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Journalism of Courage
The dream haunt for the World Cup draw ceremony on December 5 was Las Vegas. Like 1994, the first time the USA hosted the world’s grandest celebration of the game. The celebrity cast included Julio Iglesias (dulcet sounding singer father of Enrique), Evander Holyfield and Robin Williams. The latter provided the laughs, once putting on gloves like a doctor and telling Sepp Blatter to “turn your head to the side and cough”. He would intentionally, and famously, call Sepp Blatter “Sepp Bladder. The furious then-FIFA general secretary would retort: “This is not a comedy!”
But this year, as football returns to America, it had to settle for the less ostentatious Kennedy Center in Washington DC, a seventy-two-thousand-square-foot complex of pavilions, galleries, and studios, committed to the cause of supporting marginalised artists and audiences.
A climate of dissent throbs before the biggest draw in the World Cup ceremony after the festival of football has been expanded from 32 to 48 teams, divided into 12 groups of four teams apiece. Several artists were unhappy with US President Donald Trump filling the administrative body with his loyalists, slashing grants on several flagship programmes and criticising the awards ceremony, inclined to reward “radical-left lunatics”. He has openly talked about monetising the institution, antithetical to its founding ideal, “not to make money but to represent the best of American culture.” Besides, hosting the event on short notice has led to the rescheduling or cancellation of shows, costing the Center million of dollars in rental fees. The FIFA event, though, is free of charge.
The angst in the backdrop would blur into insignificant noise once the world’s gaze falls on the draw ceremony, its tessellation of glamour, glitterati, music and the basic footballing curiosity of who is playing whom in the group stage. The draw ceremony is the first stanza in the long prelude to the opening day of the World Cup, creeping feverishly into the football tragic’s consciousness. The slow-burning suspense of the pot classification announced last week would reach its climax. Intrigue would swirl. The group of death. The group of sleep. The dream group. Gasps and sighs. A tournament already lost or won. Imaginary games would play out in the mind, even though the real outcomes could be horribly different once the tournament unfolds. Logistically, fans could make travel plans to cover the vast continent.
It’s no longer an event within an event, but one with standalone value. The global audience would be roughly 300 million people; the function would be telecast/streamed in more than 200 territories. Along with celebrity guest appearances, there would be live music acts and a series of short films. Until 1990, it used to be sombre affairs, replete with faux pas. In the 1938 edition, Jules Rimet’s six-year-old grandson picked teams from the pot; the 1982 version is best remembered for the mini footballs with teams’ names getting stuck in revolving drums. The ritual of inviting celebrities began at the 1990 World Cup, when Luciano Pavarotti and Sophia Loren were among the famous faces onstage in Rome.
It is a road map for the entire tournament, too. Once the group-stage draw is out, the fans can trace the potential journey, even though draws do not mean what they seem to mean at first reading, like the best laid plans of men and mice. For example, Spain and Argentina, the top two teams in the rankings, will avoid each other until the final. As would be the fate of the third and fourth-ranked sides, France and England. It means blockbuster matchups in the early knockout stages would be few. The long and laborious group phase could be tedious. Seeding has existed since the 1930 edition, but it is the first time that there has been seeding within the seeding.
It comes with complexity. For instance, if Italy, ranked 12th in the world, qualifies, it would be shunned to Pot 4, along with Curaçao (82) and Haiti (84). But Italy, having missed out in the last two editions, would hope they at least reach the tournament. There will, of course, be some teams who are pleased with their fates, and some not so.
FIFA has adopted the tennis-style draw, where teams are divided into four pots based on rankings, so that the powerhouses theoretically don’t duel in the early stages, so that “there is competitive balance.” To prevent regional clustering, the draw also enforces confederation constraints: no more than one team from the same confederation per group – except for UEFA, which can have up to two, given its 16 qualifiers.
The biggest casualty could be the group of death, often the central narrative of the preliminary stage. The scattering of higher-ranked teams kills the theme, but there could still be a group with four strong teams. Like France (finalist in 2022), Morocco (semifinalists), Norway (Erling Haaland-powered) and Italy, if they qualify. Or Argentina, Croatia, Norway and Italy. Contained in the glass bowls are numerous storylines. Nonetheless, the capital city would hope that the attention remains firmly on the bowl and the outcomes. Rather than dissent.
