This blog is generally dedicated to the craft of narrative design because I love games, I love interactive storytelling, and I love talking about both. But there is something that I love even more than that. More, in fact, than anything except for the people closest to me. Unfortunately, that thing is football. And we need to talk about it, too.

The greatest thing that exists in the whole world is upon us: the World Cup kicks off tomorrow. I should be ecstatic. But I won’t be watching and I encourage you to not to either.

I actually wrote a similar post four years ago, right before the 2022 World Cup. Hosted by Qatar, it was organised and played on the backs of slaves, thousands of whom died due to inhumane working conditions. This was my conclusion:

They can have their World Cup. I’m done. Even as a spectator I don’t want to be participating in an event built on blood and suffering, touched up with hundreds of millions of dollars from corporate sponsors.

And since I’m not watching, you can not-watch with me. Don’t like, don’t comment, don’t subscribe. I have no delusion we’ll change anything, but at least we won’t be dancing on people’s graves.

Four years on, the next World Cup is looking even worse.

The US strikes on Iran led to an unprecedented level of degeneracy at FIFA: allowing a nation to still host the World Cup, the greatest sporting event in the world, despite having invaded one of the other participants and incinerated a school full of children. The US government also denied entry to some of the Iranian team’s staff, called them terrorists, and stipulated that players must enter and leave the country exactly on their match dates. To put it simply, the hosts bombed another country and then had the audacity to dictate terms and conditions for that country’s team to play in the World Cup and FIFA has been fully on board.

All that is just the horrendously foul tip of the mountain of shit that the US-hosted World Cup is shaping up to be. There are football-specific problems, like barring Africa’s best referee from entering the country, racist travel restrictions that make visas expensive and difficult to obtain for fans from a quarter of the participating nations, and tickets so ludicrously expensive that state attorneys general are investigating them. And then there are the general issues related to, you know, the United States being a rogue fascist superpower. The ICE raids, the rabidly anti-trans rhetoric that translates into discriminatory policies, the wanton slaughter of civilians in international waters, the invasion of Venezuela, the threats to Greenland… I could be listing this bullshit all day, but you’ve already heard those stories and a hundred others that each would have tanked a normal government.

FIFA should have at least threatened (and preferably followed through) to take away hosting rights from a country that attacks other World Cup participants and is openly hostile to immigrants, traveling fans, and the LGBT community. Them not having done that (three World Cups in a row, might I add) is already farcical. But FIFA hasn't just done nothing. They have been actively supportive. FIFA’s boss Gianni Infantino has been cosying up to Trump, showering him with praise, and regularly visiting Mar-a-Lago. FIFA hosted last year’s Club World Cup in the States and put Trump front and center of the trophy ceremony. Then they gave him the actual trophy for display in the Oval office. Then they rented space in Trump Tower and kept it empty, the lease serving only to funnel cash to the US president. Then they invented a Peace Prize just for him. We're at a point where Donald Trump could shit himself on live TV (again) and Infantino would say: masterful gambit sir. There are people who call this pragmatism. They say Infantino is appeasing Trump to make sure the World Cup runs smoothly. There are only two issues with that:

1. How’s that working out, Gianni?
2. You simply don’t appease fascists.

Instead of a month-long celebration of the beautiful game we are going to be served a month-long victory lap of a deranged regime causing untold harm home and abroad. All while FIFA - perhaps the most brazenly corrupt organisation in existence - lines the pockets of their executives. I don’t want to be a part of that, not even in a way as remote as a number in TV viewership charts. Tuning in to the World Cup feels like ignoring corruption, war, and really any kind of fuckery, as long as I’m being served good entertainment.

It breaks my heart to see the best thing humans have ever invented sold out to despots while the teams, players, and sponsors say nothing. And so many fellow fans gloss over that just to watch the Mbappes and Messis of the world compete. In the words of every parent ever: I’m not even angry, I’m just disappointed.

FIFA is a cancer consuming the world of football and as long as we keep giving them our attention, that cancer will spread. This World Cup should only be remembered for the empty stadiums, dead fanzones, and record-low viewership numbers. Otherwise, we’re as much sellouts as FIFA.