E124: [TEASER] Fireside Chat - World Cup of Chaos

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Hi everyone. As you might know, we don't get any
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little preview of our latest Patreon only episode. You can
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As we come Margin Martin and the Beauty of the Day,
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A million dark in kitchens, one thousand mil last gray
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are branden by the Beauty is Sun Sun disclosers and
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the table baden Roses, red and Roses.
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And what's happening here, obviously, is that the World Cup
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is the golden goose of the sports news. Of how
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much people are aware. I mean, if listeners from the UK,
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obviously they'll know instinctively. If it's listeners in the US,
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it might need a little bit more explaining, but nothing
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on Earth compares to it. As far as the money
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it moves, the capital behind it, the viewership that it has,
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not the Olympics, not the Super Bowl, nothing. It is
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far and away the largest sporting event on Earth, and
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in this case because there's more matches, more teams. In
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the history of sports and capital, as we know, and
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I'm not going to get into a big Marxist analysis
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of it, here is insatiable. It's always looking for more profit,
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for more revenue streams, for all of these things. And
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so you know it's very simple. A longer World Cup
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with more participants and more matches simply means more revenue
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and more potential for more revenue. And I'm not just
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talking about broadcasting rights or spectators. It's also you know,
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every single event today in capital society is a commodity.
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And everywhere where we lay our eyes, you know, there's
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assets as they're called to be sold. There's field boards,
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there's branding, there's a million different ways to monetize it,
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and they are hell bent on maximizing those. That said,
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and also here, you know, we could go to the
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Marxist the last capitalist will hang with the rope he
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sold us. You know, they're cannibalizing the product, and I
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think capital can't help itself because if the World Cup
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has the audience and the passion behind it that it has,
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it's because of its characteristics. One of them was, Okay,
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it's this kind of marquee event that only a few
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countries participate in. You know, every match has meaning, every
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match is worth watching. That's one aspect of it. And
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the other is the atmosphere.
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Be it if you.
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Watch it on TV and you kind of soak it up,
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or if you're there in person. The atmosphere was often incredible.
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It was often several thousand of very dedicated people who
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made lots of sacrifices to be able to be there,
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and that was reflected in the passion with which they
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experienced the event. Fast forward to today, where tickets are
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costing it's like six seven hundred dollars for like the
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lowest category in a random first round match up to
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I think the final is going for ten fifteen thousand dollars.
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I was checking because you know, why not any Argentina
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match first round upper bowl seats you're looking at like
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two thousand dollars upwards, Just so we're clear. In two
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thousand and six, I was paying like twenty euros for tickets. Wow,
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and even and we'll get to it. I don't want
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to jump around, but I went to the final in Qatar.
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That's crazy.
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There's a huge investment for me, in a huge sacrifice,
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and I had to beg and plead with the guy
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selling me the ticket on a random street corner. Hey,
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I'm not negotiating with This is all the money I
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have in the world. Please, for the love of God,
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take it. But still, I paid fifteen hundred dollars for
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a ticket to the World Cup final that doesn't even
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get through the door to see Argentina Algeria and FIFA
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brazenly saying, oh, we're adapting to the cultural norms of
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our host country because in the US ticket reselling is legal.
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So I have no doubt that the reason no tickets
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are available and the resale is all these obscene prices
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is because speculators have soaked up a large part of
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the inventory and are speculating with selling them for thousands dollars. Likewise,
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I'm convinced it's not gonna fly. Either the prices come
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down close to match time or they're gonna have situations
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like they did during the World the Club World Cup,
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which is half empty stadiums. Switzerland plays Qatar in San Francisco.
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You cannot convince me that you're gonna find sixty thousand
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plus people in San Francisco willing to pay one thousand
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dollars to see Switzerland versus Katar. Yeah, you know, but
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being the point is they're making it into an event
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for Richmond. Obviously the price eventry. You know, working class
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people and regular fans are being priced out. So if
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you a water down the product, I hate to say product,
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but that's how the yave you it. If you water
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down the product as far as the quality, and if
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you exclude those who have brought the passion in the
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atmosphere from the stadium and the surroundings, not to mention
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that it's in the United States of America and Trump
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Land and not exactly a welcoming place for foreigners, tourists
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and immigrants. I can imagine that in a few World
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Cups from now, this will no longer generate in people
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the kind of passion and interest that it does, and
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so capital by maximizing product will kill the golden goose.
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Do you also, I sometimes think about it from a
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labor rights perspective thinking of the players as workers, which
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obviously is finding in the sense that you know, these
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are like multimillionaires, so they're obviously still much better paid
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workers than like ninety nine point nine nine nine percent
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of the workers on this planet. But I was wondering
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because this World Cup will have more games and will
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be longer. It's like ten days longer than the last
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World Cup, and in general, you know, I know, in
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Europe they've been doing these Nations League matches which were
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friendlies now have some sort of jeopardy in it in
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terms of how you get seeded or something like that.
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I don't know if you have the same thing in
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South America. But basically, to a certain extent, there is
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also just too much football to be played by these footballers,
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and you know, sometimes they do just look a little
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bit leggy, like, oh, they look a bit tired. They
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look a bit like they've played too many games. And
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you can see it in the players who you know,
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maybe as well as playing in their league and the
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cup competition and maybe like a you know, a European
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or a continental kind of cup competition, and then playing
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the friendlies which aren't quite friendlies anymore. And then coming
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to an even longer World Cup. There's a bit of
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me that I sometimes wonder if, like, the quality of
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the quote unquote product is also diminished, not just in
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terms of having so many teams in it, but just
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also that the players themselves will be knacked. I don't
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know if that's something that you think as well, If
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that's just something that's in my head particularly.
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No, but it's not in your head. It's it's not
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an opinion, it's a objective, quantifiable reality. Again, in the
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pursuit of maximizing profit, the schedule being in South America
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or Europe is much more jam packed than it used
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to be in the past. Players have more matches than
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they used to, they have less downtime, and the way
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to measure that also, one of the ways is there's
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an epidemic of injuries, some of over injuries and lack
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of rest injuries. And obviously, like you mentioned, yeah, far
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be it from me to be like, oh, the poor millionaires.
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What people often forget is that the top paid players
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that we see, who are in fact multimillionaires, are only
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the tip of the sphere of the professionals of that
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profession and the other ninety percent who play who have
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lower contracts, even on some of the first division teams
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or who play in the lower divisions are workers. Obviously.
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They're workers who you know, are fortunate enough to have
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jobs people would do and only have to you know,
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work quote unquote two three four hours a day and
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they get to work at what they love. All of
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that great good for them. Their relationship is still the same.
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They're a person who sells their labor value exchange for
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money in order to survive in society. And most of them,
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I know, the case of second and third division in
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Argentina very very well. These are people who make slightly
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above minimum wage and you know, an injury for them
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is a very serious issue that could impede them getting
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a contractor in you or being signed by another team.
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And then suddenly they're twenty four, twenty five, twenty six
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years old. They've done nothing else every day of their
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life but kick around the little ball. They have no
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savings because you know, what are you going to save
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on essentially minimum wage, and suddenly they can no longer
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be professional football players.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it was for a million reasons, but overpacked calendar
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is one of them. I've actually been to every World
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Cup from nineteen ninety four ninety four, included through Qatar
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twenty twenty two, with the exception of Korea, Japan in
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two thousand and two and twenty fourteen in Brazil, which
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sounds counterintuitive, but there I would have to refer us
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back to my whole anarchist militant thing. So I was
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going through a disagreement or two with a state here
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or there and was not food to travel very much,
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to my dismay. But aside from that, I've actually been
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to all of them. There I also have to make
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a clarification. That's why I made it a point to
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point out that I lived outside of Argentina for large
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parts of my life during my youth, so it originally
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wasn't me going to the World Cup. It was the
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World Cup who used to come to me, which I
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thought was very thoughtful of it. In nineteen ninety four,
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I lived in the US and I happened to live
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in one of the cities where Argentina played, so that
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was very convenient. Because I was a child, I couldn't
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go to any World Cup roots. In nineteen ninety eight
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I lived in Paris, France, and so there too. I mean,
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that was some kind of miracle. And in two thousand
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and six I lived in Germany and it was for me,
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it was this miracle in which this thing that I
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missed so much, this kind of fan group thing and
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this passion and the atmosphere around Argentine stadiums, it would
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magically land in my backyard four years for a month.
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It was incredible, and not only land in my backyard,
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but it kind of landed in an even maybe improved
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way because in Argentina, and again I want to be
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careful about not romanticizing or whitewashing the men hit many
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negative aspects of football. Supporter called sure. You know, I
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often had this thing, especially with our neighborhood clubs. You
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know a lot of these neighborhoods were you're kind of
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they were all the same. They were your typical like
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working class or you could call it like maybe middle class.
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People call it middle class, but they used to be
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in the city center or whatever. But anyways, the point
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is all these neighborhood were pretty much the same, and
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the cultural and socialground of the young kids who made
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up the different fan groups of the different clubs were
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also the same, and yet they hated each other because
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they had a different jersey and you know, lived twenty
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blocks further down the avenue than the other one, and
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would literally attack each other with molotovs or I don't know.
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It was ridiculous, and yet when the World Cup came
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around there was always this truce. Suddenly we were all friends,
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and that I found much more agreeable and much more
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logical than us hating each other for no good reason.
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The other thing was that for us, or when I
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started attending World Cubs, England and the Marinas slash Foklands
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war was really present in the Argentine collective imagination, and
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so was eighty six and the clashes with the British
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hooligans in Mexico. Honestly, my first World Cup memories that
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I really take one is ninety four, which is I
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remember seeing the nurse take Madalona by the hand kind
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of and walk him off the field and everything. Oh,
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what a sweet moment, only to later learn he was
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going to the drug testing and would test positive and
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everything that came after that. I remember that moment. But
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my strongest memories are from World Cup ninety eight, when
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Argentina played England for the first time since the eighty
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six match and the hand of God and the greatest
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goal in history. That and the clashes with the hooligans.
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And of course this wasn't Mexico, this was France.
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It was right over you. It was much.
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Easier for British people to get there than it was
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for us. And I remember a the match which was
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incredible and went to extra time and Piquets and I
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thought I was gonna die right there. And I remember
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most of all though, the clashes after the match with
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the British hooligans and thinking, oh, there's like a thousand
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of them for every one of us, we're all gonna
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die here. But we actually made links with the North
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African immigrant youth because you know, the hooligans were pretty
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racist and ephobic and not really good at making friends
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with other people. They had made enemies of all the
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North African youths, which there's one of these was lots
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of in France back then, And there was this kind
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of instinctive and again I don't want to romanticize it,
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but there was this instinctive like anti imperialist solidarity thing,
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like oh, the Argentines they fought the British they had
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a war with them, they fought them in the eighties,
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they all sort of like I remember Scotland was in
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that World Cup as well, and the Scottish fans loved us.
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But do you know it's such funny is that. Like
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remember so many times in my life I would have
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conversations with other England fans and they would be like, oh,
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it's really weird. Yeah, you know, whenever we see Scotland
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or Ireland in the World Cup and we're not playing,
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you know, we always hope they do well, but they
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never want us to win. What's that about? And it's
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just like, man, just read a fucking book, you know,
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especially with Ireland fans, just like the idea that England
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fans have no idea why Ireland fans might not like them,
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you know, it might not support the English team, you know,
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it's that. But we're we're local to them. What's the problem.
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But so you were saying about these clashes with English religans.
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So it was those were my first memories.
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And again it was even I who lived there.
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I was young.
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We made huge sacrifices. I slept in the streets during
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World Cup ninety eight because the matches weren't in Paris,
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where I lived, and I might need for it anything
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but the ticket. So going to those World Cups it
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00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:07.440
became this joint, oddysty that every four years was a
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break from what was otherwise a life of very committed,
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very disciplined anarchists organizing and work. It was like, I
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don't know, but for one month every four years, we
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all have our contradictions. Other people smoke, other people drink.
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I have this I don't know, don't give me a
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sh about it, deal with it. And when the World
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Cup stopped coming to me, I was like, all right,
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how can I get there? So in twenty ten, again
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I still lived in Germany. I didn't have that much money,
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but I saw an advertisement, and Argentina always has these
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like super like tear jerking, emotional passionate advertisements, probably by
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like the National Beer Company or whatever, or in this case,
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I think it was the sports channel, like the ESPN
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of Argentina. I lived in Germany. I saw the ad
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on YouTube of all places, and I was like, what
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00:16:57.759 --> 00:16:59.440
am I not going? How can I not go? We
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00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:04.640
love our minds? And I went out alone at the bank.
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I convinced them that it was to finance, a small
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00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:13.039
business idea that I had. As soon as I got
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00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:15.839
the money, I was like, what's money. I'll figure it
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00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:19.079
out later. And I got a ticket from my son
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and I, you know, with the cheapest flight we could
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probably we went from like Frankfurt to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Nairobi,
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Nairobi to Johannesburg.
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Froud halfway across the world.
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Got there, lived literally in somebody's backyard shed. It was
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a literal wooden shed in somebody's backyard. We might as
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well have been their dogs. But you know, the World
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Cup did give me and I know this has nothing
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to do with politics, has nothing to do with but
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it gave me these incredible life experiences as part of
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this collective pursuit of this national obsession, which was winning
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another war copy I'm never gonna forget. We were in
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00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:07.000
Cape Town before the match against Germany, which we went
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on to lose four zero, by the way, and there
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00:18:09.839 --> 00:18:12.160
was a guy I started chatting with and he's like, no,
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I just got here. And I was like to Cape
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and I said no, South Africa. I was like, oh,
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how did you say no? I sold my taxi.
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Me? What?
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Yeah, yeah, I you know, I felt like this is
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the one and we're finally gonna win again, and with
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Madlona on the bench, and I had to beat there
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and I just and I remember describing I didn't want
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to bring him down from this very nice moment that
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we were having by the water outside of the st
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00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:40.920
the match, drinking beer. It was all great. I really
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00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:42.799
don't remember if I asked him. I was like, but
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00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.880
do you not live from that taxi? But I'm pretty
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sure the answer is yes, yeah, yeah, you know obviously
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lost for zero, so.
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Yeah, that's really that's bad, you know, to sell your
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livelihood just to come halfway across the world and watch
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your team get beaten, full nail.
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But there's stories like that, Like that, you can imagine
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how many of all we would eat once a day
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and only eat porridge at night. And we you know,
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there's even a banner that has been to a few
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World Cups that says, you know, money and fear or
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two things we never had.
333
00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:17.119
Yeah, yeah, and there's tons of those.
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00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:20.960
And then again in my case, it's until the spell breaks.
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00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:24.400
And I remember also as soon as we lost for zero,
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and I had been planning, oh, how do we get
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00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:29.559
to I think Durban, which was where the semi was
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00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:32.519
going to be. Suddenly we lost, and I remember thinking,
339
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:36.680
what in the hell I am at the little furthest
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00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:41.480
corner of Africa. I don't have money for this. What
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00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:44.960
am I doing here? I have to be at work? Crazy?
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00:19:45.079 --> 00:19:48.720
How did I get here? So, yeah, I remember a
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00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:51.400
similar failure. So I've only been to one World Cup
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and that was the one in Germany in two thousand
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00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.200
and six. And again it was a thing, you know.
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I remember me and some friends. We were young, like twenties,
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00:20:01.079 --> 00:20:04.200
you know, we were just like the work up is
348
00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:07.519
right here, a short flight over, you know, let's just
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go and yeah, like you you know, we were sleeping
350
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:14.640
in parks and train stations and things like that, and
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I remember there being this quality of not being real life,
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00:20:19.839 --> 00:20:23.480
you know, everyone is basically having like a permanent party.
353
00:20:24.039 --> 00:20:26.599
And I remember there was like a group about ten
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00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:30.599
of us, all just getting like trains and buses from
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00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:35.079
one place to another, sleeping in you know, whatever train
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00:20:35.119 --> 00:20:37.880
station or wherever we can find washing in like a
357
00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:41.480
sink in like a university of toilet or whatever. And
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00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:43.960
I remember we got chatting to this woman once on
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the train and obviously you know, we looked a mess,
360
00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:50.359
you know, all of us and not having washed properly
361
00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:53.319
in days, and she was just like was really friendly.
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And then after a while of chatting to it, I
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00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:58.359
just come back to mine and like, you can all
364
00:20:58.359 --> 00:21:02.160
have showers and that, and then showers turned into her
365
00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:04.960
and her husband cooked us all dinner, and then before
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00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.119
we knew it, we were all like rolling out our
367
00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:10.359
sleeping bags on her living room floor and stay in
368
00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:12.759
the night and it was like the first night's sleep
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00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:16.559
indoors that we'd had in so long. Yeah, there was
370
00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:19.880
just this really nice quality to just, you know, your
371
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:23.319
sort of meeting people were like playing five a side
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00:21:23.319 --> 00:21:26.559
football matches with just like random groups of fans from
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00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:29.200
other places. Oh yeah, yeah, we did that and that
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was really really nice. And then yeah, I remember we
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I think it was a quarter finals We played Portugal
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and we lost on penalties, and just immediately like bang,
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the atmosphere just changed and got really nasty. And actually,
378
00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:47.039
like I still have to this day, like a really
379
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:51.200
sort of ambivalent relationship to the English national team, partly
380
00:21:51.240 --> 00:21:55.000
because like the stuff that I saw after with England
381
00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:59.799
fans and just huge groups of guys just all chanting
382
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:03.519
racist chance and just being like bloody hell, like this
383
00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:06.759
is really grim and everything has just gotten nasty. Now.
384
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:10.119
It didn't help that my bag had been stolen, so
385
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:13.400
not only did we lose on penalties, but then when
386
00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:16.519
I went to collect my bag, it had been stolen. Luckily,
387
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:19.119
I had my passport in one pocket and my wallet
388
00:22:19.160 --> 00:22:21.960
in the other, but all my clothes, everything like that
389
00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:25.680
was all gone my sleeping bag and so me and
390
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:31.799
some friends hitchhiked back to the UK and I slept
391
00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:35.920
in like these bin liners that one of my friends
392
00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:39.240
had basically wore these bin liners like a sleeping bag,
393
00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:42.039
and that was kind of how I got home. But yeah,
394
00:22:42.119 --> 00:22:45.039
so that feeling of like as soon as your team
395
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:47.559
loses and as soon as you know you're going home,
396
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.200
the atmosphere just changes completely and it becomes not a
397
00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:54.720
party so much, but just kind of like a shock
398
00:22:55.359 --> 00:22:58.799
into reality, all the knowledge that you're going back into
399
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:00.759
the real world. And I don't know if you know
400
00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:04.720
English football chants very well, but there's one that I
401
00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:08.119
really feel captures it, which is where they always see it.
402
00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:11.279
So please don't take me home, and it goes please
403
00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:13.400
don't take me home, because I just don't want to
404
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:16.440
go to work, and it just it captures what the
405
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.319
football bubble feels like. And then that feeling that you're
406
00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:24.000
slowly being dragged out of it and back into the
407
00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:27.160
normal world is like one that you meet with just
408
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:31.119
terror and apprehension. Yeah, I don't know. I guess the
409
00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:35.440
other thing I wanted to ask was about any particular
410
00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:38.920
favorite World Cups that you have, either that you were
411
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:41.400
attended or that you watched from home.
412
00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:44.960
Yes, And I do want to circle back real quick
413
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:48.039
because I'm sure again a lot of listeners who don't
414
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:50.640
have this weak spot maybe for football for the World
415
00:23:50.680 --> 00:23:52.640
Cup that I or we do, we're going to be like, yeah,
416
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:54.920
but everything you're talking about is if it was this
417
00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:56.960
great thing is the experience of a tourist who goes
418
00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:59.319
to your place to being gentrified and where you know,
419
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:02.200
the local poppy relation is suffering the consequences of this event,
420
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:04.599
you know, which is the case in South Africa for
421
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.640
example as well. I'm well aware of that. Again, it's
422
00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:11.440
not something that can be glossed over or not. There
423
00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:14.279
is no correct life within capitalism. It's all a matter
424
00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:17.440
of degrees of concession and which ones, you know, we're
425
00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:19.960
willing to make and which ones we aren't, So in
426
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:23.440
this vein of hey, just do the thing and then
427
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:25.319
you'll be happy about it for the rest of your life,
428
00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:28.880
and the immediate economic problem might eventually be a memory.
429
00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:32.279
So eventually I had to flee Germany because of my
430
00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:36.160
anti fascist engagement, never to return, and so the bank
431
00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:38.759
ended up financing my trip to South Africa, which I
432
00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:43.200
thought was an elegant way for that to be resolved
433
00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:45.359
and ended. And you know, to this day, I'm sure
434
00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:46.920
it's on some banks books somewhere.
435
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:54.200
Good as we come much and Martin in the beauty
436
00:24:54.279 --> 00:24:55.039
of the day.
437
00:24:55.720 --> 00:24:57.880
That brings us to the end of this episode. Preview
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00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:00.039
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439
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:03.400
our work researching and promoting people's history, join us on
440
00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:07.559
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00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:08.519
in the show notes