Soccer Fans’ Return to Stadiums
It’s been two years since the covid-19 swept across the global sports industry, and the soccer world still struggles to find a way back to its pre-pandemic heyday. While the English Premier League works towards a complete reopening to the public in its 2021/2022 season, many tournaments like the Chinese Super League still find the door to their stadiums closed amid covid concerns. There is no doubt fans and observers around the world wonder when the good old days of eating hotdogs and drinking iced cold beers in stadiums will return. However, the discussion over whether soccer stadiums should reopen to the public on a global scale is beyond a sporting aspect as a decision would symbolize the world’s attitude on the future of globalization efforts two years into the pandemic. Although many countries’ centralized, “empty seats” model of domestic competitions helps regulate the corresponding covid policies and prevent the spread of the virus on a national level, it might help to look for ways to open up stadiums at international tournaments such as the World Cup in an attempt to piece back together our world separated by the pandemic today.
In the global context of the covid-19 pandemic, the meaning of living in a unified entity called the world seems to be at its trough. Strict travel restrictions didn’t necessarily stop the spread of covid but brought an unpleasant halt to the rare opportunity for people to interact with the world beyond a nation’s borders. As unwittingly as we are to admit this, today’s world is a fragmented construct with a sharp rise in nationalism rather than a move towards globalization. President Trump’s attempt to formalize the term “Chinese virus” might seem idiotic to some, but the deliberate and nationalist diplomatic attempt to vilify countries of the so-called “other side” behind such a term is what most people are beginning to take as the truth. To be sure, a completely interconnected “global village” where every human being coexists in peace is hard to achieve. As Eric Liu argues, no one cheers the world when the Olympic flag appears because the preference for one’s own national identity almost always comes before the realization of a global one. However, the problem with the world today is the absence of a transnational platform that at its very least provides a chance for people to interact beyond a national level. Instead of running away from the problem using covid as an excuse, it is time to consider the possibility of reconnecting the world with increasing vaccination rates in most countries. In this case, reopening international soccer events such as the World Cup to the public might provide us with a solution.
What does soccer have to do with the future of the world? I heard you ask. In global soccer events like the World Cup, we see the sport does a little bit of its magic in connecting the world through emotions. Let me start with a personal story. When the 2018 World Cup arrived, a strange scene appeared in my family — my dad supporting Germany while my brother and I were rooting for England and Belgium. Please tell me if this is not true: many people, soccer fans or otherwise, follow the World Cup and develop connections with a team that sometimes seems completely irrelevant to their national identity. There is no connection between Germany or Belgium and my family. Yet magically, a sense of belonging and excitement arose when we watched the World Cup from a tv screen. Indeed, we all become global citizens of some sort for the short duration of the tournament. When Mario Götze broke the deadlock in the 113th minute, and the camera turned to German fans on the stand, my dad also swung his arms in celebration. When Brazil was down 1–7 in the 2014 World Cup, and we saw the tears of a 70-year-old Brazilian fan, it would be hard for anyone not to feel a tick in their hearts. The World Cup makes us realize the common emotions we share as humans; it serves as a sympathetic medium that reminds us we live on the same planet connected by many common things outside of political issues artificially invented by diplomats.
Admittedly, encouraging the reopening of stadiums at an international event as big as the World Cup could bring about another potential surge in covid-19 cases. A national argument for reopening soccer stadiums would be that it should only be allowed on a scale where a nation’s covid regulation sees fit. We have seen the side-effects of welcoming back soccer fans to the stadiums in England. In the English Premier League alone, 22 games have been called off this season with high covid infection rates among players, staff members, and fans. If we encourage the opening of the World Cup without proper health precautions, the risk of a sharp increase in covid cases and the potential development of new variants could increase sharply. If we were to continue approaching the topic of global human interaction with caution, keeping the return of fans to soccer stadiums on a national level or even forbidding it altogether would be a very safe move from a health perspective.
But if soccer stadiums can reopen to fans on a global stage, it would be an official sign of our society moving back together out of the pandemic’s midst. We have already seen that holding large national events today, such as the Drake and Kanye concert, is not as devastating to the health system as the pandemic first started. It is certainly not to say that we should ignore the health risks of opening international soccer events such as the World Cup. In stead, experience from the past two years has proved that correct measures like the increasing vaccination rate, the use of masks, and requirement for negative covid tests are effective in ensuring the safety of participants at outdoor events. In fact, every World Cup in the tournament’s history has been a test for the host country’s preparation to prevent the outbreak of a public health crisis, and the existence of covid would only make the organizer more mature in their preparations. With a comprehensive, scientific set of protocols to ensure fans’ safety, the World Cup would be a perfect opportunity for the world to physically reconnect after two years of waiting.
It would undoubtedly be a test to push for the reopening of soccer stadiums beyond nations’ borders. With suitable measures to ensure the health safety of fans concluded from experience of running big national events throughout the year, however, opening up the World Cup would be an excellent way for our pandemic-separated world to rejoin both physically and emotionally. When we finally embrace one another again in the passionate sunshine of Qatar, all the wait would be worth it with an iced cold beer on the stand.
