It is often only a short way from morality to opportunism. Especially when the World Cup starts in Qatar and some sensitive issues are at stake. But what about double standards in Germany?
Morality makes politics a soapy place. Thomas Hitzlsperger, ex-soccer player, homosexual and one of the loudest critics of Qatar and Fifa, says a TV boycott would have a political effect, which is what he wants. To then explain why he nevertheless moderates the World Cup on TV. A contract is a contract.
It is often only a short way from morality to opportunism. The DFB rejects Gianni Infantino. Now, however, the Fifa President has the best chance of being re-elected next March.
There is no opposing candidate, the DFB also refrained from putting up one. The football association, which otherwise likes to “set the mark”, did without this “sign”. It sounds suspiciously like whistling in the woods.
DFB President Bernd Neuendorf said in his first press conference in Qatar today that the European football association Uefa had not nominated Qatar friend Infantino again.
However, Uefa has made the Qatari club president of Paris St. Germain (PSG), Nasser Al-Khelaif, a member of its executive committee. How does one fit into the other?
The national players donate one million euros to help an SOS Children’s Village in Nepal. Many migrant workers come from Nepal, many of whom have worked in Qatar in recent years, often under poor conditions.
The Zulal Wellness Resort, where the German national team lives, was also built by migrant workers. International labor rights organizations documented the abuse shortly before the World Cup. In this context, the money for the Nepalese children acts like a sale of indulgences.
Many want to boycott the soccer World Cup in Qatar. In our multimedia story you can read why and what exactly the host country is accused of and what has happened in the desert state since 2010.
The public service broadcaster fires off one broadside after the other against Qatar and FIFA in its programmes. However, the public broadcasters paid 220 million euros for the broadcasting rights – a classic case of double standards, not only complained about long-time politician and football manager Willi Lemke.
This obvious case of “double standards” was first made public by the “Hart, aber fair” presenter Frank Plasberg. It was undoubtedly a successful punchline – but why did the 65-year-old wait until his last show? Because in such a situation it is easier to wash your fur without getting wet?
Deutschlandfunk, this morning, ten past eight. The DLF moderator is critical of Willi Lemke, whom he is asking about the World Cup. Lemke refers to the ÖRR 220 million for Fifa.
“They shouldn’t have done that” – the moderator interjects. I mean your own shop. You can understand the objection: the man would have liked to stay clean.
How excited was it when Qatar’s World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman called homosexuality “haram”, a “sin”. And as “mental damage”. Well – for the World Health Organization of the United Nations (UN) homosexuality was still a “mental illness” until 1990.
In Germany, gay paragraph 175 of the penal code was first abolished in 1994. Want to say: Sometimes outrage is inversely proportional to the ability to remember.
Homosexuality and faith – a sensitive issue. The criminalization of homosexuality in Qatar goes back to Islam, whose particularly extreme Sunni variant, Wahhabism, is the state religion in Qatar. Well, even a committed Catholic might find it difficult to judge homosexuality differently.
Because just a year and a half ago, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rejected the blessing of homosexual couples. The justification of the Catholic religious watchdog in Rome: Relationships, even permanent ones, which “include a sexual practice outside of marriage” – i.e. outside the “indissoluble union of a man and a woman, which is open to the transmission of life” – do not correspond to these ” plans of God”.
This was announced by the Vatican News. God does not “bless sin.” Pope Francis has expressly endorsed this statement.
Many, especially football fans, are now demanding that the German World Cup stars demonstratively declare their support for Western values and take a clear stance against Qatar.
But what sentences can one expect from superstars like Manuel Neuer, who is the face of advertising for Qatar Airways, the airline that pays FC Bayern Munich 20 million euros a year as a PR partner? You can’t put morals ahead of business today if yesterday you put business above morals.
The most impressive political example of double standards was delivered by a Green of all people. Robert Habeck with his servant in front of the Qatari gas sheikh.
One shouldn’t even try to justify this with the “value-based” foreign policy that Habeck’s party friend Annalena Baerbock is so demonstratively promoting. In any case, other politicians are more honest.
Question to Karl Lauterbach, who has moved from his Cologne Veedel, where many pub owners boycott the World Cup, to Berlin, where he is Minister of Health: Are you actually boycotting the World Cup, Mr. Lauterbach? His reply, late as usual:
“Dear Mr. Reitz, I’m not boycotting the World Cup, but I’ll only watch a few top games. Publicly condemning Qatar and the World Cup while we have to promote the gas isn’t entirely free of tension either.”
To live authentically, i.e. in accordance with oneself, can be healthier than being a moralizer who has failed in reality.
