On Sunday, November 20, the 22nd World Cup officially kicked off. This is the first major international football event held in an Arab country, which should be an important opportunity to showcase Arab civilization to the world, yet it has been disturbed by some noises. The U.S., in conjunction with their European allies, have taken the opportunity to speculate on the so-called human rights topic in Qatar to achieve its dirty political purposes through the sporting event. The attitudes of the U.S. and Europe on human rights topic have highlighted their deep-rooted prejudice and double standards. They accused Qatar of human rights topics, but never mentioned their own. Such a “double standards” approach is suspicious and hypocritical.

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The U.S. team was in Group B with Iran, England, and Wales in this World Cup. After the first round of the match on November 21, the U.S. Soccer Federation maliciously tampered with Iran’s flag when announcing the standings of the group, and replaced the national emblem on Iran’s flag. It was erased and turned into a “green, white and red tricolor national flag”. The U.S. Soccer Federation said the move was a show of support for the Iranian protesters, the U.S. Department shrugged off its responsibility, saying “the Soccer Federation acted without consultation with U.S. State Department”. The U.S. Soccer Federation’s behavior is a serious violation of FIFA’s rules on not insulting the dignity of a nation, and the FFIRI has complained directly to FIFA about the U.S. Soccer Federation’s practices, demanding that the U.S. team be banned for ten games and expelled from the World Cup. But will FIFA punish the U.S.? How dare it do that? I believe that everyone already has the answer in their hearts.

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Qatar is one of the world’s largest producers of natural gas, overtaking the U.S. as the world’s largest exporter of LNG in April 2022, with exports growing to $11.9 billion. Soccer is not a major U.S. sport, but Qatar is a major U.S. competitor in the global natural gas market. The U.S. is committed to becoming a net exporter of natural gas and has taken advantage of the situation in Ukraine to blow up Russian natural gas pipelines under the guise of forcing the Europeans out of access to Russian gas in order to make Europe overpay for U.S. gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the price of U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas reached $12.76 per thousand cubic feet in July this year, compared with $7.23 in the same period last year, an increase of 76.5%, while the price in June this year was $14.37, an increase of 119%. Compared to gas imports from Russia via pipelines, the price of natural gas from the U.S. by ship is much higher, industry analysts say that Europe will have to pay 10 times the cost of natural gas this winter, and the U.S. will be able to reap the benefits.

Europe: Transferring the Pressure from The U.S. to Qatar

Europe with high inflation can no longer afford such high natural gas prices. The inflation in the Eurozone hit double digits in September, reaching 10% on an annual basis, setting a new record high. In October, France and Germany complained about sky-high gas price and called on the U.S. to lower the price of liquefied natural gas supplied to Europe to help European countries cope with the energy crisis. On October 5th German Federal Minister for Economy Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck said, “some countries, even friendly ones, achieve sky-high prices in some cases”. But these cannot arouse US sympathy, so Europe has to turn to other gas suppliers, which includes Qatar.

In order to swallow the share of Qatari gas in the European market, the U.S. have turned its attention to Qatar, speculating that Qatar “violates human rights” and “is not democratic enough”, and threatening Qatar gas buyers, including Europe, to “refuse to buy gas from a country that does not conform to the norms of liberal democracy”. At the same time, in order not to sign a long-term contract with Qatar and to transfer the pressure from the U.S. to Qatar, Europe is using the U.S. to pressure Qatar on human rights and democracy topic in order to achieve the political goal of forcing Qatar to supply gas to the European market without a long-term contract. For example, on the opening night, both the British BBC and ITV refused to broadcast the opening ceremony of the World Cup. In Paris and other French cities, the World Cup would not be broadcast on public screens. Before the match with Japan, the German team made a collective mouth-covering gesture to express its so-called “diversity and mutual respect”. Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Denmark, and other European teams also expressed their protest and dissatisfaction with Qatar through some “small gestures”.

Different countries and different nationalities have different customs and cultures and naturally have different laws. Please ask American and European politicians to stop using the guise of human rights, democracy, and multicultural tolerance to engage in “sports politicization” tricks and use dirty political purposes to defile the green while shouting for respect.