The FIFA World Cup in Qatar has begun and, with it, its fair share of criticism. The organizers are indeed blamed for an ubiquitous competition, in air-conditioned stadiums, with catastrophic carbon emissions, at a time of climate change, not to mention the conditions of workers and the mistakes in terms of human rights and LGBT + rights.
It’s simple, Qatar ticks all the boxes of popular detestation. Only, when we listen to its supporters and defenders, we guess that these criticisms have no place, since these failures were also present in previous editions. International sports competitions have always been environmental mismanagement, bottomless pits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Russia, now pilloried for its entry into the war against Ukraine, was acclaimed and applauded 4 years earlier, in 2018, even though there, homosexuality was also repressed, and the country had already annexed Crimea in 2014.
Ditto in Brazil, with demonstrations repressed by force, crushed popular movements, and delirious working conditions on the construction sites of the competition. And what about the World Cup in South Africa, in a country with catastrophic social and economic standards. However, the popular movement only seems to appear this year, in 2022, against Qatar.
And luckily it happens. Because too much is too much. In addition to a feeling of accumulation, what is also happening is an upheaval in consciousness. There is a before and an after 2022, there is an awakening and an awareness. From now on, climate change is no longer a distant, uncertain and fictional future, but a reality. It only took one summer for us to realize the realities predicted by the IPCC and climate scientists: droughts, heat waves and forest fires. The cocktail was enlightening and bright and now forces us to think more seriously about our actions, our decisions and our lifestyles.
It is no longer time to let it sink in and close your eyes. On the sporting side, it is therefore Qatar which is the first to suffer this collective indignation, this awakening of thoughts. But we must not stop there, as soon as the world championship is over. It will be necessary to continue to impose a reflection on the methods of designation and organization of the competitions, it will be necessary to reflect on this gigantism, with from 2026 a world cup with 48 nations or in 2029, the Asian Winter Games in Arabia Arabia, in desert mountains, without snow.
Previously, we paid no attention to this and instead emphasized the universalist side of sport, which offered the greatest number of people a chance to participate in the popular craze. Now, it would rather be a question of defending our collective interest, that of living in perfect communion with the planet and nature. To do this, reforms must take place at the level of the authorities and the federations, with a thrust through collective and popular action, such as the World boycott movement.
Organizations must understand that for sport to continue in this way, it will have to move with the times and adapt to new climatic and economic conditions. Off-ground competitions, in gargantuan infrastructures, with colossal population movements, by plane, with gigantic carbon emissions, this can no longer happen.
In the economics of sport, things are already in place, such as the proposal to require a country to become a host not just once in 4 years but twice in 8 years. This would indeed make it possible to ensure a longer spread of the economic, social and environmental costs, to avoid the probable white elephants, these infrastructures abandoned after the event, to ensure a legacy with a competition which would take place twice in the country. For example, Paris 2024 has, for the moment, devoted 3 billion euros to the construction of sports and extra-sports infrastructures. Assuming, with this proposal, that it is granted the Games twice, the costs would be divided by 2. Ditto on the emission side, since less construction, less pollution.
But we can even go further in this kind of reasoning. Concerning the Olympic Games specifically, some experts recommend granting ad vitam aeternam to Athens the organization of the Olympic Games. Olympic city par excellence, it already has infrastructures dating from 2004. This would ensure the symbolism of history while minimizing carbon emissions as much as possible by saving on pharaonic investments.
Now, beyond these reflections and these proposals, which have the merit of existing, we must also raise awareness towards more sobriety, more frugality, accept a form of slowing down. Do we still have to accept world competitions with more than 20,000 athletes and 2 million tourist supporters? Innovation and technical progress have unfortunately not made it possible to slow down greenhouse gases, it is even quite the opposite that is happening. So if we really want to change, maybe we should go through a form of sports decline…
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