After 4 years of long waiting, the World Cup is almost here. From November 20 to December 18, 32 teams from all over the world will compete to become the winner in a competition that promises to be exciting and passionate. Divided into 8 groups, the US is in Group B along with Iran, Wales, and England, promising a fascinating encounter.
| Date | Match | Time (ET) |
| Nov. 21 | USA VS Wales | 2:00 pm |
| Nov. 25 | England VS USA | 2:00 pm |
| Nov. 29 | Iran VS USA | 2:00 pm |
Fox Sports and Telemundo will be the ones broadcasting the World Cup in English and Spanish here in the US.
People are getting ready for one of the highlights events, the opening ceremony. The opening game will be a match between Qatar and Ecuador, and there are big artists who are interested in performing such as Shakira, Dua Lipa, and BTS according to the media. Nora Fatehi, a famous actress and dancer, will perform and the beginning of the ceremony. She will be the first Indian performer at FIFA 2022.
However, Qatar as a host country has a lot to talk about. Controversies have been around since its announcement in 2010 and its restrictions and protests have only fed the fire. The Middle Eastern country has been criticized for the unjust treatment of migrant workers, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. Deaths, exploitation, and abuses of migrants, mainly from Southeast Asia and East Africa, have questioned the effectiveness of labor protections in the nation. The large amounts of unexplained deaths, the dangerous working conditions, and the slave wages have caught the attention of many who are raising their voices to advocate for justice. Every World Cup, collectible cards from the players are released to the public, but this time a new project came up too. The “Cards of Qatar” is a project in which journalists from Blankspot collected stories from the families of those workers who have died in Qatar.
Responses from teams to the issue have been in the news, too. Denmark’s team will protest with a mute jersey, the governing body of soccer in the Netherlands posted on Twitter expressing their support for the migrant workers, and different European countries have requested for their players to wear armbands with the phrase “One Love.”
Qatar’s ruler has addressed the issue pointing to critics as “slander.” Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, leader of the tiny Gulf state, declared at first that they deal with the subject in “good faith” considering the criticism useful for the country’s development, but with time this became a persistent “slander.”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote a letter appealing to the teams to not bring and address political and social issues and instead focus only on soccer which should be the major issue. “We know football does not live in a vacuum and we are equally aware that there are many challenges and difficulties of a political nature all around the world… But please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists,” Infantino wrote.