FIFA and the Three Little Pigs, by John Carlin

“Never fight a pig. You both get dirty and he will love it.” George Bernard Shaw

I have pigs in my head. I can’t stop thinking about them. The reasons are two. Tomorrow, Wednesday, I present a book, an allegorical comic that I made with the illustrator, and illustrated, Oriol Malet in which there are images of pigs everywhere; On the same day, FIFA announces the venue for the 2034 World Cup.

And the winner will be…Saudi Arabia!

Thank you. Oriol and I have material for another book in which pigs play the roles of human beings, this time about the organization that claims to represent “the values” of international football. We would call it, it occurs to me, ‘Like pigs to the trough’.

The pig in chief would be Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA. But we live in a time when celebrity is king and to ensure that the book sells we would need (with all due respect, Gianni) people better known than him.

Fortunately we have them on hand. They would be Leo Messi, Rafa Nadal and Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi is a tourism ambassador for Saudi Arabia, Nadal is a tennis ambassador, Ronaldo plays soccer in the Saudi league.

Nothing would have to be forced to accommodate them in the book. The three little pigs have a lot in common with FIFA. They are always hungry. They smell dollars, in this case petrodollars, and they start devouring them, as if their lives depended on it.

They smell dollars, in this case petrodollars, and they start devouring them as if their lives depended on it.

But for the fable to fulfill its satirical, that is, moral, objective, we would not only need bad guys, but also good guys.

We would look for characters, perhaps portrayed as camels, who would represent the tens of thousands of victims of the Saudi regime, a state with little football prestige but, in the field of repression, genuinely high class. World . An obvious candidate would be Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist dismembered in 2018 by hitmen of his country’s boss, Mohamed bin Salman. But I think we would leave Khashoggi alone: ​​there is nothing more to do for him, poor man.

We could also search among the more than one hundred foreigners that the guardians of the Islamic holy see have beheaded in the last year. But I would opt for a couple of women who are still alive (that is known): Salma al-Shehab and Manahel al-Otaibi, both Saudi citizens.

According to Amnesty International, Salma – 37 years old, dental hygienist, married with two children – was arrested in January 2021 for crimes officially related to terrorism, which in her case means having published tweets in favor of women’s rights. The following year the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, sentenced her to 34 years in prison.

Also according to Amnesty, and also for “terrorism”, the aforementioned court sentenced Manahel in January of this year to eleven years in prison. The crimes of Manahel, a 29-year-old physical education instructor, consisted of more tweets (where are you, Elon Musk?) in favor of women’s rights, as well as the publication of photos on Snapchat in which she wore Western clothing and not the black tunic down to the feet, the abaya, as God commands.

But hey, Manahel has an incentive to stay alive and healthy and behave well. Hopefully they will reduce his sentence by a year or two and he will be out of prison in time for the 2034 World Cup. This way he will be able to watch Messi and Ronaldo play, who will appear in wheelchairs, if necessary, in order to accumulate a few dollars further. Being an athlete, Manahel may also be interested in paying for a course at our beloved Rafa’s tennis academy on Saudi soil.

FIFA will soon confirm Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 World Cup

Salma will have it more complicated. But, as FIFA instructs us, we must not lose faith. In a report that evaluates the suitability of Saudi Arabia as a World Cup host, FIFA recognizes that progress in human rights “will require significant effort and time,” but holding the World Cup there could have “positive” results.

Meanwhile, a detail: today, December 10, is International Human Rights Day. What a fine idea for FIFA to celebrate it 24 hours later with the appointment of Saudi Arabia as host of the largest sporting event in the world! And what an occasion for Oriol and I to finish our hypothetical book with the entire cast of pigs on stage, wallowing in the mud under the disdainful gaze of Prince Bin Salman.

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