Wright College Students Wrestle With World Cup Controversy

The FIFA World Cup comes to an end tomorrow with one of Argentina or France leaving Qatar as world champions.

While many will be invested in seeing if France can repeat or if Messi can win his first World Cup, many will also be boycotting the event in light of the human rights violations Qatar is accused of.

FIFA and its President Gianni Infantino have said that the World Cup is a place for people to come together, and earlier this semester, Wright's SGA hosted a few World Cup watch parties for this very reason. In light of human rights violations committed by host country Qatar, not all Wright students have felt comfortable watching this year's World Cup.

On Nov. 30, the first game shown at SGA's watch party was a match between France and Tunisia at 9:30 a.m. The event didn't draw a large crowd of students, with only a few watching the game. the Dec. 6 Morocco-Spain tie drew a larger crowd of students. As the game came down to penalties students seemed to be fully engaged in the game and its outcome.

“SGA hosted a viewing event for the World Cup because we heard a lot of students were interested in the game," said Dominika Panek, president of SGA. Panek added that they wanted students to have a collective viewing space, snacks, and bigger screens to watch the games on.

While some students were worried about the outcome of the game, others had different things on their minds. The host country, Qatar, has come under scrutiny from various organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations over their treatment of migrant workers who built the infrastructure needed to host the world cup.

Roberto Contreras, a sophomore at Wright College, said “it’s a shady business, watching this knowing that people have died building the stadiums.”

These alleged violations against Qatar, make it difficult for some people to watch the games. Other students have a different opinion on the matter such as Juan Pablo, who said “This has happened at every world cup. People have died constructing the stadium. It’s nothing new.”

Pablo doesn't seem to be alone in this thinking, as he added that “people skip class to watch the games, or are watching it in class.”

While many watch the competition and cheer for their home country or country of ancestry, some simply watch the competition due to their love of football.

Pablo was hoping for Mexico to win it all. However, when the Mexican national team was eliminated in the group stages, Pablo said he'd continue to watch and is now hoping Argentina will win.