selected for debate. By making the topic of referees and their performances, and the topic of PGMO and the way it conducts itself, utterly off limits, the media does us all a grave disservice.
And I think of this (yet again) today because of the issue of where the World Cup planned for Saudi Arabia will be held. (Hint: the answer is Saudi Arabia).
But should it?
Well, the Telegraph today says, “The 110 pages in Fifa’s report into Saudi Arabia’s bid for the 2034 World Cup finals discuss everything from hotel provision, referees’ training camps and climatic conditions to food and beverage revenue projections and even human rights. Of the LGBT community and how they might be accommodated in a kingdom where homosexuality is illegal, there is not a single mention.”
Of course I haven’t had a chance to read the full report, but given that Amnesty’s head of labour rights and sport Steve Cockburn said, “FIFA’s evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s World Cup is an astonishing whitewash of the country’s atrocious human rights record,” I’d say it probably is, indeed, a whitewash.
As the Telegraph says, “Of the LGBT community and how they might be accommodated in a kingdom where homosexuality is illegal, there is not a single mention.”
And to be completely clear, I am not a member of the LGBT community, but I certainly will do what I can (which I know is not very much) to defend their rights, just as I would try and speak out against the way the labourers who built the stadia used in 2022. Indeed the handling of that issue in 2022 should have been enough to see England and other major footballing countries remove themselves from Fifa once and for all.
My overall point therefore is that the media, even when it admits there are problems with the way workers are treated and the way the LGBG+ community is treated in these countries, makes the decision to carry on regardless, pushing these issues into a corner even if they mention them at all.
Of course that is the media’s right: the free press decides which issues to take up for discussion. One of the issues they choose not to discuss is PGMO and refereeing. Another is the playing of internationals in countries where human rights are limited.
It is the refusal to debate these topics, and indeed even to acknowledge that they exist, which annoys me so much.
Of course there are many other topics they miss, such as why Arsenal were given an awful run of away games early on. They didn’t even notice that while slagging off Arsenal’s performances until Untold kept on about it and then finally a few publications realised.
And I guess if they can’t even pick up on that topic, they are hardly going to start mentioning human rights in Saudi Arabia. Instead, they’ll send reporters there to celebrate the event.
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Arsenal scoring five on three occasions.... and the club with 50% more yellows than Arsenal
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