World Cup 2026: Geopolitics and the Beautiful Game w/ Alex Aviña, Abubaker Abed, & Indi.Ca,

Adnan Husain: You remember Dien Bien Phu?

Abubaker Abed: Yeah!

Adnan Husain: The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa.

Alex Aviña: They didn't have anything but a rifle.

Adnan Husain: The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on them. Salaam. Hello. Peace to you all, and welcome to the program. This is an episode of Guerrilla History and the Adnan Hussain Show. We're also streaming on East as a Podcast, on @Indications, the YouTube channel for the Resistance is Fertile podcast, and also on at least my X channel, and possibly others. It's great to be with you all. This is a kind of continuation of a series that we've done a few times before as a Guerrilla History football preview show for major international tournaments. And so, of course, I have with me my Guerrilla co-host, Henry Hackamacki. Henry, it's great to see you. Welcome.

Henry Hackamacki: Nice to see you as well, Adnan, and happy that we're continuing this series of talking about football before the tournaments.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, yeah, definitely before. It's good to get a sense of what we might expect to see and to analyze the state of affairs for the tournament. We didn't do, I'm sorry to say, we didn't do an African Nations Cup this year, which given what happened was probably the most exciting.

Henry Hackamacki: We'll have to do a retrospective because of what happened.

Adnan Husain: We'll do it as a history episode. Yeah, but I think there's been fallout from that even into this one. So we may end up having some discussions about that that connect it. But here to join our panel, as ever, returning guest, friend of my channel, of the Guerrilla History Show, and founding member of the Football Preview series here, historian of Latin America, Alex Aviña. Alex, great to see you again.

Henry Hackamacki: Thank you.

Adnan Husain: You know, wearing a great shirt. Maybe you can tell us also a little bit about, you know, who you're supporting and what you're wearing.

Alex Aviña: Thank you for having me back. Yeah, we did miss the AFCON Cup, but as someone who was watching the final, I don't know how to describe what happened in that final or in the weeks after. Like, I'm still kind of confused, like, who has the trophy at this point? But this is a jersey that Kneecap did in collaboration with Bohemians, a professional club in Ireland. They've done several jerseys to raise funds for different Palestinian causes. So at this point, I think this is my 4th Bohemians jersey, which is way too much, but they're all good, so I can't resist.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Beautiful. In addition, we also have Indi, co-host of Resistance Is Fertile podcast, whom I discovered As a result of collaborating on the Iran versus the Epstein Empire series that is continuing, and there will be one coming up tomorrow night, Wednesday evening. So do join us for that livestream, collaborative livestream. He made a couple of sly references here and there to, you know, the Premier League and football several times. And I said, okay, he watches football. I don't know who he supports. But he seems to have an analytical perspective on the beautiful game. So next time we begin our preview for a major tournament, we have to have him on. So Indy, I'm so delighted to welcome you onto the panel.

Indi: Yeah, thanks for having me. I started really getting into football after the Qatar World Cup, actually, as a kind of trauma response, honestly. Like, someone in our family got murdered, and then that was like how I got away from it, but now I think it's come full circle and football is traumatizing me again.

Adnan Husain: Oh my goodness.

Abubaker Abed: Wow.

Adnan Husain: That is a gruesome story, but probably fitting for the worst World Cup ever that is about to start. I mean, I think it's already got that sort of tag and reputation. We are going to also hopefully have Abubakr Abed, Gazan Palestinian football journalist and political analyst and commentator who will be joining us hopefully in about 10 minutes or so, but at some point in this broadcast. So he'll be a sub from the bench who turns the match, I would expect. And so we're looking forward to that. But I wanted to start with actually the Qatar World Cup because we did do a preview and discussion and I talked about it and I actually attended the Qatar World Cup. And I recall the media storm about Qatar hosting the World Cup. Absolutely every possible criticism, concern, fear about the games being hosted in this small energy oligarchic nation that I can't remember the exact date of its independence. We should put scare quotes around that word.

Indi: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: But it's from the '70s, early '70s, right? It was a British colonial possession, and it has then since become an important member of the GCC, fabulously wealthy, and engaged in, like other GCC countries, in enormous investments in football and other sports as part of a sportswashing diplomacy, geopolitics through patronizing and hosting sports and sports events and sponsorships. And so on to try and burnish the image. And although Western football leagues, UEFA, and the Premier League in particular, but also Paris Saint-Germain in the French league, were all willing to accept Gulf money for sponsorships and even to purchase teams, suddenly when they were the host, suddenly we started learning about how terrible the sources of their funding were, how unequal their societies were, how built on labor exploitation and labor migration with the kafala system, how horrific they were when it came to gay, lesbian, and queer people's rights, none of which you could say was completely untrue, but was definitely deployed in a way to try and undermine You know, the Qatar World Cup. And after having attended it, I would say it was actually quite a well-run games. You know, like all the concerns and fears about not having the infrastructure, of it not being, you know, there not having been a tradition of hosting large-scale football tournaments other than the Asia Cup, which was a bit of a kind of tune-up for the World Cup. That it was actually very well run. It was a great fan experience. I personally felt it was kind of nice not to have to be surrounded by drunken, you know, fans in stadiums spilling beer when a goal was scored all over you, and that maybe behaviorally there was a little bit more focus about what was going on on the pitch than, you know, other things. So I wasn't, you know, bothered, and people who, you know, Definitely had to have alcohol, had places where they could go, you know, to consume alcohol. But it was conducted in a way that, because it was in one central location, brought all the fans from the world, all the teams together. And that was a beautiful sort of experience to meet, to mix with fans from all over the world. Nobody said sorry afterwards, but nobody's saying anything, it seems, in mainstream media. about the US as a host of the World Cup. So that's just somewhere I would want to start with, is about the media portrayal or the silence, really, about the many serious qualms. It was a torrent of criticism and concern. They even created such an atmosphere that people like Toni Kroos, who I don't think has ever had a political thought in his mind or made a comment about anything happening in the world ever, felt that it was necessary or important or significant for him to condemn Qatar as a host of the games. We saw what the German team did, you know, sort of provocatively to dramatize that they were not happy with having to play these games in Qatar and the sort of society that it was and so on. So there was a lot of like performative criticism and now we hear nothing from many people. So I just wanted to begin there with the absence of any concerted media discussion or even response from FIFA, from football, other competitors about some of the problems that have emerged around this World Cup. So the floor is open, I think. Who'd like to start?

Alex Aviña: Just to build on Since you used Germany as an example, they're kind of a microcosm for the dynamic that you just mentioned, Adnan. Their captain, Kimmich, gave an interview a week or two ago where he said, no, there should be no place for politics in sport, and we would never use the World Cup as a venue to advocate for our political stances. That's just 4 years after you guys just did that in Qatar. So I think it's kind of a funny contrast, but also I think emblematic of the difference in treatment.

Abubaker Abed: Right.

Alex Aviña: That we are seeing with regard to what the comrades at the End of Sport podcast are referring to as the MAGA World Cup. And the world's getting full view of what kind of police state is developing in the United States. Part of it has always been a police state, only affecting certain populations, certain geographic locations dependent on race and class, et cetera.

Abubaker Abed: Right.

Alex Aviña: But it's definitely an expanding police state. And now you have people around the world who are going to be witnessing what it looks like. And it's— no, I think what you said was right, Adnan. This is going to be, in the United States at least, is going to be the worst World Cup. And it's got like a— if we think about this historically, there's a tough running competition for worst hosts, like 1934 Mussolini Italy, Let's see, 1970 Mexico, after 2 years after having massacred students and in the midst of a dirty war against the armed left. We have 1978 Argentina with an actual military dictatorship. We have accounts of prisoners who were being held in clandestine house detention torture centers. They could hear the roars and the cheers from the stadiums as they were being tortured. It's pretty like, it's They're going to lose. The US is going to beat all of these horrific regimes out as the worst World Cup host.

Indi: That's a good point about Qatar, because Qatar was— it's not just like the evil that America is doing. People physically can't travel to America, whereas with Qatar, people, especially from, say, Sri Lanka or Africa, we regularly travel through there. I had to kind of look up the visa regulations there because they don't actually Trouble us that much, but that was an open World Cup for everybody. But I think what it comes down to really is just just racism, right? That the hypocrisy—they're just very—the whole idea is that you point out something outside of like whitestan or like whitem or white empire, whatever you want to call it, and that's where all the sins and the bad stuff are. But there's no concept of looking back, even with people in the mainstream media that kind of are discussing the problems with. this World Cup in America because there are so many, but they rarely attribute it to America in the same way that everything was attributed to Qatar. It's just almost like passive voice, like, oh, things are happening, but it's not attributed, it's not connected to some grand narrative about this being some evil place because there's still that vestigial idea that there's some, you know, that like everything bad with America can be redeemed by what's good with America.

Abubaker Abed: Yeah.

Indi: It's not that portrayal. They just can't fathom, the Western media can't fathom that they're the villain. They can fathom very easily that Qatar is the villain or Russia is the villain or any other country, but they just can't figure out that they're the bad guys.

Adnan Husain: Yeah. And just a quick little point about the accessibility of the Qatar World Cup. I mean, you had 50,000 Iranian football fans attending their matches. You know, it's not far. They could come over. 30,000 or 40,000, maybe more Saudi fans, because it's just a drive into Qatar. Morocco had 40,000 or 50,000, especially when they made it to the semifinal. I think 50,000 or 60,000 fans came to attend. And even if not all of them were able to have tickets to the stadium, they just came in force en masse to enjoy the atmosphere, to support their team, to enjoy the World Cup and enjoy this festival of different Nations coming together, so it was so much more accessible. Not only because it was closer; it was in a part of the world where people from East Asia, South Asia, Africa, West Asia, and Europe all had relatively easy access, which is of course the history of West Asia and the Middle East is that it is this transit point and trade routes historically. It's defined its history as being in between these different world regions and connecting them. So. It was a tribute in some ways to that, but also because, as you were saying, the visa regime, so the legal blockade, the legal walls that are built up, that's even more important is that many of these fans are very close. Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, they're just on the other side of the Mediterranean. But when the World Cup has been held in Europe, in Western Europe in particular, it has always been a challenge.

Abubaker Abed: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: You know, it's expensive to stay there, but it's been even also a challenge to get visas. And we are seeing that to the nth degree with the walls and barriers that the US has erected. And hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about some of the individual cases that illustrate this. But Henry?

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah, I just wanted to add in. Can you hear me, by the way? Great. Okay. So I just wanted to add in on the fact of accessibility. Even in the case of Russia, and I say this is from the perspective of somebody who lives in Russia and has lived in Russia for 5 years, historically Russia hasn't been super easy to get to for a lot of the world. So there's a lot of countries and it's expanding now, the number of citizens of countries that can travel to Russia without a visa or that have access to very quick visa turnaround times. Historically, Russia wasn't super easy to get visas for, or at least super fast to get visas for. I have personal experience with that when I was first going there. But in terms of that World Cup, they made the visa process extremely simple for anybody that could demonstrate that they were going to be going to the World Cup. And maybe listeners will remember, but at that time, the media actually was looking at that and demonizing Russia for that. So what they were saying is that Russia is doing sportswashing, the country which is very closed off, makes it hard for Western citizens to travel to the country. They're now opening themselves up at a time that's going to be a celebration to show themselves in their best possible light. They were branding it as Putin's World Cup. They were branding it as, as I said, sportswashing of Russia and everything that is wrong with Russia. But nevertheless, the World Cup was accessible. People got there and it was a well-run World Cup. I talked to people pretty frequently who were at the World Cup. Russian citizens and foreign citizens who traveled then, and they still remember how well that World Cup was run and how enjoyable it was. As Adnan was talking with Qatar, it was quite easy for citizens basically of any country to be able to travel and go to the matches if they had any proof that they were actually going to be going to the World Cup, regardless of what country they were from. And again, the accusations of sportswashing come in. And that's not to say that there wasn't sportswashing that was taking place in Russia.

Abubaker Abed: Yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: Or in Qatar, or in any country that has ever hosted a major sporting tournament. That certainly is part of why you put in a bid to have a sporting tournament, whether that's the Olympics, whether that's the World Cup, whether that's any sort of sporting tournament. You are obviously bidding for it because you want to show your country in the best possible light. That is definitionally sportswashing. So not to say that there wasn't sportswashing in Qatar, we talked about it 4 years ago with Alex and with Adnan.

Indi: Yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: And Brett on the show, on Guerrilla History. Listeners can go back and listen to that episode from 4 years ago. It's not to say that Russia wasn't also sportswashing 8 years ago, but the United States is doing the same thing today, obviously. However, the United States government is so incompetent that even when they have the opportunity to do sportswashing, rather than making it accessible and showing their country in the best possible light, they step on the rake. Hit themselves in the face and have all sorts of news stories come out about how inaccessible and difficult it is, all of the egregious things, which again, I don't want to go into every specific detail now because I'm sure we'll talk about it, specifically the targeting of Iranian citizens and even the Iranian team. The United States is making itself look like a petulant child on the world's sporting stage when you could have the opportunity, if you were the Trump administration, To again look like an adult in the room and show the United States is actually a great country. You have the opportunity, but even with the opportunity thrust upon them by a personal friend of Trump, Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, they still managed to make the situation even worse. They are not even able to sportswash correctly, which is the ironic thing.

Adnan Husain: That's an interesting issue, Henry. And I just want to raise, You know, a possible counterpoint is that, are they, is it really the story fundamentally about incompetence? I'm fully willing to believe that they could be very incompetent. We've seen, look at the hapless, you know, performance of the US military in confronting, you know, Iran. And we just had the downing of a, you know, and in fact, actually, but this is my point, is that in some ways, they're happier to have it Sometimes be said that it was accidental and it was a technical mistake and like, oh, you know, so like it could be contained within that and not credited to the resistance from the, you know, other side. That's one element of it. But the other side is, I wonder, they know on some level how this is going to project an image to the rest of the world. Maybe that's the image they want is like America for Americans. And this is the world's game. Well, guess what? We own it, but you're not welcome.

Indi: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: in it, and that there's this aggressive— Americans don't really— there's not— yeah, there are football fans, soccer fans in North America, in the United States, but it's a lesser sport. It's seen as something that belongs to the world rather than the US. And so there's maybe something that's actually being communicated about this aggressiveness in walling out the World's fans for the World's game, saying, America, has these barriers up, don't come. It's like Kamala Harris herself when she went to Latin America and she said, well, this is under the Biden administration. She sent her portfolio to burnish her credentials for having foreign policy chops is to go to Latin America and in a public speech say, yeah, don't come to America. Essentially, you're not welcome. And so I just wonder about that. Is this like actually a projection of an ideological image? What do you all think of that? And what do you think of that, Henry?

Henry Hackamacki: It's both, obviously. I think that there is some incompetence involved in terms of the process and how the process is running. But I also would say that the majority of the incompetence— and I know that I was just railing against the US government's incompetence before, and I do think that a lot of it is projection. It's the same reason why the United States takes a lot of punitive actions against other countries. Even if that's things like minor tariffs on minor countries that don't do trade with the United States anyway, those things are put in place in order to show the rest of the world the United States has impunity to do whatever it wants and it is the powerful country. That is also true, and that's a large part of it. But I would also say that there's even more incompetence on the side of FIFA than there is on the side of the US government. The fact that they have been so complicit with the US doing these things, which go directly against FIFA's charter, as well as just the spirit of the game and the spirit of the tournament. And the fact that, again, the head of FIFA, who's a personal friend of Trump, Gianni Infantino, is such a bootlicker for Trump that he allows these things to happen and doesn't come out and condemn them or take any sort of action against these things, that shows true incompetence from FIFA. But again, is it actually incompetence when he's a friend of Trump, or is there some backhanded dealing here? So maybe there's some incompetence involved, but there's also just malfeasance involved as well. It's certainly both.

Adnan Husain: There's definitely malfeasance. And I would say one place to look at, maybe that's something we can talk about, some of the specifics, is if you look at the populations, the fans and the teams from which countries have been subjected to great indignities, visa rejections, a Somali referee, a referee who's designated as Somebody that Gianni Infantino, either personally or at least his processes that he oversees for staffing the World Cup, selected this referee because he was deemed, judged by his colleagues as the best referee from Africa. And you want to have each of the confederations represented. That's very important. And part of the normal process for administering a World Cup is to have participation from all the confederations and refereeing from all the confederations. And so, He has a diplomatic passport, but he's Somali. And ICE was deployed in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, in part to terrorize the Somali community specifically, to isolate and suppress and subordinate them. And we know that also Trump has said remarks about Somalia that I won't even repeat here because they're so disgusting.

Abubaker Abed: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: But also that he has an animosity, a very specific and personal animosity to Ilhan Omar and has degraded her background, sees her as a dangerous political opponent, is able to marshal and mobilize racism, fears about xenophobia and fears about foreigners, fears about Islam, Islamophobia, all together in one person. And that's embodied and represented broadly in the Somali community. And I would argue it's something that reminds me very much of the rules that we have here in Quebec province next door to me that disallows wearing the hijab, for example, if you are a government employee in any position where you might wield authority over people as a police officer, as a judge, as a teacher. And I would say that's another real red line here is the idea of a Somali referee who's in charge of the match, who judges, who You know, has control. Essentially, it's like a sovereign, you know, kind of to make the game kind of function. That's a person in a position of respected high authority. That is, you know, just anathema to this idea. You know, we don't want Sharia law. Is he going to implement Sharia law, you know, on the pitch? It's almost as crude as this. So I do think that when you look at the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Moroccans, like Who is— and I think we may also hear a lot also about the Uzbeks, about other people from Latin America being denied visas. It's certain populations. I have not heard about European fans being denied access. Now, maybe they're out there. I don't know. But it seems to me it's targeting various populations, and that is communicating something about what America wants the rest of the world to know at this moment. Who's welcome and who's not.

Indi: Yeah, I think a World Cup is— sorry, go ahead.

Alex Aviña: No, no, just to add to your comment about Somalia, we shouldn't not mention is also the dozens of times that Trump has bombed Somalia since he took office, right? So that's also part of that context as well, which is very— it's a US imperial thing, but also a Trumpian thing, right? You bomb the countries and then people leave and you don't let them come in, right? That's like that circular logic of Trumpian, at least the Trumpian version of US empire. But Indy, go ahead. Jump in.

Indi: Yeah, so I just want to say every World Cup or every Olympics is a communication. It's an act of communication. And Maya Angelou said, when people tell you who they are, believe them and believe them the first time. So at the time that they were deciding on this bid, Trump was doing his his Muslim ban at the time, and I think the Supreme Court kind of like approved it at the time that the bid came through. So they they knew this is what they were getting into. And you know, just like the Olympics, China. Used as a sort of coming out party. I think this is America basically saying party's over, which is a very clear part of MAGA, of the Trumps' Make America Great Again thing. It's like, we got this colony, we brought in many immigrants, including my wife and my, like, I think mother and so on. But now party's over. It's for white people. And you can see that in who is targeted. And it's like Moroccan fans have been not allowed. And a lot of fans are categorically Not not allowed. So under the under the visa regimes, I think Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Ivory Coast can't apply for those the relevant visitor visas. And I think until May, fans from Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia had to pay I think a fifteen thousand dollar deposit. I think maybe for some of our readers or listeners, it might be worth explaining like what a visa process is because sometimes when I talk to to Westerners, they don't actually under. Understand that? But it's incredibly onerous. So I have a white passport and a Sri Lankan passport, but most of my family applies on Sri Lankan, and my dad who travels most is on Sri Lankan. And you have to give a colonoscopy, bank statements, you have to go for interviews. If you get one tiny thing wrong, they kick it back, and you pay easily hundreds of dollars each time, or you pay for lawyers. It's a constant humiliating Bleeding process, and that's and that's what people will go through normally to get in. Now with World Cups, Russia, as as Henry mentioned, like Russia, if you had a fan ID, which is essentially a ticket, you got visa access. You got access not just for the World Cup, but I think you got it for the year under the highest system in Qatar. It was the same when Brazil hosted the World Cup. They FIFA actually worked with them to. Passed like 900 pages of laws, a lot of them pertaining to copyright and so on, but also pertaining to like access of the fans in any criminal like proceedings and so on. So FIFA traditionally, you know, sets this stuff up before. So from 2018, FIFA should have set this stuff up. Or in 19— going back to 1966, when England tried to— when they considered not allowing the North Korean team to come, denying those visas, FIFA said, if you do that, We will pull we will pull the World Cup. So FIFA has that institutional power, and as someone commented online, FIFA will be around longer than this this government and possibly even the United States. They have that power. So there's some it's like every international institution that we're seeing, but there's there's a corruption of this institution in the service of of empire. And this is how I guess how Trump operates, but he likes to humiliate. Everybody. He runs a humiliation administration. And they're trying to humiliate us. They're trying to say— there's an American saying, or I guess it's a Western saying, I want to take my ball and go home. And they want to take their ball and go home, except they don't even like football. It's a great irony, actually.

Alex Aviña: Or the communities that do like football in the United States are the ones that they're targeting domestically. I mean, that's the other thing, right? So To push back a little bit on Adnan's comment earlier, football is really popular, but it's popular amongst certain populations within the United States, like Mexican American population, different Latin American populations. It's extremely popular, but those are also the targets, the domestic targets for Trump's systematic approach to domestic politics, which to him and to people like Stephen Miller, there is no border, right? There is no border between their domestic and their foreign policy. So The type of humiliation that they've— and violence that they've applied to Somali American peoples in Minneapolis or to Mexican American peoples in Southern California, they're now doing it globally to people who are, to use late 19th, early 20th century language, just as swarthy as they are.

Abubaker Abed: Right.

Alex Aviña: I mean, you watch those videos of what they made the Senegalese national team do on the tarmac. It's all humiliation. And that is the core of Racial humiliation is at the core of whatever MAGA is or whatever Trumpism is, right? This is not incompetence. From the perspective of FIFA, it is incompetence because this is going against their— the economic logic of their project. Um, incompetence.

Indi: Yeah, it goes against— it goes against the money, which we can discuss later, which is what FIFA cares about. Exactly.

Alex Aviña: But if you've watched Infantino try to play soccer, football, then like, you know why it— there's— there's the way he's handling this World Cup is the way he I just watched a video of him trying to take a corner kick the other day, and I'm like, my God, that is— how are you the president of FIFA? But we know why, right? Because he's an imperial bootlicker. And FIFA does have power, and they have exercised power in the past, but they also choose not to, right? Like, so FIFA and, and UEFA, and we've talked about this in the past, you know, the, the fact that, that their silence or their unwillingness to take any sort of action against Israel While, you know, after the Russian special operation, they banned Russia from— they're still— I think they're still banned, right, Henry? Like, they're still—

Henry Hackamacki: Not only— yeah, not only in terms of FIFA competition, but also in terms of European club competitions. Like, in all international competition, Russia is not permitted. So the only teams that the Russian national team has played in the last 4 years are teams like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. And recently, their most recent one that they played against was Burkina Faso, where they played A week ago against them.

Alex Aviña: So this is the incompetence thing. Like, this is— they want this, right? Like, and, and what this also signals to me, and Nindi, you brought this up, it's a signaling the party's over. I think the way that we can think about the party is this is the end of U.S. imperial soft power. Like, that is the one thing that the U.S., the Trump administration has tried to get rid of since their first time in office, right? Like, I've seen this insane right-wing MAGA discussion online.

Abubaker Abed: Yeah.

Alex Aviña: Where they say something like, oh, what a coincidence. Once we get rid of USAID, right-wingers in Latin America finally win an election. And I'm just like, I don't even know what to do with that. But that's their thing, right? So their whole thing is to get rid of US soft power. And the way that they're humiliating these national teams, these fans, that's part of that project, I think.

Adnan Husain: Absolutely.

Henry Hackamacki: I just wanted to add in one thing on what Alex was saying. So when he was talking about there are groups, populations within the United States that are big Fans of the United States. This connects with something that I was planning on bringing up later in the conversation, but maybe we can add in at some point around here, which is ticket prices. So there are populations in the United States that are very fervent in terms of supporting their— the football, the national teams of their heritage. So one team that I think will surprise people by how many supporters will be at the stadiums or would have been at the stadiums, which I'll get to that point in a second, Yeah. Is Haiti. There's a lot of Haitians in the United States, tens of thousands of Haitians in the United States who are really into football and really hardcore supporters of the national team. And actually, many of the players on the national team were born and raised in countries like the United States, but they feel a connection with Haiti as a country. And with the visa regime and the restrictions against Haitians, it would probably surprise a lot of people to see how many Haitians would turn up to the stadiums in the United States. But that is the diaspora who have either American citizenship or residency or some sort of document, and they're already present within the United States. This is not only Haiti. Obviously, there's huge Mexican populations in the United States that are the biggest football fans and the best football fans of the United States. There's many communities like this.

Alex Aviña: Henry, we're in the process of covertly taking over the United States, if you've been following.

Henry Hackamacki: It's not covert, Alex. Everybody knows it's happening.

Alex Aviña: No, it's already happened, like culturally, food.

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah, yeah.

Alex Aviña: It's already happened.

Indi: Yeah. Mama, make America Mexico again.

Henry Hackamacki: I did want to say about the ticket prices though, because I don't believe we've mentioned yet, the ticket prices for this World Cup are about 3 times higher than they were for previous World Cups.

Indi: I think it's 5, but I loaded an image if you want, Adnan, but yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah, with dynamic pricing, it might go down to 3, but it also may go higher. I mean, dynamic pricing has never gone down. It only ever goes up. But in any case, yeah, 3 to 5 times higher for Each of the matches. Now, this has a couple of intended purposes. One is to be a money generator. But as we have seen in the news repeatedly in the last few weeks, hotel bookings are way below the projections. I mean, many times below the projected numbers. Ticket sales are lagging way behind what FIFA was anticipating. And with dynamic pricing, in theory, the ticket prices should come down for games that aren't being sold out to normal levels. But in my view, there is a second reason that the ticket prices were jacked up so high. And this reason is precisely the fact that the best football fans present within the United States are not supporters of the United States national team. They are supporters of the Mexican national team, the Haitian national team, et cetera, et cetera. All of these diaspora populations that have been historically fervent supporters of the football teams of their heritage or of their home countries, if they're in the United States.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: Temporarily. These populations though, traditionally and presently, are much more socioeconomically disadvantaged to the white population of the United States. So what happens when you jack up the prices? And we just saw the graphic on the screen that India had put up. And listeners of the podcast, if you didn't see it, you can easily find these statistics about the ticket prices. Yeah. Why would the ticket prices be jacked up so high that it's like an entire month's salary or more, even for American populations, many months' salaries for populations that are coming from overseas in most cases? Why would they be raised so high even when they know that they're going to be struggling to sell tickets and they see the hotel numbers are way, way down? In my view, part of that is to, again, discourage the populations that would turn out for their teams there. And then again, kind of whitify the World Cup and the American experience at the World Cup. We don't want those diaspora populations coming to the stadium and making a vibrant fan atmosphere around the national clubs and national teams of Mexico and Haiti. We want rich billionaires and tech investors to come to the stadiums and sit there and drink beer quietly. So the stadium experience is going to be absolutely dead, but it'll look like Nazi Germany. It'll be absolutely white in the stadium. We won't have any diversity in the stadium because we are doing everything we can to prevent that.

Adnan Husain: Yeah. The difference is that under the neoliberal, maybe Democrats' vision of how you would manage a World Cup is that it would be okay to have a united colors of Benetton style. Let's incorporate the comprador, westernized, wealthy elites of some of these countries They can have privileged access and join and participate in this global culture. But I think something that Alex was talking about connects very nicely with what you're talking about, Henry, here, which is about the politics of spectacle and the humiliation, right? So the scenes that we've seen meant to humiliate African players, Middle Eastern players, et cetera, Muslim players in this kind of racial regime.

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: to aggrandize white supremacy. That's the same as the kids in cages. That actually was a feature, not a bug. For all the criticism of it, it was meant to communicate something to this politics of sadism that comes from the idea we're victims in our own country, so we should be able to do this violence against others because We are actually white supremacists. That's the doctrine of white supremacy. And the prospect that's so dangerous from what you were saying, Henry, is indeed the point that you and Alex made about what are the populations that actually do like football, do follow football, is that it would've been an embarrassment to have in the United States stadiums filled with underclass or lower class. Although, as somebody pointed out, even if they were at the Qatar World Cup, prices That's expensive. A lot of people still are going to be excluded, but there would've been more people from the Latin American communities, African communities, and Haitians and so on able to be at those games. But this is also why they are ramping up ICE raids and monitoring around the stadiums. In a way, it doesn't make any sense. It's not actually probably for the people who are here as visitors and fans, Right. from abroad because they're on a short-term visa. It's actually for the populations domestically that do support, will come out to these fan parks and experiences and so on and create an atmosphere. Even if they can't get into the stadium, they will want to join into the festival atmosphere and support their teams. And they are ripe targets for surveillance, patrolling, terrorizing, and trying to reinscribe this hierarchical racial order. in America. So we've heard that there is targeting planned by ICE. That's what explains it, it seems to me, is the analysis both of you were highlighting about who are the domestic populations that actually care and the embarrassment if they were actually allowed to be in public, in the public sphere. So that's a great point. And we want to talk maybe a little bit more about some of the economic components and all of that as well further in this conversation. But I want to bring in special guest, Abu Bakr Abed, Gazan journalist, Palestinian activist from Ireland right now. Abu Bakr, thanks so much for joining. It's great to see you. Great to meet you. Salam. Let's check, make sure your sound is okay. Yeah, we can't hear you, so there must be something going on. Let's see if we can boost your sound. And I don't know which microphone you have selected. Oh yeah, we're not hearing you, unfortunately. So let's check this. You know, if you click on the mic icon at the bottom of your window for the StreamYard, see which is the selected mic. You have options. You can choose one. So that might be one solution. Okay. Well, all right. Well, I don't know exactly what you— there's also a private chat you can write a message in. He's Looks like he's dropping off and trying to come back in. So, yeah.

Indi: So Abu Bakr has been actually saying over and over, which we should discuss, is that people should boycott these games, which we're kind of dancing around because we all kind of want to watch it. But he's been saying quite clearly that we should boycott.

Henry Hackamacki: Yes.

Abubaker Abed: Can you hear me now?

Adnan Husain: Yes, perfect. Wonderful. It's great to have you on.

Abubaker Abed: Thank you so much for having me, and nice to see you all on this panel.

Adnan Husain: Yes, yes. Well, Indi was just mentioning, you know, at some point it would be great to talk a little bit more about FIFA. Palestine and the whole broader issue of Palestine, but we've been talking about the World Cup. And Indy just mentioned that you have been posting that people should boycott this World Cup. So maybe you can tell us, you know, a little bit more. We hadn't come to that. We've been talking about how terrible, you know, all of its policies, but we hadn't come to the point of saying, yeah, we all should boycott it.

Indi: And we've only scratched the surface of how terrible it is. We got some more to go, but yeah.

Adnan Husain: Still a lot more to talk about. Yeah, but go ahead.

Abubaker Abed: 100%. I mean, like, as a Palestinian first, and as a Palestinian journalist, like, especially covering sports, which I've been doing over the past 3 years, and I have sadly broken the news on the vast majority of the murders of Palestinian athletes during the course of the past 3 years. If you look at where this World Cup's being held, Even, to be honest with you, even if this World Cup would be held or were held in Qatar or any Arab country, I would have said the same, just to be clear, because Arab countries have also contributed to genocide in Gaza. So I'm not trying to play the double standard role here. No, I'm absolutely, I'm right here and I'm right there. So the thing about it is the United States, I don't have to talk about the United States' role in the genocide in Gaza. Everybody knows that it has co-perpetrated it.

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: Canada, of course, the level of complicity is utterly insane. Mexico is also infiltrated by the Zionist lobby, the Mexican government. In the end, this is one reason that why we must boycott that. If you're going to pay for watching the game, either online or, you know, on one of the channels that is broadcasting the games, Or even you want to go to the game itself, you contribute into that. I mean, if people cannot resist their desires to save lives, how can we call you a human being? It doesn't make any sense to me, right? And the second thing, let's talk about what the United States has done so far. And we have seen that banning the referee. And when we are talking about the referee from Somalia, because we are in the same region, we have to bring—

Henry Hackamacki: Right.

Abubaker Abed: attention to some facts. When we are making history, when we are trying to reach our dreams, we break mountains. We go— like, we overcome loads of obstacles to do so. This Somalian referee, I'm sure he has borne the unbearable to reach his dream, just to be banned by the United States.

Adnan Husain: Right.

Abubaker Abed: Look at the Somalian team. Humiliation. This, like, degrading of human life and human rights at the most horrible level. So there is racism, outright racism. There's everything that we can say. Why is it important? Why is it important to watch World Cup, which is—

Indi: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: going to cause more problems, make for more killings in West Asia, especially in Palestine and in Gaza. After you all have seen what Trump has done across the world, attacking 7 countries, fueling the genocide in Gaza, carpet bombing Lebanon, carpet bombing Iran, what are we talking about? What are we talking about? Like, as I said, This is just a World Cup for a month. We cannot— people are very, very keen on their instant gratification rather than focusing on saving human lives. It's horrifying. It really horrifies me that people are still intent on watching this World Cup and are paying the money for that.

Indi: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: So there are so many reasons. Like, have some respect for the Palestinian footballers whom the United States helped kill. Have some respect for, like, have some compassion with the fact, or show some compassion to the fact that the sports scene, the entire sports scene in Gaza has been obliterated. I just got out of Gaza a year ago. I have reported from most of the stadiums. They are just piles of rubble.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: And people are using these piles and mountains of rubble in these stadiums like Khan Yunis Municipality Stadium, which I've been to. People are living there. They're living in tents over the bulldozed pitches of stadiums in Gaza. Look at Dura Stadium, which is the sole standing stadium in the entirety of the Gaza Strip. It has— it's no longer a stadium. It's a refugee camp.

Indi: Wow.

Abubaker Abed: It's a displacement shelter for the displaced communities. Look at the clubs. Israel has destroyed 51 clubs out of 54 in Gaza. If we are talking about this in England, the entire Premier League and Championship teams would be obliterated, would be entirely obliterated if this happened in the UK. Moreover, Israel has destroyed nine stadiums out of ten stadiums in Gaza. I don't know how the number of stadiums in the United States, but I think the number of stadiums that would be used for the World Cup is going to be quite similar, maybe ten or twenty. Actually, don't remember the number, but it's if it were in the United States, then the World Cup would have never been held. Ah, and all this. has been made possible by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. All these governments, it has been made possible by that. So why I understand that some, for example, Jordan is participating for the first time. People, the people of Jordan have seen some of them because I'm from the Arab world. I've seen some of them. They want to watch this World Cup. Iraq is participating also in this World Cup.

Indi: Right.

Abubaker Abed: People want to watch that. Iran, I mean, Iran always participates in the World Cup, so people don't have to rush to go and watch it. But generally, I know there are teams that are participating for the very first time. However, we need to understand that our collective duty is to respect the loss of life, is to show some compassion.

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: To the people who have been killed is to show solidarity with the players and the fans that have been killed. Fans in Gaza have been killed en masse. Football and the World Cup and football teams are very popular in the territory. People have been watching the game for many, many years. Football is a part of our identity in Gaza. So what are we going to watch after all this? Why do you want to watch? You can't really bar yourself from watching. Right. Watching a tournament for, for a month? Why? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Why? If you are going to watch this World Cup and make a change to stop the United States from committing war crimes across the world and to stop the complicity of these governments, okay, then go ahead, watch it. But you're just gonna watch it. You're just simply gonna watch it. You're just gonna invest in a, in, in, in a, in a Well, there's the government, coalition of 3 governments. I think if this happened, as I said, I've called out the hypocrisy of the sports journalists, the Western ones and the Arab ones as well, and the emotive language they have used to describe Qatar's abuses of human rights, which I can't really deny or I'm not really aware of, to be honest.

Henry Hackamacki: Right.

Abubaker Abed: It has disappeared when it comes to the United States. They're using emojis and they're using, you know, general public vague, like general vague language to describe what the United States is doing. Even Ian Wright, sorry, like even Ian Wright, people have been like, have praised him for his video today. It's nothing. It's nothing. What is he talking about? It's nothing. All of them are a bunch of cowards. Yeah. Like they have been screaming at the top of their lungs to bomb Russia. But no, no, they don't care about Palestine. They don't care at all. Believe me or not, if it were like, if you see it, they haven't shown a pro over Iran. You know why? Because it depends. They have limitations to what they can speak about. If it were just around Somalia, because it's safe, It's safe zone. You can talk about Somalia, it's fine. It doesn't have any relation to the geopolitical events that are happening right now across the globe. But if it's around Palestine or Lebanon, believe me 100%, which has happened, it's not about believe me or not, which has already happened, they will never say a word. How many Lebanese players at least have been killed? I think over 20 or over 10. I'm not sure about the number. Also, stadiums were destroyed. One of the stadiums were—

Indi: In Beirut?

Abubaker Abed: was also destroyed. Did they utter a word about it? Of course not. Because Somalia is safe and Senegal is safe, they're talking about it. But they will never talk about something that is in relation to Israel.

Adnan Husain: That's interesting and a good point because there has been, you know, some, as you're pointing out, Ian Wright, but, you know, on X and other social media, you can see people are commenting As the developing news comes out about the humiliation of the Senegalese team at the airport and denial of visas to Moroccan fans, there's been at least some kind of coverage of these things. But while there has been some coverage, people feel inhibited to really call out the horrific treatment of Iran and Iran's team. One of their staff was prevented from even traveling. And of course, the fact that But they are not allowed to stay in the United States, even though all of their matches are in the US. They have to stay in Tijuana, close to the border in Mexico, and fly on the day for each day and then return, no matter where their match may be located. If they were to make it into the knockout rounds, it could be all the way far on the East Coast. And, you know, so this is, you know, an imposition on You know, them, and there has been much less discussion, really, outrage about it, about the abandoning of the host's responsibilities, you know, in the way that they're treating. But some people think, and I wonder what you think, Abu Bakr, you know, some people think, you know, that maybe Iran shouldn't have subjected themselves to this, you know, while their nation is at war and they should have withdrawn. And in fact, actually, at the Earlier in the winter, there were indications potentially at the outbreak of the war early in March, statements made by the Ministry of Sport and so on, that it may be intolerable to actually participate in the World Cup being held in the United States, given the behavior and the assault, aggressive war against Iran by the United States. Other people have different views and think that, well, you know, they will be an example in some ways of the defiance and the resistance, you know, that they will continue to kind of represent their nation proudly on the world stage. I'm wondering what you think about this. I mean, should it have been maybe part of the larger boycott? And perhaps you can also tell us a little bit more because you alluded to Iraq and Jordan as 2 countries from within the Arab nations who are participating for the first time. What kinds of discussions are being had in Arab media among Arab fans about the participation of these 2 countries when, you know, the genocide in Gaza has been taking place and continuing even to now?

Abubaker Abed: To be honest, I think both options can be true. It can be a sign of defiance and resistance and resilience by the Iranian team if they participate. But I would honestly go more for a boycott by the Iranian team. I think the level of humiliation that they have been subjected to is astounding. It's something I don't think I've ever seen in my lifetime before a World Cup happening. And I think I think Iran, in the end, it just, like, as I said, like, Iran is a great team in Asia. They've always competed on the international level. They've always been in these World Cups. But the circumstances that are being forced upon them will not help them achieve anything in this competition. So I'm just afraid that if they stay in this competition, I know this will give them motivation, And probably the circumstances would even make it worse for them not to perform well and then just be kicked out of the group stage, which is going to be useless for Iran and the Iranian team. But it's, as I said, I'm not speaking on behalf of Iran and the country. It's up to them in the end. But I would definitely love to see a boycott of the whole competition because—

Henry Hackamacki: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: Like, they're treating them as subhumans, like as war criminals, and they are the war criminals. Like, they're treating them as they are holding bombs and coming to America to, you know, to mass bomb America or something, which is absolute garbage. So I think the level of inhumanity, as I said, is really out— is really, really astounding, and there should be a response.

Alex Aviña: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: But back to the point, I'm not sure what kind of journalists you have alluded to, Adnan, but honestly, they have been bothered much more about the pin, the 168 pin Iranian players have put on their jerseys, more than on the ban and the degrade, the degrading of Iranian players and staff. So there is a lot to talk about when it comes to Iran. But in the end, as I said, like, the decision is definitely up to them. Now, when it comes to Jordan and Iraq, now, Iraq is a very war-torn country until now, unfortunately, although there is no war in Iraq, but the scars of the wars that have happened to Iraq over the last decades, few decades, are still haunting the country. And I can't really have much to say on Iraq. Also, they have one of the armed groups there, armed resistance groups in Iraq. We saw the striker, how he was detained at the border. Utterly disgusting. I mean, like, as I said, like on Twitter, like if a player during the Qatar World Cup was held at the border or was held at the airport and interrogated for 7 hours, Yeah. The competition would've been immediately canceled and taken to another country. 100%, this would be the case. And for Jordan, I mean, I have a lot to say in Jordan, but this is their first time participating in the competition. And there's a very important fact that Jordan, the vast majority of the Jordanian population have Palestinian origins. So I think it's A lot, but for them to boycott this World Cup, well, I understand the significance of this competition for them, given the fact that it's the first time they're participating in it. However, I actually, as I said, like this World Cup, whoever is participating in it, the fans who are going to follow it, and look at the prices. I don't think people come from West Asia, even Western people who are taking very, very much higher salaries are unable to go and attend World Cup matches in stadiums. So how would it be for people coming from West Asia? Like, the average salary in Jordan is around $1,200. Do you think people in Jordan would be able to go and pay Tickets and tickets, tickets for the marches, tickets for the flights and accommodation for over $3,000. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. They can't afford it. So I don't even think that the presence of Arab fans and those countries and the fans of those countries participating from West Asia and the Arab world, I don't think the presence would be valuable or will even be that visible in this World Cup. I think this is a project for the elites, for the imperialist billionaire elites. This is a World Cup not for the ordinary people. It's definitely, it's clearly, obviously for those who have a wealth of money that can come and watch the game. If you're talking about the least ticket is around $400 to $800, how can people really afford that? It's absolutely impossible. Also, more importantly, as I said, like, as— sorry, Infantino said that everyone would be welcome in this World Cup. FIFA is lying to the audience. FIFA is lying. FIFA does have the authority to go and tell the United States, well, you have to get those people in to watch this World Cup. FIFA is benefiting from this project. FIFA is 100% complacent to the—

Indi: Right.

Abubaker Abed: To all what is happening at the moment, because we've seen it in Gaza. People don't have to be naive. We've seen it in the so-called Budapest Peace when Infantino signed a $75 million project to reconstruct the sports scene in Gaza, which was 100% not a reconstruction plan. It was more of a— A war plan. An expansionist and colonial project, but it's embedded within football terms to deceive people from what is actually going to happen. You cannot really build 10 clubs instead of 51 clubs. Whom are you lying to? Whom are you really lying to? So FIFA has always lied, and it's been clear when Infantino was seen with the red Like, with the red cap, with the trump. And I don't know how people can really— I know that football means a lot to people across the globe, but in the end, saving lives is really, really far, far more important. And you can't really— I mean, I absolutely— I will say it very plainly and very clearly, anyone going to this World Cup and watching it, Has to be shamed, has to really, really be shamed.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, I mean, definitely very powerful words. And just before I let Indi go to respond and pick up on some of those very important points, Abubakr, I just wanted to mention, you know, that you are saying, you know, lives matter more. And in light of that, I neglected to emphasize, though I've been putting it in the chat, that we are running, as we have been this whole month on every livestream, In every program, a fundraiser for Dahnun Mutual Aid in Gaza. I've put the link in the chat to their Instagram page where you can find out how to make a donation through Chuft to provide potable drinking water and cash support to families in Gaza. So please do be generous. That's more important than, you know, anything else that we can do in support right now. So please do be generous. Indeed.

Indi: Yeah.

Adnan Husain: Response.

Indi: Yes, Abu Bakr, of course, makes a lot of very good points. I think chief among them is that we've talked about visa issues, we've talked about humiliation, but this is a situation where the host of the World Cup is bombing football stadiums in Iran, is destroying football clubs in Palestine, is killing footballers. This is an unbelievable situation. Even, I think, just last week, A female Palestinian, someone from the female national team in Palestine, was let's just say kidnapped because they had they have no right to to to detain her in any way. This is coming from and if and this is all so Abu Laka was saying Canada, Mexico, you can say Europe as well. They're all equally implicated in this. And yeah, and this is. Yeah, this is just a crazy situation, right? You would think that the line is you can't kill people from the other team. And sports historically, going back to time immemorial, is you set stuff aside, you set war aside to have this sort of controlled, civilized competition. And we are just fundamentally not dealing with civilized people here. What they're doing to the Iranian team, it's not just humiliation. If you're forcing a team to fly in and fly out after every match, you're weakening them. You're weakening your competition. Even when you detain someone for 7 hours at the airport, you're weakening them. They're attacking the competition before the competition. So this is where we're in really uncharted territory here. What I've been saying is the Nazi Olympics was far better. The Nazi Olympics allowed people in and they at least tried to hide Their overt repression at home to some degree. The Americans are not hiding anything. They're not letting people in, and they're actively suppressing the competition while killing footballers and killing sports people and arresting sports people all over their wretched collapsing empire.

Henry Hackamacki: I want to add in just a small bit on the issue of boycotts, and specifically in the context of the United States and the abdication of responsibility of journalists So boycotts, of course, need to take place, but we need to think about who should be conducting these boycotts and to what end the boycotts should be taking place. Boycotts, if they are actually economically damaging for FIFA and for the United States, should be taken out in any context. But if we're not talking about the economic side of things and the impact of them beyond economics, we have to think about what the the narrative of it will be. So if we're thinking about Iran's national team boycotting the World Cup and not participating in it, that should be a huge story, and that would be a really valuable message if people were given that message. However, seeing the way that this, the story is being covered by the US media, which is they give a small clip here or there— I just saw this morning I see some people in the chat talking about it too, but I saw it this morning from Reuters that the latest news is that ticket allocations for the Iranian national team supporters have been revoked this morning, like 2 days before the World Cup starts, their ticket allocations are being revoked. So those who have already bought tickets may not have the right to those places anymore. It's still seemingly slightly unclear of what that actually means from a functional standpoint. But with only 2 days until the tournament starts, that's a really big escalation. So that was reported in Reuters this morning. I know some people know about it, but if you have a team, a multiple-time continental champion, by the way, the Iranian national team is a very strong national team, has been present at the World Cup continuously for years and has had good showings. They don't make it to the end stages of the tournament, but they do fight valiantly in the groups. I remember a few years ago, Yeah, I watched that match. '98. And then even more recently, I remember it took a Lionel Messi wonder strike for Argentina to sneak past Iran in the group. And I mean, really a terrific goal, but they were really in it with Argentina until this really late Messi strike from outside the box. In any case, the point is that if Iran is boycotting the World Cup, That would seemingly be a really powerful message to send. However, I would worry that there would be a complete abdication of responsibility or a near-complete abdication of responsibility of US journalists. I'm sure it would be in the newspaper, Iran is boycotting the World Cup, and then they would move on and they would find a replacement. For example, Italy, a team that has missed the World Cup a couple times in a row, and I say this as somebody who's half Italian, so, you know, I have some sentimentality with the Italian national team. But Trump's special envoy for Italy and for football suggested, even before Iran had made any statement about whether they were going to be pulling out of the World Cup or not, that Italy should be granted Iran's spot in the World Cup as the war had just begun. He said that Iran should be removed from the World Cup, a team that That qualified for the World Cup. And again, a very strong team that has won their continental competition numerous times. They were—

Adnan Husain: In fact, the first team to qualify, actually.

Henry Hackamacki: Yes, that's right.

Adnan Husain: They qualified early because they're so dominant in the Asian Football Federation. So they were the first.

Henry Hackamacki: That's exactly right. And on the other hand, we have Italy, a team that has failed to qualify for consecutive World Cups, and their idea is to just replace them. Now, Unfortunately, I have a feeling that if this actually did happen, the vast majority of Americans who were watching the World Cup wouldn't know that that happened. They wouldn't know that Italy had been granted a spot without having qualified for the tournament, and Iran had been either removed or were boycotting the tournament. In fact, I'm quite sure that the majority of Americans who tune in for this World Cup will think that Italy is boycotting the World Cup because they're not in it. The level of consciousness of what is happening is something that really has to be understood in the US context, and that has to be something that's taken into account with boycotts as well. So just to add in to what Arti was— sorry, Abdubakr was saying, we have to understand that boycotts should be happening. But we also have to understand what the impacts are and who should be conducting the boycotts. Of course, people should not be traveling and going to the World Cup. People should not be supporting the World Cup. But in my view, if there was teams that were going to be boycotting the World Cup, it would be much more impactful if we had European nations, for example, who were boycotting the World Cup because that would be covered. Iran, unfortunately, I am sure the US media would just sideline that discussion and the function or the functional point Would just be, Iran is not in the World Cup. They're making a statement, but nobody hears it. Abdubakr talked earlier about the pin that the Iranian team was wearing. More people will see that as a result of their inclusion in the tournament than any message that would be made by them making the righteous stand to boycott it. But unfortunately, that's how the media works.

Adnan Husain: Would've been nice if, say, the Spain team, they have a government that has made some noises about the Terrible war in Iran and the horrific genocide in Gaza. That would have been a very impactful statement. But anybody else want to talk about that? And Abu Bakr, if you have any other follow-up points on this question, the floor is open.

Abubaker Abed: Well, you're right, but I don't think any European team would will just boycott the World Cup. The European Union is the coalition of—

Adnan Husain: Absolutely.

Abubaker Abed: I mean, you can't really expect them. I wouldn't expect any, even if you look at, for example, the Spanish government. The Spanish government, even if they have given some mere platitudes recently, they have still undeniably participated or funded the genocide in Gaza. They have allowed military ships to go through, you know, to go through the waters to Israel. They have allowed airspaces to be used for American military jets to go through to Israel. So the point is that there's one thing that people have to always put in their mind, that even if people change, That doesn't erase their history. That doesn't at all. Even if this Spanish government has become so supportive of Palestine, they also have to be held accountable. The European Union have to be held accountable for what it has done in Gaza and across West Asia. The United States officials, either the Biden administration or the Trump administration, both have to be held accountable.

Indi: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: So the thing about it is that, to be honest, I hate it when people start praising someone and they are completely, and they've been completely silent or they've been completely complicit in something and they start praising them like Tucker Carlson and the sort of people who are now, who have jumped on the bandwagon to become pro-humanity stars. Yeah. Which is simply untrue. But then we have, as I said, like we just have to put in our mind that well, this World Cup, what isn't going to happen? You're not going to die if you watch Turkey. So you're not going to die actually if you don't watch the World Cup, but you're going to kill people if you watch it. So this is a thing that people really have to understand. You will not die if you don't watch the World Cup. But if you watch it, you will kill people by it, by watching the world go. So this is really important that people— for people to understand. If there is something that is going to cause harm to other people, your joy shouldn't be soaked with blood. Your joy shouldn't come out of the suffering of other people. Your joy should not also contribute to the plight of other people. Right. Even to be honest with you, like even these things, like of Iraq, Jordan, and others, is very contradictory and very conflicting that we're talking about fans who are going to watch the World Cup in, you know, for the first time, whatever, whatsoever. But at the same time, they're going to make suffering for themselves. It's like I'm paying for this service, for example, I'm paying to buy I'm paying to buy this product, but it's poisoned. So I'm going to kill myself. I can see it's poisoned, but I still want to watch it. I still want to purchase it. I don't understand the logic of people, to be honest with you. Even if Palestine were participating in this World Cup, I would definitely haven't watched it. I'd definitely not watch it. So I, as I said, like, When I wrote that piece for Palestine Deep Dive about the West, the thing that I said clearly, that people are very individualistic and materialistic, and they have become so. They have become so, and they've been so, right? So I just have to be really, really realistic with myself. We've been screaming at the top of our lungs for people to do something, but unfortunately— Yeah. There hasn't been, you know, much change or much action. People are afraid to sacrifice. People are keen on their instant gratification. People can't think past the survival in the West. So if you want to tell them to boycott something, they will find 100 excuses to tell you, well, the boycott is not going to work. Well, it's not going to help. It's not about That it will help or not. It's about where you stand. It's about your moral stance. It's about your human stance as somebody who wants to watch this World Cup. I mean, you've watched bloody 3, 4 World Cups before. It's not going to be the end of the world if you don't watch this United States World Cup. It's fine. It's absolutely fine. Like, we have to be people So one thing in the West, a lot of people are unable to maintain their principles or defend them.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: They just give them up. They just simply give them up whenever it is the chance, they give them up. And this is the problem. And I really, really want people to hear that because in the end, as I said, and I've always said it, that if people stay like this, numb to what is happening, Without any action, it will haunt them. What is happening in West Asia will haunt them. What is happening in Palestine, the genocide, the bombing in Lebanon and Iran will come and haunt them one day. And this is absolutely something that I can clearly foresee.

Adnan Husain: Absolutely. I mean, humanity has already been scarred by its complicity and silence and failure to stop the genocide in Gaza, You know, I mean, but I guess that means we're not going to ask you for your predictions on this World Cup, Abu Bakr. I'm kidding. But we had a good question here. I know we were focusing on the World Cup, but can you speak a little bit about the Stop the Game campaign that is heating up in Ireland?

Abubaker Abed: You have a government that is cowardly and complicit, a government that just wants to appease the United States and its allies. It's not ready to listen to its people. The vast majority of the Irish population want this game to be banned, not to be moved to a neutral stadium. The Irish media is also a bunch of stooges for America and Israel as well. So the people, from what I've seen in the streets and in the protests, and talking to different people across Ireland, they want this game to be banned.

Henry Hackamacki: Okay.

Abubaker Abed: They really want it to be banned. They're not ready at all to play or to see their team, their favorite team, to play a genocidal regime. So this campaign has been going on since the draw happened and Israel and Ireland were put in the same group in the UEFA Nations League. Now, there has been a decision by the Football Association in Ireland to move the game To a neutral venue. There has been no end to the campaign, and the campaign has just grown much bigger because they want the game to be banned, not to be moved. There's pressure from the opposition parties in the Irish Parliament to this, and they are trying to pressure the government, the current government, the Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael parties, to ban the game completely.

Indi: Right.

Abubaker Abed: So far, there hasn't been much progress, but from what I see, they have got something at least out of this campaign, which I've also covered in one of the protests. I've also met the coordinators and the organizers of this campaign, and they're really, really adamant that we will never let this game go ahead. And I think even the Irish team players, They also acknowledge the horrific atrocities that are being committed in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. And they really want— they really don't want this game to happen, I think. I wouldn't speak on their behalf, but I think from their statements, like James Coleman, former Everton's right-back, from their statements, you can see clearly that they don't want this game to go ahead and they don't want to play it even behind closed doors because it's wrong and it's morally wrong and people don't want it to happen. But it's still growing. People are still talking to make sure that this game will be banned. There's a lot of heat going on, as the question suggested. And we're just going to continue that. I'm also in talks with the campaigners, and hopefully we can do something even much more bigger.

Indi: Okay.

Abubaker Abed: Of course, there's still undoubtedly a presence of the Israeli lobby in Ireland and those who support the fascist Israeli regime, and they want this game to be played. And they're saying, well, banning the game will not help the Palestinians. Well, no, you writing about it will help the Palestinians. So it's growing, and I hope that this game won't be banned, of course.

Alex Aviña: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: I think it's going to be a stain, a shame on Ireland, on the Irish government particularly, if this game goes ahead, even behind closed doors. They have always maintained the position of neutrality in an imperialist, colonialist position. They've also been colonized. We know the history of Ireland and the British occupation. I just don't think Ireland would be happy Mm-hmm. For Palestine to blame Britain or for any other country to blame Britain during the British occupation of Ireland. So we have to be really morally consistent about that. And the Irish government have to know that it's not their job to appease the US government, but more to respect their people's demands and listen to them, which hasn't actually, which has rarely happened, even when it comes, just finally, when it comes to the Occupied Territories Bill, to impose bans on goods and services coming from the illegal settlements and occupied territories, especially the West Bank. They have excluded the services, which constitutes most of the bill. And last time there was a sanctions bill presented to vote for or against inside the Irish Parliament, and then the same ministers who have publicly opposed what Israel has done and Ben-Gvir did to the flotilla activists, they have voted against the sanctions as well. It's really a facade wherever it is in the West. The same people are being voted in, the same people are supporting Israel. All these governments and parties across the West, they will disagree on their national issues and interests, but they will never disagree on supporting Israel.

Indi: Yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: And I just want to add in some statistics that I came across recently regarding Ireland and Israel. So as you mentioned, AbdulBakr, there's this narrative that Ireland is neutral and anti-imperialist and that they stand, you know, for some sorts of rights. But on the other hand, despite the fact that Ireland is doing things like banning Bezalel Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from coming into the country. At the same time, Ireland is one of the largest trading partners with Israel. And the statistics—

Alex Aviña: That's right.

Henry Hackamacki: The statistics that I just saw recently is that Ireland is Israel's second largest export market globally. The only country that's a bigger export market for them is the United States. And in 2014, Ireland took in $4 billion with Irish exports to Israel. The bilateral goods trade was $5 to $6 billion, and Israel runs a surplus with Ireland. So at the same time that we have this narrative out of Ireland's government is anti-imperialist and stands against war crimes, and they'll make these statements and they'll ban people who were never going to go to Ireland anyway, At the same time, they are a huge trading partner with the Zionists.

Abubaker Abed: Believe it or not, Henry, but believe it or not, we, our throats have been torn speaking against the government actions. I've been to the—

Henry Hackamacki: I believe that. I believe that.

Abubaker Abed: I know all this. I know all this. Like, I know what they have been doing. I know like the government is not complicit, but they're trying to show the people otherwise, which is factually incorrect. I mean, it's really, really not sad, but it's— the world is upside down. I mean, I just hope that I'll live, and I hope you will also live to the day that we are seeing justice served.

Adnan Husain: Exactly.

Abubaker Abed: Because it's really like, I'm a Palestinian from Gaza, my family's there, watching your people being killed every single day and people still intent on watching the World Cup, it hurts. It really, really hurts beyond words. I mean, like those, like the $100 that you're going to pay or the $400, a part of it, even if it is a tiny portion of it, will go to the taxes. The taxes will go to serve interests with Israel. Then it will go and turn into a piece of a rocket. And then this rocket will kill somebody. Yeah. Why, why, why do you want to enjoy at the expense of the blood of people? It, it really shocks me beyond words. So as I'm saying, like, we have to really respect the lives of people. I'm really heartbroken for Beirut and Lebanon. Look at what they are going through. It's the same Gaza playbook is being repeated over there. What? Like, If, like, I really don't know what to say, but if you really care and if you have really cared since, I mean, October 2023, and you should have done that before, you should have cared before, then the least you can do is such things should be boycotted. And as I said, you're not going to die if you boycott the World Cup, but you're going to kill people if you watch it.

Indi: I think one thing we can point out is that whether or not people decide to boycott the games, the US is kind of forcing people to boycott them. They're forcing people to not be able to attend. With the pricing, as we discussed, they're forcing people within the US to not be able to attend. Even the act of having it in the US. So the Qatar games were for most, for fans in Europe or Asia, Those were like at watchable times. The games now are for me at like 3 AM or 6:30 AM or randomly like 10:30 PM. So my kids can't really watch them anyways. But one thing you were saying, Abu Bakr, I wanted to ask if there's a loophole, but you said that paying is bad. Is pirating the games okay?

Abubaker Abed: Sorry, I didn't hear the last thing.

Indi: It's pirating the games.

Adnan Husain: You don't pay, but you get an illegal stream and you watch it on your computer, which is actually the only way I watch anything.

Abubaker Abed: You're pirating the game.

Henry Hackamacki: I live in Russia. Everything is pirated.

Indi: So I don't know how to get the games to watch sports normally, actually.

Abubaker Abed: Like, I think so.

Adnan Husain: Yallafoot, you know, basically, can you go on Yallafoot and—

Abubaker Abed: Yes, I know these things, to be honest. But in the end, frankly, I have lost a lot of passion towards football. Yeah. Probably I would have a look at the highlights or have a look at the scores in the end, but definitely I'm not going to watch any matches.

Indi: I think we can talk about that because I've also lost a lot of passion for football.

Abubaker Abed: To be honest, it's absurd to say this, but it's good to steal from the United States. But the whole idea You know, the whole idea, it doesn't make any sense to me, to be honest, because it's like, you're just going to watch it. You know what I'm saying? I know people want to escape, but like, for example, in Gaza, there was a report yesterday on Al Jazeera that people are ready to watch the World Cup. Now, we can't really tell the people of Gaza, well, boycott the World Cup, because they're trying to find any escape from the horrors that are being inflicted upon them.

Indi: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: So it'd be really stupid and very idiotic I'm sick of people that tell, bid the people of Gaza or to dictate to them that they should boycott this World Cup because they are, like when I was even in Gaza and I knew of all the atrocities, I was watching football because it was, because football is definitely one of the 3 main outlets and entertainment sources for the people in Gaza. Now, I can't blame them. And I had like an exchange with the reporter and I said, I said to them, like, we are telling people to boycott it and you are telling the world to watch it. But like, for people outside Gaza, I mean, it's really more valuable, like, whether it's like, you know, you want to watch it illegally or something, but it's really more valuable for yourself. You will live 100%, you will live at more peace with yourself when you You just don't watch it. You feel like you have done something. It doesn't matter. As I said, like this, I hope, and Henry's really right and spot on on this point, that there has to be more unity within the pro-Palestine movement and the anti-imperialist community. Uh, so there has to be definitely more unity and more organization. There has been a lot of, like, disorganization over the course of, uh, of the past few years. And I've seen that myself. I've observed it.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: But in the end, like, any step matters. Like, it's about you. If you do it yourself, then it matters. But if you don't do it, it doesn't actually make— it's like, it doesn't actually make any sense, right? So I just want people to understand this, that it's for yourself. It's just for your humanity. It's to save the least, like, the last bits of your humanity.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: to boycott this World Cup. Like, it's like I— like, as I said, like, if this World Cup were held in a non-complicit country alone or on its own, then I'd be probably more flexible with people and understandable with people watching this, you know, this tournament. But I'm seeing it like it's going to be a really, like, disastrous World Cup beyond words. I'm seeing it 100%.

Indi: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: Like everything is indicative of this badness of this World Cup. And we will see it, and hopefully we see something big, and then we see something. Because we all have to remember, like, apartheid West Africa, sorry, South Africa, the sports boycott was a prerequisite to the dismantling and to dismantling apartheid South Africa.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: So sports boycotts do really work. And if FIFA had banned Israel from all competitions very early on, this would have absolutely helped. So people have to, instead of people going in FIFA's ways, no, people have to go against that way and boycott FIFA, not help FIFA invest in genocide and invest in all these war crimes that we are watching every single day. Then I don't think if this were, God forbid, your parents or your sons or your relatives being killed and bombed every single day, you would be happy to watch the outcome. And I'm really, one last point, it really astonishes me and it's very nauseating to see that we are seeing even pro-Palestine public figures, Going for fun in the middle of this suffering. This has happened during the genocide and after genocide. I don't think you would do the same, post pictures from the restaurant or from somewhere else, playing football, playing tennis, whatever, while your people are being killed or while your neighbor's being killed or bombed. So, like, we really have to respect people's feelings.

Adnan Husain: Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: Like, we really have to respect what they are going through. And the least you can do is to refrain from showing your opulence to the outside world, is to stop swooning over things that are utterly inhumane and detrimental to the whole world. This is the world we're living in. This is the least we can do. And I hope people will do it. Thank you. Really understand that.

Adnan Husain: Yeah. We're getting close to when we should maybe be wrapping up this, like, really amazing and interesting discussion. And so somebody posted here, and I thought maybe this is one thing we might also think a little bit about as an addition to the moral stance that we have to make, as you've been saying, Abubakr, you know, to You know, affirm our own humanity, um, and also, you know, reflect on, like, what's important for us in this world. I mean, I think you've been very eloquent in pointing out that in many ways, uh, the joy is gone because of— sorry, it seems like there's, uh— My son is mowing the grass outside the window.

Indi: Oh, I thought it was a Shahid or something, or a Lucas.

Adnan Husain: It's not, it's not, yeah.

Henry Hackamacki: He's not in Russia. That's something that we deal with.

Adnan Husain: Right, but yeah, that's right, where Henry usually is. But I think one other kind of point about it is that sport has this capability of really mobilizing the sentiments and the passions of people and feelings of solidarity and great energy when you see fans chanting and cheering. And, you know, sometimes even in very organized and choreographed and sophisticated ways, it shows that there's— it's harnessing some great energy of human spirit. And so Gunderson's, you know, asked this question, you know, couldn't this sports fervor be Compost. I don't know if composted is exactly the word we would want, but at least converted into revolutionary spirit. How do we try and build something positive and effective and world-transforming in these energies that people have? Is there some way we can think of turning solidarity? Yeah.

Abubaker Abed: I just want to answer quickly to this. I, do you really think, well, this question for the 4 of you as well, do you really think that we would see support for Palestine more than the support for Palestine that we have seen in Qatar?

Adnan Husain: Yeah, I mean, I was at Qatar World Cup and I tweeted after the Qatar World Cup, I said, whatever has happened in this World Cup, Palestine won this World Cup because everywhere, every match, every stadium, in the streets, People were showing their love for Palestine.

Abubaker Abed: How has it changed? It was great to see. It was 100% great to see. I agree with you. It was really overwhelmingly emotional because I watched it with my family back home. Of course, I wasn't able to go out outside the World Cup. Also, you've really evoked something in me, which was the piece that I did before the World Cup in 2022 about how fans in Gaza are really, like, do really have dreams of going to Qatar, which is just nearby. It doesn't cost much, but they are still facing restrictions. They needed, and of course they still need an approval by Israel, but at that time they needed an approval by the Israeli army, by the COGAT, to go for the World Cup in Qatar. A lot of people have been denied exit outside Gaza to watch the World Cup. Back in 2022. And this wasn't reported 100%, but it's something that I mentioned in one of the pieces that I did at that time for Doha News. And it's like, as I said, there was great support. The people of Gaza were really happy, especially with Morocco. They reached the semifinals after both Almost every game they were showing and raising the Palestinian flag. It was really great to see. But then the problem with this kind of support, back to the question that she has asked, is we haven't turned it into actions. We haven't turned it into something tangible and effective. And that is the issue that, okay, well, we all love Palestine. We saw this really so-called journalists being shouted at in the streets, being refused and rejected by the vast majority of the community. I'm really astonished that they were allowed into Qatar in the first place. But anyway, but it was really good to see. And nonetheless, as I said, like, we haven't turned it into anything. We haven't turned it into anything that could really be productive and helpful. To the cause that we are raising our voices for. So the question is, okay, if we do this in the United States, what is the final outcome of the support? If we are going to show just Palestinian flags in the stadiums and out the streets and everything, I don't think that I will see the same scale that I've seen in Qatar. I don't think so. There will be so much repression on Palestine, on showing support for Palestine in this World I don't think I will see it on the same scale. However, but if we see it on the same scale, then what, like, other than raising the flag and shouting for Palestinians at the stadiums, or even let's pretend, which I'm sure would not happen, that players, when they will score or when they score, they will show the Palestinian flag or support for Gaza, then how can we materialize this? What is the final outcome of this? of all of this? What's going to— how is it going to have some pressure or effect on the United States and the hosting countries? This is the question that we need to ask ourselves. We don't have just to do something without knowing what it will lead us to. This is really significant to know. So, but in fact, when you see it, that we have gone to the stadiums and we have done this and we have just chatted for Palestine, we have actually done the negative effect, not the positive effect. And that is the whole, the core of the issue that I'm trying to address here, is that we're going to chant for Palestine, but at the same time contribute to the killing of Palestinians. Like, we really have to be realistic and, you know, give reasonable, like, reasonable logic to It is something that we are trying to implement in this World Cup. But as Henry said, and I think all of you do agree with that, to be honest, I know that Iran boycotting the World Cup is not going to be majorly covered in the mainstream media, Western media outlets, whatever, but it will have undoubtedly a great effect. Yeah. It will. And I think South Africa should do that. I mean, South Africa, they have also delayed the RCG case. I don't know why. It has really been appalling to know, very shocking to know. South Africa, it has stood with Palestine. It should do that. But as you said, Adnan, imagine if Spain withdraw from the World Cup. Then this is the biggest blow to this whole tournament. But if South Africa, which has joined the ICJ case, which has demonstrated unwavering support for Palestinians during the genocide, it should boycott the World Cup. So if you have South Africa and Iran, for example, boycotting this World Cup, then you will have really a priceless outcome out of all of this. But then Even if you have Iran, you will have an outcome 100%, but then it's about the strategies that we are going to implement in this World Cup to make a positive effect, not to make a counter effect. Yeah.

Adnan Husain: Any other kind of final or concluding thoughts as we round this out? I will make one prediction, which is that it will be Iran versus the US in the final, 2-1, 1998 again. Let's see that, inshallah, or not. We won't. We'll be boycotting while watching, but I'd like to find the news that happens that that's the outcome of the final. But at any rate, any other sort of final concluding thoughts? Yeah, go ahead, Henry.

Henry Hackamacki: Adnan, you have far too much faith in the wretchedness of the American national team. There's no way they're getting anywhere near the finals.

Adnan Husain: Iraq will be in the final against somebody else.

Henry Hackamacki: Against somebody else, certainly not the US. But in any case, I do want to take us a little bit afield from the World Cup just to talk a little bit about this idea of sports and then political movements, of fervor for sports and then political fervor. It's related to football though, so I'm going to shoehorn it into this conversation. There was a team that should have qualified for the World Cup but didn't because of a rule change. Anybody have any ideas of who I could be referring to? It's something that was almost completely unreported in Western media. It was only briefly talked about in sports-specific media. Not Russia. They were banned from participating. There was a team that literally was set to qualify for the World Cup, but then there was a rule change that took them out. Any ideas?

Indi: Nigeria?

Henry Hackamacki: Nigeria was the one who qualified in their place.

Abubaker Abed: So it must be an African country then.

Henry Hackamacki: It is an African country.

Alex Aviña: Cameroon.

Henry Hackamacki: Good guess. Burkina Faso. Now, here's what happened.

Abubaker Abed: 2004, wasn't it?

Henry Hackamacki: No, right now. Burkina Faso was set to qualify for the World Cup. They were in second place with a very good goal differential in their qualifying group and were set to qualify just ahead of Nigeria. However, Djibouti, which was the team that was last placed in their group and had gotten absolutely destroyed by Burkina Faso both times that they played for them, refused to finish the qualifying cycle and pulled out. And so what happened is there was a rule change where they said, well, Djibouti is last place in the group and they're not finishing their group, so we'll assess their games as forfeits for ones were going to be played and were going to remove the points from other teams that had already played against them, which removed points and goals from Burkina Faso after they had already played their games, which then moved Nigeria above them in the standings to qualify for the World Cup as a second-place team based on goal differential. So Nigeria got moved ahead of Burkina Faso. And Burkina Faso, which was set to qualify going into the last stage of the game, last game of qualifying, got removed. It was a ridiculous rule change that should be really widely talked about, not only in sports media, but just in media generally, that this team that was set to qualify had a really strange rule change that just took them out. And I see some people in The comments actually that was you, Adnan. Anti-Triore shenanigans. You know, I do think that there is a political component to it. Burkina Faso was set to qualify. They hadn't qualified previously. We know that there is a really strong political movement going on in the country right now that the West is not particularly happy with. There was an ability to make a rule change that would ensure that they weren't going to qualify, and magically this rule change comes into place that. Removes them to it. Now, the question is, could any sort of anger about this decision be transformed into any meaningful political movement? And that's where the question becomes trickier, because unfortunately, this wasn't in the media almost at all. I mean, I'm bringing this up now. You can go online and look for it. You may be able to find the information that this happened, but there are almost no articles that are written about the travesty that took place in removing Burkina Faso from qualifying for the World Cup. You can find that this happened, but you won't find anger in the media about it. Now, if there had been discussions in the media about this travesty, and if people were really angry about it because, you know, we like the sanctity of sports and we like our sports to just be a reflection of the best team has the best results, and well, they were set to qualify and then kind of a political rule change took them out. That goes against the spirit of sports. Okay, people might be angry about that, and maybe many people that are angry about that also stand in solidarity rhetorically with Burkina Faso and the government of Burkina Faso. But is there a way of translating that anger about this decision in the sporting context into material support for the country? And I'm not sure if there is a very easy way of doing that. Even if you had a large group of people who saw this news, said, that's a travesty, and looked at what was happening in Burkina Faso, and they decided collectively, well, we support the steps that the government is taking. It's certainly more positive than the pro-French regime that had been in place under Blaise Compaoré previously, prior to a couple of coups. Are they going to be able to actually do something materially to support the government? There are still military insurgencies in the northern part of the country. There is still a locking down of any sort of connection between Burkina Faso and non-sanctioned countries because the West does not want what they call a military authoritarian regime to have connections internationally. So Burkina Faso's government really only has connections with people like Russia, which is why earlier on in this I mentioned that the Russian national team just played against Burkina Faso. I don't think that the fans would be able to harness the fervor of feeling the wrong with a sporting context into any sort of meaningful political movement. They may even understand the political component to it, but if we're talking about materially, I don't see that that is a possibility there. I know that this is a very random example to bring up. But I think that it speaks more to the almost siloing of the way that sports is felt, which is all emotional, but there is nothing material that you as a fan can do other than go to the stadium and rah-rah support your team vocally. You're not going to materially do anything to support your team while you're there other than buying a ticket. So how do you transfer that emotional feeling that is connected with sports into something that is material. Because if we're talking about changing the world and changing the political landscape of the world, it's one thing to have an emotional feeling. It's another thing to do something that has some material impact. And thinking about how material impacts must be felt is a completely different thing than the way that we experience sports. So yeah, sorry for that long tangent, but There you go.

Adnan Husain: No, that was really interesting, Henry. Great example. Indi or Alex, any final thoughts either on this question of sports and politics or more broadly our discussion about the World Cup 2026?

Alex Aviña: I think watching the Mexico hosting of the World Cup, There have been mass popular protests and there will continue to be mass popular protests led by teachers, peasant movements. Right now, there's also movements of family relatives of the disappeared because Mexico has experienced or has witnessed the enforced disappearance of more than 100,000 people since the so-called War on Drugs began in the mid-2000s. So one of the creative things that I've seen that mothers of the disappeared have done is to use the panini Like those Panini cards, but instead of having players on the Panini cards, they have the photos of some of the people who have disappeared since 2006 in a really, I think, emotional, really powerful, evocative way. And the other thing I'll just say, you guys probably know this because you're all a bunch of historical soccer nerds, football nerds, but the one national team that I can remember not remember, but that I know about in terms of doing a boycott was the Soviet Union in the 1974 World Cup. And they did took a highly— they took an ethical stance in refusing to play the World Cup qualifying match in Chile in the fall of 1973, because that happened right after the overthrow of Salvador Allende by General Augusto Pinochet. And they used the national stadium in Santiago as a torture center and a concentration camp. So the Soviet Union refused to go play that final World Cup qualifying match. And you had this ridiculous issue. The Chilean national team actually lined up against no opponent and scored the goal so they could officially occupy that last space. And then some of those Chilean national team players used the 1974 World Cup in West Germany as an opportunity to protest against their very government. And some of them actually suffered some pretty horrific direct consequences of that activism, particularly striker Carlos Cachésli, whose mother was, because of his activism and his vocal opposing to the Pinochet administration, his mother was kidnapped and tortured while he was at the World Cup. But just in terms of boycotting and teams boycotting, that's the one big example that I can think of is the Soviet Union in 1974 or the entire African Federation in 1966. When they boycotted the English World Cup because of, I think it was over the insufficient allocation of spots for African teams, right? So it would've been really interesting to see one, two, or ideally even more national teams for this World Cup to boycott it for a variety of different reasons, all of that we've discussed today, but primarily with what Abubakar has been so powerfully and evocatively saying, right? Like over the question of Palestine. Like, that should be an easy call for a national team to boycott.

Indi: Yeah, I guess just in conclusion, I guess it's fascinating to see, you can see the international order, what was breaking down through this World Cup. It's, I guess perhaps it was an illusion all along, but they're giving up on the illusion now and it's just naked humiliation and power and dominance. And the US is still scheduled to host the Olympics in 2028. So I don't see them getting better. And I think we maybe need to think about how much humiliation we are willing to take because they're really rubbing it in our faces.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, very important points. We have these sessions to talk about the geopolitics of the World Cup or of a major tournament as a preview. This one has been pretty politically engaged in the very idea that we should boycott this one. The US in general should be under boycott, divestment, and sanctions. The rest of the world has to wake up to its crimes and treat it as the rogue state that it is, not only for its own behavior, but its support and complicity with the worst elements, the worst regimes, including, of course, the Zionist entity and its crimes and crime of genocide in Palestine. So, you know, this is an opportunity for us to, you know, reflect and think about how so many elements of our culture, you know, of entertainment, of these industries are really, that are meant often to be about like either escape or artistry and imagination or peaceful competition between, you know, different countries and people to get to know one another. All these values that are promoted, they're totally undermined by the actual geopolitics. And the economics of these entertainment industries and sport has been traduced. The only way to really restore it and to recover it is to boycott this corporate corrupt takeover of these pastimes that have a wonderful history and can do wonderful things and restore them to the people, popular, the people's game. This is the beautiful game. It's been disfigured by its association with FIFA, its mismanagement, the corruption of FIFA, and of course also all the things that we've been discussing today. So I think this has been a really fruitful and valuable conversation. And we can say though that if it is the end of US being interested in any soft As I think Alex was pointing out, I think a very important point earlier in this conversation, the fact that it's going to be the worst World Cup probably in history is something that, like so many things where the things have become so clear about the hypocrisy of the liberal order, You know, about international law and that, you know, whether it actually means anything or not, or international institutions like the UN that have sat by, you know, on the side and watched and allowed the genocide to continue, is that, you know, there's no more illusions. And so it's now time, I think, for action, as people have been calling for here. And I hope people have found this at least a helpful You know, conversation to you know, ثبِّتْ أَخْدَامَكُمْ. You know, like to make your your your you know legs strong in your stance morally. You know, to reject as Abu Bakr put it, I think so powerfully. And you know, we had that up. You know, a commenter quoted it. You know that you're not gonna you're not gonna die if you don't watch the World Cup. But you may participate in killing people. So think about that. And I wish everybody, I want to thank all of you for being in the chat. There's been great discussion there. I want to thank the panelists, Abubakr, for making time, Henry, co-host, Indi from Resistance Is Fertile, and Alex, a friend of the show. And you've been ever-present in these discussions and always brought Such wonderful analysis. We appreciate you all participating and giving us so much to think about. And for all of you out there, until next time, peace with justice and solidarity to you all. And don't forget to support Dahnoon Mutual Aid in Gaza. Please be generous. Okay, salaam everyone.