After four years the Men’s FIFA World Cup is back, but who will take the win this year? Will France take the crown twice in a row, something that has not been done since 1968 or will it go to Morocco, the first African country in history to reach the semifinals? This article will give you an overview of this exciting sports tournament. 

The World Cup is the single largest soccer (football) tournament on earth taking place every four years in locations around the world. Teams representing different countries play matches to decide who is the champion. This year’s World Cup is in Qatar,

taking place between eight stadiums with a limit of fans from 88,966 (Lusail Iconic Stadium) to 44,089 (Stadium 974). Speaking of fans, more than five billion people have tuned in to watch the 2022 World Cupmaking it the most viewedsporting event in history!

The Men’s World Cup is a very complex event and can be confusing, so this half of the article has been dedicated to understanding the ins and outs of how it works.

First, the host country must be decided; to do this, countries first enter their bids for their place in the World Cup. These bids are filtered using certain criteria like (but not limited to) human rights, sustainability, hospitality, capacity to build stadiums, ect… then from the qualifying countries a private vote is held between the representative committees of each continent (UEFA [Europe], CONMEBOL [Central America], CONCACAF [South America], CAF [Africa]) vote to decide the host of the world cup.

The next step is to decide which team will go to the real world cup. This is decided in preliminary matches between teams. The host country’s team automatically moves on to the cup. This year only 32 teams moved on. The next step is to place the teams into eight brackets of four teams. Any singular team in a certain bracket will go against all the other teams in its bracket, gaining one point for every tie, two for every win and zero for every loss. The winners of each bracket are the two teams with the highest score.

The next part is the exciting part that most people who watch the cup tend to watch: the elimination rounds. The elimination rounds are relatively simple; each team is assigned an opponent which they willgo against, if there is a tie the teams will break the tie by a shoot-out the loser is then eliminated from the tournament. After that the winner goes on against another winner and the process repeats till the final winner is decided.

As this sport is a global event as well as a sports tournament, politics often become heavily involved. The World Cup in Qatar this year has provoked many controversial ideas. On December 2, 2010, a private committee of twenty-two men representing different continents decided the World Cup would take place in Qatar. Out of those twenty-two men fifteen were “banned from soccer, charged by FIFA’s ethics committee, or expelled from the International Olympic Committee by American or Swiss prosecutors”. In addition to this piece of information posted by The New Yorker, members of the gay and trans community expressed great concern and were very surprised that “homosexual activity and all forms of extramarital sex” are punishable with up to seven years of imprisonment in Qatar as reported by the New Yorker.

In addition to controversy about the LGBTQ rights there have been many arguments concerning worker rights in the construction of stadiums. According to The Athletic, the FIFA corporation failed to create protection for workers, resulting in the workers suffering abuse leading to “illegal recruitment fees, wage theft, injuries, and deaths,” according to Human Rights Watch. Many human rights organizations and fan groups pressed FIFA and authorities from Qatar causing them to include financial compensation for injury or theft.

In conclusion, although the World Cup is a large, complex, and exciting soccer tournament attracting billions of fans each year. Qatar and FIFA failed to impose worker rights as well as provide a safe space for people to express their true self.