Well, I must be crazy because I’m not jumping for joy and I’m not proud either. Actually, I don’t give a damn. Our soccer shoe-wearing cattle herd just won the biggest trophy this sport has to offer and that doesn’t move me one bit. I’m only interested in soccer when I play it, on a nice sunny afternoon, with friends, after a picnic. Besides that, I don’t care. I already disliked it before and I still dislike it. There’s no reason. World Cup or not.
What intrigues me is what just happened. Not what happened in the stadium, but in the streets. I just don’t understand… and I must say I’m worried.
So, it’s sufficient that a few soccer professionals get a medal for millions of my countrymen, adults and voters, to take to the streets and let their joy out for three days and three nights non-stop, singing "We won the Cup, we won the Cup, we won, we won, we won the Cup!"? We already knew that a Princess crashing in a tunnel was enough to provoke an outburst of tears in the whole nation. Well, now we know that it’s enough to kick a little ball in the nets to stir up an explosion of joy of approximately the same magnitude. A whole country slips into irrationality, instantly, all because of a Mercedes accident or a soccer game…
The idea is terrifying. Indeed, it implies that it wouldn’t take much to incite an explosion of hate. That is scary.
And then come the 2 cents analyzes from the so-called experts. We now slip from irrationality to manipulation.
Reports on the faith of our players abound: this one wanted to be a priest, this one crosses himself before games, so and so gives kisses that bring luck, and yet another one gives speeches in churches. Sickening. I doubt that God exists but I hope that, if he does, he has better things to care about than making a bunch of short-wearing idiots earn a big amount of money. And since at the table of the Lord the first will be the last, the French soccer team shouldn’t dine there anytime soon…
Then we’re told that this victory also helps fight racism (for the silly reason that the Captain of the team is from Algeria), and that it’s a proof that integration works. Bullshit and lies! Or at least it’s petty wishful thinking. Illegal immigrants are still illegal and hunger strikers are still hungry. The 25,000 cops employed for security during the World Cup are going to go back to racial profiling in the streets and half the population still admits to having racist feelings. Sport doesn’t change anything. The rich "slave"-owners select the best men and put them on a ring. The owner whose "slave" wins is proud of his acquisition and speaks dewy-eyed of the good image of his plantation, but he nonetheless remains a racist.
Integration through sport… The USA are the prototype of this "promotion": blacks have no hope of leaving the ghettos except through boxing or financing their studies thanks to football… Isn’t there another way out of the suburbs than sport in France?
While we’re at it, I heard that the crisis was over: France has found a new confidence in itself! It’s the end of unemployment and we’re going to be Economy World Cup winners! Three goals and that’s it? Well, it wasn’t so hard… I’ll have to tell my banker about that: my account balance must not be negative anymore, now that we’ve won the final.
The final, let’s talk about it: that’s the demonstration of what France is. A game organized in a stadium built by Bouygues (building company), filmed by Bouygues, commented and broadcast by Bouygues (biggest TV channel owner) and Vivendi, and players surely enough sponsored by Bouygues and Co. (although I didn’t look at their jerseys too closely, I’m sure you can find which branch they belong to)… Everything is fine in the best of worlds. What about Adidas? (I nearly forgot!). In the midst of their triumph, the French team (whose excellent sportive spirit was praised) finds the time to change their blue national team jerseys (which sold pretty well too) for white T-shirts bearing the name of the shoe-maker. Later during the night, the crowd dances around the Arc de Triomphe on which a giant picture is projected: that of the commercial for Adidas. It trully stank of money that night.
Since this is all money-related, our financial analysts gave us the scariest explanation, showing how the World Cup was going to help further the goals of liberalism. It worked well because the organization comity worked as a firm and the state didn’t have to intervene (thus costing taxpayers nothing at all!), and this same comity is going to get some dividends out of this, blah blah blah, and that we must heed this call of freedom…
That’s a shortcut to liberalism… Didn’t the state have a little part in all this? What about the 25,000 cops who acted as security staff and the billion dollar brand new stadium… Managed like a great firm? Employing 50,000 volunteers, that’s exemplary capitalism…
A World Cup suffices for our analysts to understand everything: liberalism is the public financing of capital and the privatization of benefits.
Savage liberalism, advertisement on public monuments, religious proselytism and mass hysteria that affects the whole population… World Cup champions! France enters the 21st century in style.
