Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber.

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On a snowy December morning in Washington , DC., the global football community descended on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—America’s cultural centre—to attend the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw.

While the stated purpose of the event is to outline the groupings for the teams participating in the 2026 men’s World Cup, set to be held in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, it was also a glitzy showcase like only America could produce. FIFA has booked a series of entertainers, including Andrea Bocelli, the Village People, Kevin Hart and “draw assistants” like Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, Wayne Gretzky, and Aaron Judge, adding a layer of showmanship that made the event feel closer to an awards ceremony than a procedural draw.

Yet beyond the medley of musical interludes, choreographed segments, and polished stagecraft, one particular moment stood out above the rest: the moment when FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced U.S. President Donald Trump as the winner of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

It was a strange decision on FIFA’s part. The organization’s own code of ethics demand a “duty of neutrality,” which means that FIFA officials were required to remain politically neutral when dealing with governmental institutions.” By offering a newly-created peace prize to the president of one of the host nations of the upcoming world cup, critics argued that FIFA had violated its own statutes, as well as its credibility.

FIFA framed the award as being given on behalf of more than five billion football fans worldwide, a sweeping claim meant to underscore the game’s unmatched audience and influence. Yet even as the applause echoed and the ceremony moved forward, a quieter question lingered in the background: by what process had this choice been made? No shortlist had been shared, no criteria beyond the broad mission statement had been detailed, and no voting mechanism had been explained.

Under Infantino, FIFA has become more centralized, its decision-making increasingly opaque and concentrated at the top. The FIFA Peace Prize, unveiled and awarded without any clear process, felt less like a global honour and more like a unilateral decree—an example of how power inside the organization is now exercised.

That approach is not happening in isolation. It aligns with the trajectory of the tournaments themselves. The 2030 World Cup will stretch across multiple locations, including Morocco, while 2034 is set for Saudi Arabia—hosts where image, authority, and centralized control are deeply embedded in how major events are staged.

So what can we do about it?

Listen to Ep. 5 of Power Plays to find out.

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Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription (or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

In the years leading up to the 2022 World Cup, the global spotlight was trained relentlessly on Qatar’s ambitious preparations. Stadiums rose from the desert. Roads, hotels, and metros were built. But behind the gleaming infrastructure lay a workforce of hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers—workers whose stories rarely made the front pages.

Amid this backdrop was Abdullah Ibhais, a Jordanian communications expert in his mid‑30s, a father of two young boys, and at one time a rising staffer within the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the Qatari government body responsible for planning and delivering the World Cup. In 2019, his role involved managing media messaging about Qatar’s preparations, giving him an unusually close view of both the organization’s inner workings and the darker realities behind the World Cup build‑up.

Ibhais’s story did not begin in opposition to the World Cup—it began with a growing awareness of labour issues and a conviction that the truth mattered. In August 2019, tens of thousands of migrant workers employed on World Cup–related projects staged a strike in Doha after months of unpaid wages, confiscated passports, and harsh living conditions. Videos of demonstration lines and chanting men circulated online. Workers claimed they were building stadiums and fan accommodations for the World Cup, and their grievances could no longer be ignored.

Inside the Supreme Committee, Ibhais became one of the few voices urging transparency. Rather than deny the workers’ connections to World Cup projects, he argued, the organisation should publicly acknowledge the situation and focus on securing redress for the workers—especially since failure to do so risked fuelling global criticism at a time when international rights groups were already scrutinising conditions on construction sites. But his advocacy quickly drew unwelcome attention.

On 12 November 2019, Qatari State Security officers arrested Ibhais at a security office in northern Doha. He was 33 years old. His family later said authorities confiscated his electronic devices and interrogated him for days. According to Amnesty International documentation, he was not allowed effective legal counsel during his early questioning and was pressured into signing a “confession.”

The official charges were a dramatic departure from labour issues. Ibhais was accused of “misuse of public funds,” “bribery,” “collusion,” and “intentional damage to public funds”—allegations linked to a dispute over a tender for social media services within the Supreme Committee. Although his family and advocates insisted the charges were fabricated in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of migrant conditions, authorities maintained the case was about corruption and finance.

What followed was a sham of a trial.

During one appeal hearing, Qatar’s courts upheld his conviction despite the fact that his original “confession”—the prosecution’s central piece of evidence—had been retracted, with Ibhais claiming it was extracted under duress and without a lawyer present. Human Rights Watch noted that the court failed to investigate his allegations of coercion, effectively accepting the confession at face value. His sentence was eventually reduced on appeal to three years’ imprisonment, but only after he had already spent much of that time in custody and under travel ban restrictions. Human‑rights advocates emphasized that the real reason for his detention appeared to be precisely what he had warned about: pressure to spin the narrative around migrant worker abuses rather than confront them.

While Ibhais was in prison, his case galvanized international attention. In July 2024, a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that his detention was arbitrary and called for his immediate release and compensation, citing violations of his right to a fair trial and suggesting his prosecution was linked to his criticism of migrant conditions rather than genuine criminal conduct. The ruling pointed to alleged threats, physical abuse during interrogation, and coercion to secure a confession as central concerns.

At various points during his imprisonment, his family issued public appeals calling on FIFA to act on his behalf. In a letter made public during his detention, his relatives argued that FIFA’s silence and lack of intervention made the sport’s governing body “responsible for his life, safety and well‑being,” noting that he had been targeted only after internal criticism of how workers’ protests were handled. Remarkably, Ibhais’s ordeal continued even after high‑profile documentaries and journalistic exposés drew global scrutiny. In some accounts, his family and rights groups alleged he was mistreated and even tortured, including being held in darkness and extreme conditions as punishment for participating in media projects that exposed labour abuses. These allegations were denied by Qatari authorities, who maintained the charges and trial were lawful, but they underscored how contentious and politically charged his case had become internationally.

By 2025, Ibhais had been released after roughly three years in detention, but his fight was far from over. In interviews with outlets such as Forbes, he declared his intention to sue both FIFA and the Supreme Committee, arguing that his punishment was a direct consequence of speaking up about labour abuses and that both organizations had failed to protect him despite knowing the risks he faced.

Beyond the specifics of his own case, Ibhais’s story became emblematic of broader tensions around freedom of expression, labour rights, and accountability in the context of the World Cup. Ibhais was also supposed to speak at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum in June but had his passport confiscated by Jordanian officials at Qatar’s behest, emphasizing the Gulf state’s continued efforts at transnational repression.

Here are some of the details, as published by the Human Rights Foundation:

On May 10, 2026, Jordanian authorities at Queen Alia International Airport detained Ibhais for nearly three hours upon his return from speaking at Nordic Media Days in Bergen, Norway. Officials questioned him extensively about his public engagements, confiscated his passport, and summoned him to the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) headquarters in Amman.

During multiple subsequent visits to the GID headquarters to retrieve his passport, authorities subjected Ibhais to prolonged questioning by unidentified officers. He was informed that a previous understanding allowing him to discuss his arbitrary detention in Qatar was being revoked. Authorities instructed him to cancel all planned public engagements, including his upcoming participation at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and to cease all commentary regarding Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, his personal legal case, and the conditions of migrant workers.

The interrogations heavily centered on his public advocacy. Officers accused him of misrepresenting his treatment in Qatari custody and repeatedly dismissed the findings of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had previously ruled his imprisonment in Qatar as arbitrary and a violation of international law.

Authorities then pressured Ibhais to sign a written pledge committing to total public silence regarding Qatar. Following his refusal, officers warned of a potential travel ban, prolonged administrative detention, and blacklisting. They threatened to charge him with “disturbing relations with a brotherly country” and ensure that he would spend seven years in prison.

Despite being unable to travel in person, Ibhais still appeared remotely to deliver his speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum.

Listen to Ep. 4 of Power Plays to learn more about Ibhais’ case.

Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription (or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

On December 2, 2010, inside FIFA headquarters in Zurich, the organization’s executive committee voted to award the 2018 FIFA World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.

It was the first time the World Cup would be staged in Eastern Europe and in the Arab Gulf. It was also the first time that the world’s most prestigious mega-event would be held in back-to-back authoritarian states, altering the trajectory of world football for a generation.

To understand how Russia secured the World Cup, one must first understand the system that made it possible, including the man at the organization’s helm: Sepp Blatter.

Born in Visp, Switzerland in 1936, Blatter joined FIFA in 1975 after a varied career that included roles as head of public relations for the tourist board of Visp, as well as general secretary of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation. He became FIFA president in 1998, succeeding Havelange after spending 17 years as FIFA’s general secretary.

Following in Havelange’s footsteps, Blatter consolidated authority within an organization already criticized for patronage politics. He expanded development funding to smaller federations, building loyalty across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

But the same centralized power that fuelled FIFA’s growth also cultivated corruption. By the early 2000s, accusations of bribery and vote-buying were common. The 2010 vote awarding the World Cups to Russia and Qatar became a flashpoint. Critics pointed to Russia’s limited infrastructure at the time, concerns about governance and human rights, and the scale of investment required.

In 2015, just three years before Russia’s tournament, U.S. authorities unsealed sweeping indictments against FIFA officials in a corruption probe. Several executives were arrested in Zurich. Although Blatter initially survived, he resigned soon after amid mounting pressure and was later banned from football for ethics violations.

By the time Russia hosted in 2018, the man who had presided over its selection was gone but the political architecture he built remained intact, ready to be manipulated by one of the world’s most cunning and ruthless autocrats.

Sport, too, became central to Putin’s vision for a post-Soviet Russia. Mega-events like the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi offered an unprecedented platform to celebrate Putin’s Russia—an enormous showcase of infrastructure and spectacle. It worked, with the world celebrating Russia’s return to the liberal order.

Four days after the closing ceremony for the 2014 Winter Games, Russian soldiers began their military operation to annex Crimea, then international recognized as part of Ukraine.

The annexation of Crimea put an end to much of the goodwill that Russia had received from hosting the Winter Games. Western sanctions crippled its economy; diplomatic expulsions followed as Russia faced strained relations with much of Europe and the United States.

It was precisely in this climate of Cold-War esque geopolitical tension that Russia began preparing to host the 2018 World Cup.

Russia committed roughly $11–12 billion to stadium construction, transportation upgrades, and urban development across 11 host cities, from Kaliningrad on the Baltic to Yekaterinburg near the Urals. New stadiums rose in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and beyond. Airports were renovated. High-speed rail lines improved connections.

Russian authorities sought to counter narratives of isolation and authoritarianism by presenting a welcoming, efficient, culturally vibrant nation. State media emphasized hospitality. Visa-free Fan IDs simplified travel. Volunteers were trained to greet foreigners warmly.

But skepticism remained. International outlets questioned Russia’s human rights record, its anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and the threat posed by organized hooligan groups. Several Russian host cities faced international criticism over reports that authorities were killing stray dogs in an effort to present a cleaner image to visiting fans.

Russia also moved to rein in one of its most notorious subcultures: organized football hooliganism. Russian fan groups had drawn international scrutiny after violent clashes with England supporters at Euro 2016 in Marseille, fueling concerns that similar disorder could erupt on home soil. Determined to avoid embarrassment during a tournament meant to showcase a modern, controlled Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government adopted a far tougher stance. Authorities expanded surveillance, imposed travel bans on known troublemakers, strengthened stadium security laws, and worked closely with security services to monitor extremist fan networks.

The crackdown reflected a broader pattern in Putin’s governance—permitting displays of aggressive patriotism when useful, but swiftly suppressing them when they threatened state control or international prestige.

The World Cup had thus become an exercise in soft power.

Listen to Episode 3 of Power Plays on your favourite podcast platform now.

Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription (or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber. We are currently offering 60% off annual subscriptions to celebrate Sports Politika’s third anniversary. Don’t miss out!

Get 60% off forever

The 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico arrived at a moment when Brazil was living two parallel realities.

On one side stood the most luminous national football team the world had ever seen: a Seleção whose fluid, joyous style felt like an expression of freedom itself. On the other stood a military dictatorship that had seized power in 1964 and, by the end of the decade, hardened into one of the most repressive regimes in Latin America. Football became the bridge between those realities.

General Emílio Garrastazu Médici, who assumed the presidency in 1969, understood that football was Brazil’s closest equivalent to a secular faith, capable of commanding loyalty that politics alone could not. That belief shaped his courtship of Pelé and his approach to the 1970 World Cup. Brazil’s eventual victory proved that football could polish authoritarian power.

By the time the 1978 World Cup began, Argentina was deep into the Dirty War. The military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in 1976 and unleashed a campaign of systematic terror. Tens of thousands were abducted into a network of detention centers where torture and execution were routine. Yet Argentina had been awarded the World Cup long before the coup, and the generals quickly recognized its value. Football was declared a matter of “national interest,” and the regime worked relentlessly to present Argentina as stable, modern, and united.

When Argentina won the final against the Netherlands, the image that lingered was not just Daniel Passarella lifting the trophy, but Videla standing beside him. FIFA president João Havelange handed the cup to the dictator, who then passed it to his players—a symbolic chain that emphasized FIFA’s role in propping up these military regimes.

Since being elected FIFA President in 1974, Havelange set about changing FIFA’s internal culture. Instead of following the ethos of Jules Rimet, who prized the dignity of sport, Havelange—the son of an arms dealer—was far more transactional. He prized loyalty, discretion, and deal-making over transparency. In that environment, authoritarian regimes made for excellent bedfellows.

In those years, football crossed a threshold. It remained a game capable of beauty and transcendence, but it also became a tool of statecraft, propaganda, and institutional power. The cheers were real. The goals were real. But so was the silence that surrounded them—and the structures that learned how to use it.

Listen to Episode 2 of Power Plays to learn more about this pivotal time in FIFA history.

Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription (or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber. We are currently offering 60% off annual subscriptions to celebrate Sports Politika’s third anniversary. Don’t miss out!

Get 60% off forever

At the turn of the twentieth century, football was still a young, malleable thing.

Its rules had only recently been standardized in Britain, and even then they varied from place to place. The game was slower and more physical. There were no substitutes, muddy pitches were the norm, and tactics were childishly simple by modern standards. Footballers were often workers first and athletes second—dockhands, factory laborers, clerks—playing for civic pride.

The world that surrounded the game was also changing. Industrialization had torn people from villages and traditions, pushing them into dense cities where older forms of community, such as the church, were weakening. Empires were crumbling The First World War was looming, eager to demonstrate that modernity could annihilate millions with exceptional efficiency. In this environment, football became more than a pastime. It offered rhythm in a chaotic age, a shared calendar of matches and rivalries, and a collective emotional escape.

By the 1920s, football had become a language that crossed class and literacy barriers. For nations newly formed or newly traumatized by war, football offered a way to imagine themselves as coherent, disciplined, and worthy. International football, too, was still in its adolescence. Founded in 1904, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was a fragile and largely administrative body that lacked both the authority and the financial independence it would later acquire.

Even the World Cup was itself an experiment. And no one understood the implications of this moment better—or earlier—than Benito Mussolini.

When his Black Shirts seized power in 1922, Mussolini recognized that mass politics in the twentieth century required mass spectacle. Consent had to be manufactured emotionally, not just enforced violently. Sport, and football in particular, offered an unparalleled vehicle. It mobilized crowds without coercion, loyalty without argument, and pride without explanation.

The fascist regime set about transforming Italy into a “sports nation.” Football stadiums were built as monumental public spaces designed to awe the masses. Mussolini carefully cultivated his own image as a virile sportsman, embodying the hypermasculinity of the fascist “new Italian.” In 1937, the French magazine Vu famously placed a shirtless Mussolini on its cover beneath the headline “Mussolini: Sporting Dictator,” capturing the fusion of power, body, and spectacle that defined his rule.

When FIFA awarded Italy the right to host the 1934 World Cup, Mussolini immediately grasped what FIFA’s own leadership barely understood: that the tournament could be more powerful than any diplomatic summit. The World Cup was not merely a sporting competition; it was a stage—a stage to present the power of fascism.

Listen to Episode 1 of Power Plays for more about the 1934 World Cup.

Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription ( or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber. We are currently offering 60% off annual subscriptions to celebrate Sports Politika’s third anniversary. Don’t miss out!

Get 60% off forever

I’m delighted to announce the launch of Power Plays, a narrative audio series focusing on the intersection of sports, politics, and authoritarianism.

Season 1 looks at how authoritarian regimes use FIFA’s showpiece event, the World Cup, to tighten their grip on power. Broken down into five episodes, this first season will feature some of the most renowned voices in global football, including historians and renowned authors Jonathan Wilson and David Goldblatt, as well as dissidents like 2022 World Cup whistleblower Abdullah Ibhais and Pussy Riot member Nika Nikulshina.

From Mussolini’s fascist Italy in 1934 to the bloodstained grip of Argentina’s military junta in 1978; from Putin’s kleptocratic police state in Russia, 2018, to Qatar in 2022, the glittering Gulf monarchy erected on the toil and suffering of migrant workers, we leave no stone unturned in our descent into the dark and dirty underbelly of World Cup history. We also look ahead to this year’s World Cup, as well as those in 2030 and 2034, when the World Cup heads to Saudi Arabia.

Power Plays was created by me, Karim Zidan, and Elie Bleier. It was produced by Elie Bleier and Robert Scarammucia, and is presented by the Human Rights Foundation.

The series will begin airing on Thursday, May 21, 2026 and will conclude on June 10, 2026, right before the start of the 2026 World Cup.

Subscribe now on your favourite podcast platform to never miss an episode!

Sports Politika is a media platform dedicated to the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription ( or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.