Re: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread
China is a totalitarian dump, and food has nothing to do with it. Read, for example, the monstrous story about Peng Shuai - this tennis player (moreover, world-famous) simply disappeared when she accused an official of sexual violence. Imagine what happens to ordinary people there. I don't think there should be any international competition in shitty countries like China.
If FIFA agrees that the internal politics of a country immediately disqualify it to be a host, then I can say it is fair to reconsider China. In those cases still I would like to see the World Cup be host in the closest location to the Chinese culture, Taiwan is highly democratic and free but the political tensions between China and Taiwan would also disqualify it, some people would not feel safe being there and I do not know if a country like Vietnam or Mongolia has the economical resources to invest them in hosting an important event like that...
Politics suck and it creeped its way into global sports at a scale that for a long time has been overlooked too much or not realized by the masses. Now that we have all the media at hand where we can inform ourselves from all kinds of sources, it is obvious that sports is not primarily about sports, it is primarily about politics I am referring to the big events here like the World Cup or the European Cup. In national sports there is also politics involved, but by far not as much as it is internationally.
There has to be a fine line between judging the host for political circumstances and the ability to actually host an event of that magnitude. But to be serious here, the hope that a host could change their political approach or put tensions with their enemies to rest because sports is supposed to help pacify conflicts, that is a myth. We have seen that with Russia when they hosted the World Cup in 2018 and four years later it rained bombs on Ukraine's civilization.
