Philosopher on the Qatar World Cup: In professional football, almost everything can be settled with money
Created: 11/19/2022, 8:01 p.m
By: Nico-Marius Schmitz
"It's getting tighter and tighter for the principle that money alone doesn't score goals," says sports philosopher Volker Schürmann.
© imago (assembly)
"Does it make a difference whether I watch the World Cup or don't?" In an interview, sports philosopher Volker Schürmann talks about the Qatar dilemma.
Munich – Volker Schürmann (62) works as a professor for sport philosophy at the German Sport University in Cologne.
In an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA's
Münchner
Merkur
,
Schürmann explains why the question "May I watch that?" was the immediate loser.
Mr Schürmann, sport and ethics – are these two terms that you would associate with each other?
Yes, of course.
You can't practice sport, watch it, report on it without responding to it.
So when you do that, you judge, and the worst moral thing is not to want to admit it.
However, I have major reservations about using the word moral for this judgmental dimension.
The word suggests it's an individual problem, which it isn't.
An individual bad conscience, or the individual reassurance of a bad conscience, is a bad orientation to action because it leaves everything as it is.
The World Cup in Qatar is heating up spirits.
Uli Hoeneß asked Qatar critic Andreas Rettig whether he would rather take cold showers in winter and avoid gas and called Rettig the “king of hypocrites”.
Is that really hypocritical?
Oh, do we seriously have to say something about this?
For all the energy that is needed to cool the stadiums and to cart all the fans into the stadiums on shuttle flights, an old woman has to knit a long time, as they say in the Ruhr area.
Hoeneß's question puts the halo of narcissism on a well-fed German.
Maybe he should go to Kyiv next winter so he can have a say when it comes to cold showers.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino called on the World Cup participants to please stay out of all ideological and political discussions.
Can sport, with its extensive reach and social responsibility, stay out of such a discussion at all?
That's not even worth commenting on these days.
The IOC and FIFA are aggressively in favor of a return to feudalism.
It's the principle of Patronen: We'll do it, of course according to our standards, and the subordinates should kindly stay out of it.
The worrying thing is that this catches on.
Trump won the election back then because he boasted about grabbing women in the crotch.
Interjection Qatar: You can read these background texts on our portals
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Free beer instead of public viewing: This is how pubs in Bavaria are fighting against the World Cup in Qatar
"Here morality and the feudal gesture come together"
DFB managing director Oliver Bierhoff has said the team should "be able to focus on the sport" in Qatar.
Shouldn't footballers, as role models for many fans, take a stronger stance on social issues?
Both come together here: the above-mentioned bad morality, which pretends that one can do sports without relating to it;
and the feudal gesture that the serfs may do their jobs and not care about their working conditions.
You don't have to be a role model to find that unconvincing.
Maturity is certainly something different than the supervisor patronizingly allowing one to devote oneself to other aspects of the work after the work is done, as Bierhoff added to his call for concentration.
The World Cup in Qatar shows once again that money can fix everything.
Is it still possible to protect sport from sheer commerce and the character of an event?
I'm pessimistic about the Olympics and professional men's football.
The principle that money alone doesn't score goals is indeed getting tighter here.
There is a lot of self-mockery when I uphold Freiburg, Union Berlin or Frankfurt as counterexamples.
But fortunately that's not the sport.
Other sports associations often complain that they are not represented in the media as much as men's football.
Maybe they should be happy about that.
Philosopher on Qatar dilemma: "Does it make a difference whether I look or not?"
The Qatar World Cup is forcing many enthusiastic football fans into a dilemma.
Is it right to watch the games even though thousands of guest workers had to die for the World Cup?
Does philosophy offer a solution here?
Your question conveys what my reservations are directed at.
The question "May I watch that?" makes the problem my own.
But then I've already lost, because then there will always be someone who calculates a double standard against me.
So I can leave it now.
This is a dead end.
Counter-question: Does it make a difference whether I look or not?
Does it change anything about the nonsense of private transport if I buy an e-car and I really don't care about the working conditions in the mining of rare earths?
Will there be another bus going to the remote village?
One solution is not to do anything privately during the World Cup.
Anyone who boycotts as a spectator can do so in the pubs that do not show any World Cup games publicly: public non-viewing.
If it still hasn't spoiled the fun of watching,
he has no reason to let the viewing be spoiled by an individual guilty conscience, even if I admit that you can't really tell the difference between bread and circuses.
Anyway, the crucial point is what happens after the World Cup.
Based on all experience, it is to be feared that nobody will look there anymore.
The dilemma doesn't bother you if it was just a moral dilemma.
Who is seriously interested in poor working conditions?
It is not enough to be driven by a moral dilemma;
one would have to develop a political stance for this.
Based on all experience, it is to be feared that nobody will look there anymore.
The dilemma doesn't bother you if it was just a moral dilemma.
Who is seriously interested in poor working conditions?
It is not enough to be driven by a moral dilemma;
one would have to develop a political stance for this.
Based on all experience, it is to be feared that nobody will look there anymore.
The dilemma doesn't bother you if it was just a moral dilemma.
Who is seriously interested in poor working conditions?
It is not enough to be driven by a moral dilemma;
one would have to develop a political stance for this.
