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Top African referee Omar Artan refused access to US and will miss World Cup
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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Money don't care about that. People want to watch people chase and kick the ball. Money wants more money.
If people dumb enough to watch people chase around ball, I find it hard to complain about other people taking advantage of that.
Yes people want to watch the football that's why it exists as a sport. If people weren't interested it would be water polo.
Do you watch TV?
Not really very often.
But I do know that a billionaire owns the network and doesn't care about me. I know it is not "my show" and I wont advertise it by wearing clothing for it. I won't base my identity on it.
Most importantly: If a show or even a corporate owner is problematic, I would stop watching and supporting it without a second thought.
I am snarky about this, yes. I would rather play any sport than watch it.
But my real point is that there is a rabid fandom that puts their needs above all else. They are not going to care what the parent company does or what the countries involved do. They are willing to feed the greed at all costs. For this reason, I cannot empathize with them. They don't care, and the people making money most certainly also don't care, because they are still making money.
What a gross thing to say. Even if your ignorant generalization about football fans werr true, being complacent and smug about them being preyed on says a lot about you as a person.
People should be able to enjoy their hobbies and passions without participation being monetized at every turn. I don't know why that's a radical position to you.
Not ignorant, and absolutely true. Yes I am being a bit snarky. But I will just copy paste what I said to another poster:
"there is a rabid fandom that puts their needs above all else. They are not going to care what the parent company does or what the countries involved do. They are willing to feed the greed at all costs. For this reason, I cannot empathize with them. They don’t care, and the people making money most certainly also don’t care, because they are still making money."
And you said: "People should be able to enjoy their hobbies and passions without participation being monetized at every turn."
I agree with that 100 percent. I like playing sports. If people like watching people playing sports, good on them, they don't need a corporation to do it for them.
But the opposite is happening: they are being monitized, and they don't care. They want to believe its "their team" not a billionaires. They want to buy merchandise and do what ever it takes to be sold the football "product". That is what they care about. You can argue with me as much as you want, but the evidence is right here in this article.
Yes, I stand by ignorant. I'm not and wasn't discussing the obvious corruption and gouging from FIFA. I don't even watch the sport, but it's been on full display for a long time.
My issue continues to lie with your judgement of the fans. I'm less concerned with the power of their want for this, but the "why" behind it. Competition on behalf of your community has been a part of cultures across countries and centuries. It's a big part of the bread and circuses trope. People crave the community and comaraderie that comes from participating in and watching these types of events.
Access to this kind of community experience outside of monetary participation has been whittled away for decades, and we're left with what the monopoly has left us. I'm not going to insult people's intelligence for making choices that I don't agree with, but can understand where the motivation comes from. I think this is just another example of how capitalism has squeezed joy from our lives, but I'm not going to be an asshole and blame the victims.
You are willing to call me ignorant? Why does the fan get a pass, are they the ones who are actually ignorant?
They are not victims, they are willing participants. I completely disagree with you on that. At what point do you quit giving them the pass? What community? There is NO community, they are fans of teams they have NOTHING to do with.
However, the end result is the same: if they are not willing to quit supporting it, it wont go away. That was my point.
I am ready, willing, and able to continue calling you ignorant. I'm not saying that fans aren't to varying degrees. Especially since you seem to be ignoring my broader points. I'm empathizing with the fans and taking into account how we got to this point rather than thinking I'm better than them and laughing at them.
You seem to have a serious empathy deficiency, so I can't explain to you the nuance in that. My broadest point is that rampant capitalism and the elimination of third spaces for community have normalized in most people a pay to participate mindset. And they're not wrong, because for many it's all they've ever experienced. You, personally ,just don't value the same things in the same way they do, and you feel superior for it. Of course that's not every fan in this example, but that's why the global community at large has enjoyed the world cup, Olympics, chess competitions, the space race, etc.
So, yes. I think your class division crap is ignorant.
Why do you keep pretending that other people don't have the ability to make their own choices?
You completely miss what I am telling you: it wont change unless they know better, and YOU are saying they are robbed of that choice by the consequences of capitalism and its all they have ever known.
I am not disagreeing with you about that point. There is no superiority to knowing that this rabid fandom that perpetuates this situation is not something to be happy about.
Where you get ignorant out of all of that I do not know. You come swinging at me by calling me names, and then tell me I need to have empathy. WTF?