This article is not an attack on physical exercise or on those who genuinely enjoy football as a sport. Its criticism is directed at the transformation of sport into a global commodity—an instrument of manipulation, political exploitation, and mass distraction. Whether one agrees with its arguments or not, the underlying question remains: how much room do we still leave for nature, authentic human relationships, and individual freedom when our lives become increasingly organized around spectacles designed by others?
Summer evenings in the mountain villages of Dirfys, in Euboea, are simply different. It is a true bliss to unwind, embracing whatever your soul desires, sipping a refreshing drink at some picturesque little café, right next to centuries-old plane trees—though sadly, not many of them are left anymore (neither cafés nor trees). It is one of those rare moments when you allow your eyes, weary from computer and tablet screens, to claim their own free wanderings through these pocket-sized paradises.
Last night, I had arranged to meet my best friend by the little river of Makrykapa, at one of its two cafés shaded by plane trees. But total chaos reigned. A giant screen hung from a tree trunk, scattering merciless noise pollution all around. Below it, at the tables of the little square, spectators of the World Cup matches were roaring at every missed chance to drive the ball into the opponent’s net.
We fled immediately. Back home to the veranda, where the jasmine and basil were competing over which would rule the night air with their intoxicating scents. And above, a full moon hung—a true “goddess ball,” moving slowly and imposingly across its own sky-bound pitch, playing the thematic games that only Nature knows how to conjure for those who love raw quality and grandeur.
We have nothing against sports. On the contrary, exercise is a sine qua non condition for a good and healthy life. It is elite sports and its commercialization that we clash with. Football and the Olympic Games have degenerated into literal dumpsites where every kind of trash rots away: from individualism, stardom, and enrichment, to fanaticism, hooliganism, violence, and nationalism.
We wrote back then about the 2022 World Cup; the one of this year has absolutely nothing to envy from it:
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar Begins: The Opening Ceremony
November 20, 2022
“Only a few hours remain until the official opening of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with football fans around the world already beginning their countdown.
The first kick-off will take place at 18:00 in the match between the host nation and Ecuador, while the final whistle is expected to be heard on December 18, when the world will learn which team has become the new superpower in world football.”
It is not the thousands of dead migrant workers who built this monstrosity. Nor is it Qatar, a so-called “terror state.” These are deplorable realities in themselves. But even more deplorable—and morally responsible for these crimes—are the football fans.
These are the fools across the world who will once again sit in front of their screens, offering yet another testimony to their own intellectual emptiness, to the extent that they have undergone such a lobotomy that they can no longer grasp the garbage they carry in their minds.
Wars, racism, competition, capitalism, and nationalism all begin from football. It teaches monkeys to dance naked. It conditions the ignorant into crowd behaviour—above all into violence and antagonism. “Us and them,” friends and enemies, believers and unbelievers.
Nazism, fascism, and other totalitarian regimes have always placed football and similar competitive sporting events on their agenda as one of the most powerful tools of numbing, distraction, and passive consent.
One of the great cancers that future societies will need to eradicate will be these very pathologies: football and professional sport, which have nothing to do with healthy physical exercise or genuine sport.
Do not tell me you are serious if you are about to sit in front of the glowing screen—and even a giant one—to watch these little fools kicking a ball around. While you, with your belly and untrained body, shout, scream, and curse over a missed penalty.
You may consider yourself serious. But you are not. That much is certain. Above all, you are not a citizen—neither conscious nor dignified.
We have many battles ahead of us. One of them is to expose the damage caused to societies by massification, artificial rivalry, and unhealthy competition—precisely what is cultivated through football and similar events.
Fight them with action, with indifference, and with contempt. With a change in your way of life. Make your own personal revolution. Respect your privacy, your freedom from the crowd, and your entry into new, free societies of HUMAN beings.
If you have won such a prize, you will see it tonight. While the fools leave the brainless little kids with a ball at their feet to defecate in their living rooms in front of glowing screens, you will be walking your dog in the park, or quietly enjoying fried anchovies at your favourite tavern, with your close friend—together savoring those timeless moments and endless conversations seasoned with… salt and pepper!