Report from the Frankfurt nightlife district
Many people are familiar with a hangover after partying. In Frankfurt at the start of the World Cup there was more of a “Qatar” mood. A report on the start of the World Cup.
Anyone who has ever been to a big football game in Alt-Sachsenhausen knows that all hell breaks loose in the narrow streets. At the start of the World Cup, actually the biggest sporting event in the world, one man stands in front of the Harmonie Pub in Grosse Rittergasse 77 and looks at the screen.
And that’s only because he went out to smoke.
There are only a handful of patrons in the pub. They are separate from the game that WILL be played between South American country Ecuador and World Cup host country Qatar in the city of al-Khour. The World Cup is as controversial as ever.
“Football doesn’t fit into the Christmas season”
Tanja Nill and Steffen Erhard are also discussing this when they take a look through the large windows of the Hooters restaurant. There the game will not be broadcast on several large screens, but it was easy to watch. “We are basically interested in football, but we have different opinions when it comes to the World Cup,” says Tanja Nill. “He looks, I don’t look.” The awarding of the World Cup to Qatar was a monetary policy decision, women are not allowed in stadiums – these are the arguments why Nill will not be involved in the coming weeks. “Football doesn’t fit into the Christmas season either, because two festivals come together that don’t go together,” she says.
He finds the decision to hold the World Cup in winter understandable, says Erhard. “The players achieve top physical performance, they are exhausted at this time. If there were such temperatures, it would be too much.” As for the human rights situation, he doesn’t like that either, he admits. “But the fact that there are also deaths on large construction sites has also happened in other projects. The seaport in Russia or the huge airport in Turkey, for example,” says Erhard. He is annoyed by the double standards. “The outcry wasn’t that big.” A football stadium that is then no longer used is something different than a port, says Tanja Nill.
Some are boycotting the World Cup – or they are secretly watching at home
She would have welcomed it if the German national team had canceled their participation in the World Cup in view of the events in Qatar. “I would have actually wished that many countries had done that,” she says. “Many of our friends are boycotting this World Cup,” says Erhard. “Or they look secretly at home.” Nill admits that she cannot promise whether she will watch one or the other game in the end.
The fact that the World Cup is taking place for the first time in low temperatures is certainly not the only reason why Sachsenhausen doesn’t really have that World Cup feeling. Some typical sports restaurants are not even open.
This year it’s not just about which team performs how – the games are all overshadowed by the question: how many people had to lose their lives to build this stadium? It is about the living and working conditions of foreign workers who have added seven spectacular new football stadiums for the 64 games in recent years.
It’s about the corruption of Fifa, which led to the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. But it is also about the human rights regulations in the country, which are not easy for women and dangerous for homosexuals. It’s about the fact that there is no women’s football league in the country and the rather invisible women’s national team was apparently founded to be able to show “promotion of women’s football” for the award only. For these reasons, various initiatives have called for counter-events under the hashtag #boycottkatar.