Jonathan Wilson raises the prospect that football in its current iteration – a sportswashing mechanism used by states with no regard for human life or rights – might suddenly disappear (“Just like the hat, football’s grip could suddenly go out of fashion after Qatar”, Sport). This would be a cause not for regret but for celebration and can surely be hastened by adopting a concept used to fight apartheid South Africa: no normal sport in an abnormal society. Thousands of migrant workers have died for the World Cup to be staged by a misogynistic and homophobic state that values dollars over deaths, and the society of the spectacle over the substance of humane practice.
Darryl Accone
Johannesburg, South Africa
I admire Joanna Cannon’s stance in deciding for moral reasons not to watch the World Cup (“To watch it would make me complicit. A passive approver of homophobia”, Comment), but wonder whether she will also be boycotting her beloved Liverpool’s games against Newcastle United, who are owned by the equally unpleasant regime of Saudi Arabia?
Ken Gambles
Knaresborough, North Yorkshire
This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.