One day, while watching a football match between the national teams of Argentina and Italy on television, my grandmother Eulogia uttered a phrase that has stuck with us and become a source of amusement at every family gathering. With all her wisdom, Eulogia said, “I can’t understand how people can sit in a chair and waste two hours of their lives watching twenty-two millionaires run after a ball.”

​

Nothing is missing. In just a few more days, the whole world will "sit down" to watch a huge number of players from different nations "run after a ball" as they try to reach the closest thing to glory, regardless of the fact that outside that bubble called football, there are millions of deficiencies reflected in stories that have nothing to do with the colorful world they want the average person to believe in.

 

The FIFA organization's decision to include everyone led to the creation of a tournament with three additional organizers. Canada, Mexico, and the United States will host 48 teams of varying prominence in 16 cities, chosen arbitrarily to ensure no one is left out. It's worth noting that this will be the first time there have been so many participants and so many matches—104 games between qualifying rounds and the final stages. This is unprecedented since the first edition of the tournament was held in Uruguay in 1930.

 

Television rights, advertising, image rights, and a thousand other things add to the already exorbitant and shameful revenues that will be distributed among a select few. It's no coincidence that the increase in the number of participating countries is directly related to the revenue generated. More countries mean more global sales.

 

But as always happens, behind this inherently uneven competition, there is another world championship: that of poverty, disenchantment, and sloppiness, revealed by a reality that surpasses all expectations.

 

Countries devastated by poverty, by the uncertainty of their economies and by the uncertainty of what is to come; countries in a sadistic and brutal war that is destroying homes, buildings, schools, indelible memories and lives, thousands of lives of innocent people who obviously will not receive anything from football or from those who will fill their pockets with dirty money. 

​

Machiavellians of business and other people's interests, the powerful figures of the world we all know, will sit in the most comfortable seats of their suites and enjoy the glory or failure of their teams wearing polyester jerseys—durable and breathable, moisture-wicking and quick-drying—also blended with elastane for greater elasticity and comfort during the game, and with Dry-Fit fabrics to improve moisture evaporation. All this while ordinary people run desperately, their torsos bare, trying to dodge enemy bombs and salvage what few belongings they have left from the attacks of previous days, while others struggle to earn a little more money to make ends meet. The paradoxes of life.

Upon closer examination, it is immoral to hold such a competition in these times, but nobody cares, not even Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, and even less so the millionaires appointed by Grandma Eulogia, nor the presidents of the 48 participating countries, with Donald Trump at the helm.