It is
extraordinary how much politicians invest on world's most popular
sport to improve their image. It is certain that Vladimir Putin has
heavily invested on 2018 FIFA World Cup football tournament that is
taking place in Russia, to upgrade his image and the image of his
country.
Football's
impact on the masses is so great that many people conceive such
tournaments - involving national teams - as an opportunity to give a
kind of rebirth to their national pride through a successful presence
of their team.
Unfortunately,
behind such a popular sport we can frequently find big interests
involving huge amounts of money and other dirty games behind the
curtain. And World Cup's history is full of stories involving not
just a popular sport, but also intrigues and rigged games based on
political decisions.
For
example, concerning the 1934 FIFA World Cup tournament when Italy won
its first title, several
sources have reported that the tournament could
have been marred by corruption and influenced by Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini, who used the tournament as a propaganda tool for
fascism. According to these accusations, Mussolini personally
selected referees for the matches where the Italian national team
were playing, while the Italian government meddled in FIFA's
organisation of events, re-organizing the logistics of the matches to
further promote fascism.
During
the next decades, countries taking responsibility to organize FIFA
World Cup were using it to exhibit their regional and economic
strength. The event has also been exploited by these countries in
order to attract visitors in their soil, promoting themselves as
favorable destinations. Although highly debatable, many argue that
World Cup has also been evolved into an unofficial indicator of
development and economic strength for some traditional football
powers, like Germany.
So, what
can we say about the fact that the title holders and four times world
champions, didn't make it even to the knockout phase?
Germany
suffered a humiliating group stage elimination following defeats to
Mexico and South Korea and managed just one victory against Sweden.
They were in the process eliminated from the World Cup in the first
round for just the second time in their history.
Recall
that in previous 2014 tournament, Germany won the title, while
defeated the football superpower hosts, Brazil, with the unreal 7-1
in the semi-finals.
Could
current failure be an indicator of Germany's decline?
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