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    Lionel Messi, Saudi Arabia and a Contract to Promote the Kingdom

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    A contract between Messi and Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority offers a glimpse at the details of their multimillion-dollar relationship.As the sun set over a seemingly endless expanse of open sea, Lionel Messi took a seat at the edge of a boat, stretched out a leg and posed for the photograph that would announce the beginning of his public partnership with Saudi Arabia.The image, shared with Messi’s 400 million-plus followers on Instagram on May 9, 2022, was accompanied by a dual-language caption that read, “Discovering the Red Sea #VisitSaudi.” Hours earlier, he had been welcomed to the kingdom by Saudi Arabia’s tourism minister, who had boasted on Twitter that while it was Messi’s first visit to the country, “it will not be the last.”Messi, who is regarded perhaps as global soccer’s greatest player, was starting to cash in on the new partnership: His photo-op in the Red Sea likely earned him approximately $2 million, the first step in fulfilling his agreement with the kingdom that is worth millions more.The details of Messi’s role as a well-compensated pitchman for Saudi Arabia are contained in a previously undisclosed version of his contract with the tourism authority that was reviewed by the The New York Times.The contract shows that Messi could receive as much as 22.5 million euros, about $25 million, over three years for little actual work: a few commercial appearances, a handful of social media posts and some all-expenses-paid vacations to the kingdom with his family and children. He is expected to share images of those trips — marked with a Saudi-approved hashtag — with his vast online following.But the document also contains a condition important to Saudi officials: Messi cannot say anything that might “tarnish” Saudi Arabia, a country that has faced widespread criticism for its human rights record.Those details of the arrangement with Messi, who won the World Cup with Argentina in December, offer an inside glimpse of the oil-rich kingdom’s use of its wealth to enlist marquee athletes in its effort to burnish its global image. Saudi Arabia’s critics deride the strategy as sportswashing: using sports and sports figures to whitewash the country’s human rights record, its treatment of women, its killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and other authoritarian actions.For the past few years, Saudi Arabia has spent billions to take big stakes in professional sports: The purchase of a Premier League soccer team. Championship boxing matches. A stop on the Formula 1 auto racing schedule. And, most recently, a brazen incursion into professional golf.The kingdom has offered hundreds of millions of dollars more to lure Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and dozens of other soccer stars to play in the country’s domestic league. Messi recently declined a similar offer, choosing instead to join Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in the United States. But there’s no sign so far that the decision has affected his relationship with the Saudis. Indeed, he has seemed eager to stay in their good graces.In February 2021, just weeks after he signed his contract, Messi wrote a letter to Saudi’s tourism minister, apologizing for being unable to make a scheduled visit. In the previously unreported letter, Messi addressed the tourism minister, Ahmed al-Khateeb, as “Your Excellency” and, in unusually flowery prose, expressed his “deepest regrets” for his absence. Messi was then playing for F.C. Barcelona, and he wrote that as “a sportsman,” he had obligations that were impossible to skip: a league game against Real Betis followed by a match in the Spanish cup.Messi was suspended from Paris St.-Germain after he took a trip to Saudi Arabia that was not authorized by the team.Aurelien Morissard/Associated PressThe Saudis got their visits eventually. The most recent came last month, a year after his first Saudi tourism post on Instagram, when Messi took a quick, midseason vacation to the kingdom — which, like all of his previous visits, would have yielded him a seven-figure payday under the terms of his Saudi tourism contract.By then, Messi had left Barcelona and was playing for the French team Paris St.-Germain. When he returned from his Saudi sojourn, the French club suspended him for what it deemed an unauthorized absence from training. Messi apologized to his team and its fans with an explanation that suggested the trip was not optional: “I couldn’t cancel it.”Until now, the details of Messi’s contract with the tourism authority have been a closely held secret. It is not clear if the contract reviewed by The Times is the current version of the deal. It was shared by someone with direct knowledge of the arrangement between Messi and the Saudis on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to divulge details of the deal. The document, dated Jan. 1, 2021, was signed by Messi and his brother Rodrigo, who serves as his business manager, but it is not signed by Saudi officials.The terms outlined in the document are consistent with the way Messi has used his social media accounts to promote the kingdom, and also with the promotional visits he has made to the country.The contract is specific about Messi’s obligations, and about the money to be paid for fulfilling each one:About $2 million, nearly 1.8 million euros, for a minimum of one family vacation annually lasting five days, or alternately two annual vacations of three days each. The travel expenses and five-star accommodations were to be paid by the Saudi government for Messi and up to 20 family members and friends.Another $2 million for promoting Saudi Arabia on his social media accounts 10 times a year, separately from the promotion of his vacations to the kingdom.About $2 million more to participate in an annual tourism campaign. (He and the Saudi authority shared the first campaign, an elaborately shot desert video, in November.)Another $2 million for charitable work and appearances.Few people were willing to discuss the terms of Messi’s deal. Pablo Negre Abello, who is responsible for Messi’s commercial deals, cited confidentiality clauses written into all of Messi’s contracts. Abello suggested that a Times reporter contact the tourism authority. Officials there did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Rayco García Cabrera, a former soccer player who brokered the meeting between Messi’s management and Saudi officials, including the minister of tourism, said the deal was worth “a small amount” compared with the huge salaries the country is paying stars like Ronaldo and Benzema. But, García said, Messi agreed to be a tourism spokesman because “he believes in Saudi and the vision of Saudi.”“I was in the middle of this,” García added, “and I was so surprised when Messi didn’t ask for a huge amount.” García said he did not know the precise terms of the agreement.A review of Messi’s social media postings and travel show him seemingly fulfilling the terms of his contract. His Instagram account — with 470 million followers, it is one of the largest on the platform — has featured a regular stream of Saudi messaging and photographs. On his visit in May, Messi was photographed with his wife and children participating in a variety of family activities: petting horses with his sons, playing games at an arcade and sitting with a craft artist while holding a woven hat.During his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Messi appeared in photographs with his family.Saudi Ministry of Tourism, via ReutersThe photographs were then distributed to the news media by the tourism ministry.Saudi Ministry of Tourism, via ReutersIn 2021, amid news reports linking Messi and Saudi Arabia, family members of Saudi dissidents urged the player to reject the endorsement offer that he eventually accepted. In an open letter, they pleaded with him by writing, “The Saudi regime wants to use you to launder its reputation.”Saudi officials have rejected that charge. Messi, meanwhile, has made no mention of it. Instead, he has expressed wonder at the natural beauty to be found in Saudi Arabia.One of Messi’s recent posts is a picture of the kingdom’s date palm groves and other natural attractions. The caption reads: “Who thought Saudi has so much green?” More

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      Analysis: LIV Golf-PGA Tour Merger Is About Profit Above All

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      The PGA Tour’s merger with LIV is the perfect union of the tour’s lack of principle and LIV’s paucity of character.They said it was about principles, but it was always about money.Despite vows from the leaders of the PGA Tour that they would not permit their game to be sullied, men’s professional golf is now in thrall to Saudi Arabia, a nation engaged in a full-tilt attempt to distract the public from the abuse of its citizens through the glitz, gloss and worldwide appeal of sports.Human rights, it turns out, are a bore, and an obstacle. “Sportswashing,” as it is known, is powerful and effective.That’s the message between the lines of the merger between the once venerable PGA Tour and what until Tuesday was its insurgent competition — LIV Golf, born just last year and fueled by billions from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund, which the oil-rich kingdom uses to gild its global image.Profit is what matters most. Above all. That is the message.It reigns over the morals, values and traditions that the PGA Tour, now swaddled in rank hypocrisy, trumpeted during a seemingly fierce but apparently phony conflict that pitted the biggest names in golf against each other.“It’s my job to protect, defend and celebrate” the PGA Tour, Jay Monahan, the outfit’s commissioner, said approximately one year ago, after announcing that any golfer who played for LIV would be ostracized by his circuit. The tour simply could not associate itself with the nation known for rights abuses and presumed to be behind the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and the other golf stars who joined LIV were branded defectors and pariahs. Human rights formed the sturdy moral foundation of the PGA Tour’s stand.Fans bought merchandise during a LIV Golf event last year at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. Doug Mills/The New York TimesAsked about protests against the LIV tour from families of Sept. 11 victims angered by the role Saudi Arabia is said to have played in those attacks, Monahan pantomimed his empathy, saying, “My heart goes out to them.” He asked golfers who had left for LIV tournaments or were considering it a rhetorical question: “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”Those comments look like disinformation now. The high-minded fight is over (unless the PGA Tour policy board, which was kept in the dark, declines to ratify the deal). With the merger, which also includes the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour), men’s professional golf as we know it will be an artifact of history.The governor of the Saudi investment fund, Yasir al-Rumayyan, now is set to become chairman of the board of a worldwide umbrella company so new it has not even been given a name.The merger is about sports, yes, but also about power and values in the world.In Saudi Arabia, citizens do not enjoy the right to free assembly. The legal system is not independent. Due process is a farce. To speak against the government is to risk being jailed, tortured or killed.When Khashoggi, a journalist for The Washington Post, dared to speak against the repressive state, he was lured to a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A United Nations report described how he was drugged and cut into pieces.Who did it? According to the C.I.A., thugs operating on orders from Mohammed bin Salman — the crown prince who oversees everything in his kingdom, including the investment fund that will wield enormous influence over world golf.The United States has its own moral failings, plenty of them, and has since the nation’s founding. But we confront them publicly. We protest. We march. The press speaks up. We vote.Plenty of golfers and fans will block out the seamy side of this story and look purely on the bright side. The new tour hopes to make golf more global, more accessible, less fusty and more exciting. The same golfers ostracized by many of the sport’s star players and banished from the regular PGA Tour upon leaving it — including Mickelson, the chief renegade, and Koepka, recent winner of a major tournament, the P.G.A. Championship — could return to the fold.And indeed, none of that can be bad for fans — or sponsors.But to look only on the bright side is to condone the hypocrisy.This is as disruptive a move as the sports world has seen in a long while — arguably, ever. In the American context, the N.F.L. and American Football League combined forces in the 1960s. The N.B.A. and American Basketball Association joined in the 1970s. But at the time, those moves did not affect global sport, nor provide cover to oppressive nations.This makes those mergers look like tiddlywinks.Get used to a world in which the Middle East, with its many authoritarian governments, is a dominant player in sports.Qatar’s hosting of the men’s World Cup in 2022 was an example of unseemly truths scrubbed clean by a thrilling tournament seen around the world. The golf merger gives the staging of that event some company.Significant competitions in golf, tennis, auto racing, and mixed martial arts, to name four, have been hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for some time now. The N.B.A. plays exhibition games in the region.The Saudis are hardly done: They’re bidding for soccer’s 2030 World Cup and using their wealth to attract expensive talent to their national league. Cristiano Ronaldo now plays for Al-Nassr. On Tuesday, the French striker Karim Benzema joined another Saudi team, Al-Ittihad, for a nine-figure contract. Lionel Messi — who already has a contract to promote tourism in the kingdom — had been pitched on playing there but said Wednesday he planned to go to M.L.S.“We are interested in all sports,” al-Rumayyan said in a television interview on Tuesday. Not just golf. Not just soccer or basketball. But “many other sports,” he said.It’s not hard to imagine the Saudis further engaging the N.B.A., offering billions to purchase N.F.L. teams or even financing the sponsorship of college athletes. Nor is it hard to imagine the L.P.G.A. Tour coming into the fold.The PGA Tour presented itself as the guy who calls a penalty on himself if he accidentally moves his ball a quarter-inch. Turns out it was the guy who makes a double-bogey and marks it down as a par. More

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      Griner’s Detention Showed the Strength and the Struggle in Women’s Sports

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      Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could be described through the lens of war and politics, with Griner, one of the world’s best basketball players, a casualty of an international struggle between superpowers.But in the nearly 10 months she was imprisoned until her release on Thursday, Griner became a symbol of much more: the inequities in men’s and women’s sports, the complexity of the fight for social justice, and especially the power of the W.N.B.A.’s players and their supporters, who steadily rallied for Griner’s freedom.“Women, when we’re advocating for something, when we want something to happen, we’ve got the strength of 10 men,” said Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. She added, “I hope people are watching.”Griner was released from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony in August, about six months after she was detained at an airport near Moscow when customs officials found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, heightening tensions between the United States and Russia.As the war in Ukraine complicated the White House’s negotiations for Griner’s release, the W.N.B.A. players’ union spearheaded a public campaign to free her. The players have earned a reputation for potent activism: In 2020, their support helped fuel the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s victory in a Georgia Senate race, and they dedicated their season to fighting systemic racism. This time, they leaned on President Biden to help one of their own.“We realized what power our voices have,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “Doing it for Brittney, I don’t think it was a burden for anyone.”Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, thanked the W.N.B.A.’s “fearless union,” in a statement celebrating Griner’s release.Disparities in SportsGriner, left, in 2021, alongside Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird. Griner has long been one of the W.N.B.A.’s top stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe spotlight of Griner’s detention brought questions about the modest W.N.B.A. salaries that push dozens of players to international teams in the off-season to make more money. Griner has been one of the W.N.B.A.’s biggest stars since the Phoenix Mercury drafted her No. 1 overall in 2013, and she won two gold medals with the U.S. women’s national team. Still, she was in Russia to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, which reportedly paid her at least $1 million, quadruple the maximum W.N.B.A. salary.“The players are going to do what they think is best for themselves,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said on Thursday, “but we definitely inform them all the time of the security risks of where they might be playing.”Dozens of American men still chose to play for Russian basketball teams during Griner’s detention, though most had little chance of making the N.B.A. But almost all American women stayed away. Many star W.N.B.A. players took pay cuts to compete for lower-paying teams in other European countries.Collier, who won the W.N.B.A. Rookie of the Year Award in 2019, said Griner’s “scary” ordeal had changed her mind about playing overseas again, even though staying home would cost her money and playing time. “For me, it’s not worth it,” she said.Since Engelbert became the commissioner in 2019, she has focused on adding sponsors and developing new ways for players to earn money, such as marketing deals with the W.N.B.A. But increasing the league’s profile and revenue has been a challenge in the face of a sports ecosystem that is mostly blind to female athletes because of its overwhelming focus on men’s sports.Big-name N.B.A. stars, such as LeBron James and Stephen Curry, leveraged that disparity and drew focus to Griner by publicly supporting her. But some critics wanted more vocal support for Griner from the N.B.A., which owns about 40 percent of the women’s league and has $10 billion in annual revenue. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said he had talked to political figures behind the scenes, but said government officials had asked the league to be low-key so as not to inflame tensions with Russia.Silver said in a statement on Thursday that he was happy Griner was coming home after enduring “an unimaginable situation.”Some have wondered whether an N.B.A. player like James would have been held as long as Griner, or detained at all. Before this episode, many average N.B.A. players would have been better known by the public than Griner, even though she’s at the top of her sport. The W.N.B.A.’s games can be hard to find, with broadcasts spread across multiple channels, streaming services and social media sites. The league has been around for 26 seasons, compared with 77 for the N.B.A.“We have to build more household names in this league,” Engelbert said.Gay, Black, Female and ‘Voiceless’Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressTed S. Warren/Associated PressGriner’s case was never simple. Even though she was said to have been in possession of only trace amounts of hashish oil, a cannabis derivative, she faced drug smuggling charges that carried the potential for a 10-year sentence. The U.S. State Department said in May that she had been “wrongfully detained,” indicating that she should be considered a hostage.“She was voiceless,” said Staley, who coached Griner on one Olympic team. “She was in a place that she couldn’t fight for herself. She couldn’t speak up for herself.”And Griner faced additional risks as a gay Black woman imprisoned in a country known for harsh treatment of people like her. In 2014, she became the first openly gay athlete to sign a deal with Nike. L.G.B.T.Q. civil rights groups, including the National Black Justice Coalition, have stood behind her. The coalition called Griner an “icon” and a “symbol of hope” in a statement as it thanked Biden for making her a “top priority.”It didn’t always seem that way to her supporters. As the months went by and Griner’s name dipped in and out of headlines, fans filled social media websites with the hashtag #WeAreBG to plead for people to care. Some pointed to Griner’s race as a potential factor in the broader public’s ebbing concern, saying that the falloff mirrored the way missing white women often draw more attention than missing Black women.Kagawa Colas, Griner’s agent, thanked “Black women, the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and civil rights leaders” in particular for standing with Griner.But even as Griner’s detention unified many athletes, fans and advocacy groups, it highlighted the unequal ways a push for justice could play out.“Brittney is going to have to endure the fact that we have people who are questioning why she’s home,” Staley said, referring to those who have criticized the government for not bringing home other wrongfully detained Americans. “Why did they choose her?”Experts have said that there are dozens of Americans held around the world, many of them classified as “wrongfully detained,” as Griner was. But often their families are their most vocal supporters, not legions of sports fans, famous athletes and other celebrities.Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife, said in a news conference with Biden on Thursday that their family would work to help free other detained Americans. Kagawa Colas said in her statement that “bringing our people home is a moral issue” and listed 13 Americans detained around the world that Griner’s closest supporters would work to release.“Our eyes have been opened through this process to your struggle and, as we have always done, B.G. and our coalition of activist athletes will ensure that silence is no longer an option,” she said. More

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      in Soccer

      As the World Focuses on Soccer, a Women’s Team in Exile Aches to Play

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      When the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team watches the men’s World Cup, every image on the TV screen feels bittersweet.Each country’s flag flying high and each roaring, roiling cheering section. Each national anthem echoing across a pristine pitch. The Afghan women’s team, still in the developmental stages after years of playing in a war-torn country, hopes to be good enough someday to take part in soccer’s most prestigious tournament.But this year’s men’s tournament, with all its pageantry and thrill, is just a stinging reminder of how distant that ambition remains after the players fled their country last year when the Taliban took over.The Taliban have barred girls and women from playing sports. And the women’s national soccer team is still feeling the effect of it even though its members have settled in Australia, 7,000 miles away and safe from the Taliban. Because the Afghanistan Football Federation doesn’t recognize the team as an official national team, neither does FIFA, the global governing body of soccer.Now the players who risked their lives to play soccer inside of Afghanistan, and then risked them again to flee for a shot at freedom, are no longer eligible for international competitions. They are calling on FIFA to reinstate the Afghan squad so the women can officially represent their country.Afghan players warmed up at an event where they received new team jerseys at their Australian club.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe jerseys were labeled “AWT” for Afghan Women’s Team and bore Afghanistan’s flag.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“We had to leave our home and stop our dreams, but it always was our goal to play as a national team again,” said Fati, the team’s goalkeeper who lives in a suburb of Melbourne. (The New York Times is not using the players’ last names at their request because they fear retribution from the Taliban.)“Now it looks like us playing for the national team is not going to work anymore. My heart can’t stand this,” Fati said.She added, “FIFA has the money and the power to help us, but it’s not doing anything.”Khalida Popal, one of the founding players of the Afghan women’s national team and the person who orchestrated the team’s escape from Afghanistan, said, “FIFA will say they don’t want to get involved in politics, but this is a human rights issue and they know it. They’ve just chosen to discard us.”FIFA officials, including President Gianni Infantino and Sarai Bareman, the federation’s chief officer for women’s football, did not respond to repeated requests for comment about how the Afghan women’s team could return to the international game, as the players in Australia have been ready to play and travel for months.Firooz Mashoof, spokesman for the Afghanistan Football Federation, said there was nothing the Afghan federation could do to help because, as he explained, the women’s national team dissolved when the players and women’s soccer committee fled the country. Inside the country, the 50 or so women’s soccer teams — from youth to the club level — also have vanished, he said.The federation has yet to discuss the future of women’s soccer with the Taliban, Mashoof said, because “the situation of women’s human and social rights in Afghanistan is not good.” He said FIFA would have to step in to make something happen.Khalida Popal, founder of the Afghan women’s national team, said FIFA officials “have just chosen to discard us.”Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York TimesIn August, Popal worked with young players at a training session for the Afghan women’s development team in Doncaster, England. Mary Turner for The New York TimesThe Afghan players and some human rights activists, including Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said that couldn’t happen soon enough. Worden noted that the men’s senior national team, which did not qualify for the World Cup, and other Afghan men’s nationals teams, including ones for boys under 14, continued to play internationally while the women’s side of the sport had been completely shut down. That glaring inequality of opportunity, she said, is a violation of the Olympic Charter and FIFA’s own rules regarding human rights and nondiscrimination.“Right now, the Afghan federation is absolutely in full, flagrant violation of FIFA’s human rights policy and should be thrown out of the football world until women and girls can resume playing football in their country — and for their country,” Worden said. “The Taliban is totally getting away with banning women and girls. Global governing bodies like FIFA have an obligation to thwart what is happening.”Worden said it was time for the International Olympic Committee to suspend the Afghanistan Olympic Committee. The I.O.C. did so in 1999 after the Taliban barred girls and women from sports the first time it came to power, as it is doing now.Friba Rezayee, who competed in the 2004 Athens Games as one of Afghanistan’s first two female Olympians, said in a telephone interview that the I.O.C. and FIFA are actively ignoring the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Afghanistan.“Just last week, the Taliban beat people, including women, inside a stadium where athletes should be playing their sport,” said Rezayee, a judo competitor who fled to Canada in 2011. She added that dozens of female athletes in Afghanistan have told her that the Taliban is hunting for women who play sports so they can punish them. She heard from one judoka who recounted being beaten by the Taliban with a rifle when they found her practicing at her dojo. The soldiers let that woman go so she could be an example to other women who dare to play a sport, Rezayee said.Fati, the team’s goalkeeper, shown playing in Australia in April, said “it was always our goal to play as a national team again.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe national team at a match in Australia in April.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“What more does the I.O.C. and FIFA have to see to stand up for female athletes?” she said. “These organizations have the capacity and the budget to ensure the safety of athletes and also ensure that women are free to play their sport.”I.O.C. action against the Afghanistan Olympic Committee could happen next week. Mark Adams, spokesman for the organization, said the I.O.C. was “very concerned about developments regarding the participation of women and girls in sport in Afghanistan” and that the executive board would review the issue at its meeting on Dec. 6.If the I.O.C. goes forward with that suspension, it will put needed pressure on each sport’s international federation to decide whether its Afghan athletes can participate in non-Olympic international competitions. But FIFA doesn’t have to wait. It already has the power — and the duty, Worden said — to suspend the Afghan Football Federation for its exclusion of girls and women, bypassing the Taliban so girls and women can compete.One international sports federation, the International Cycling Union, has taken the initiative to help the Afghan women without any prodding from the I.O.C. The organization has been going out of its way to support Afghan cyclists and find ways for those women to compete, showing other federations — such as FIFA — that it is possible to do so without making it a political statement.David Lappartient, the president of the cycling union and a French politician, used his political and sports connections to help evacuate 125 people, including cyclists and other athletes, from Afghanistan. The federation has since sponsored a group of cyclists who now live and train in federation housing in Aigle, Switzerland, the cycling union’s home base. Last month, the federation also hosted the Afghanistan women’s cycling national championships, and more than four dozen Afghan women competed.Many of the members of the national team living in Australia share housing, shop and work together.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesGabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times“We must address a message of hope that sports is possible for women when it is quite difficult or impossible now in Afghanistan,” Lappartient said. “I just want to give this idea that the light is still on.”Without similar support from FIFA, the Afghan women’s soccer team is now looking for somewhere to play as an official national team. It’s considering joining the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, or Conifa, said Popal, the longtime Afghan women’s football program director. According to Conifa’s website, the organization “supports representatives of international football teams from nations, de facto nations, regions, minority people and sports isolated territories.”But the level and depth of competition at Conifa is not what the Afghans have been used to at the FIFA level, where 187 women’s teams compete. In comparison, Conifa’s website listed only three women’s programs in its rankings from July: FA Sapmi (from the Indigenous Sami people who inhabit part of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia), Northern Cyprus and Tibet.For the Afghan women, the goal is to return to play under FIFA’s umbrella. To get there, Popal, who lives in Denmark, has sent multiple emails to FIFA officials asking them for help reinstating the Afghan team. For months and months now, she has yet to receive an answer.Last month, she also filed an official grievance with FIFA, writing, “All the coaches and players need to have their right to play respected and FIFA has the responsibility to guarantee our right to represent Afghanistan, even in exile.” At least a half dozen current and former players have also filed grievances, she said.Again, no response.“Men took away the players’ right to play football in Afghanistan, and now FIFA is taking away the right for the players to play football anywhere else,” Popal said. “I’m so frustrated that women have no voice. Why do the women of Afghanistan always have to pay the price?”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe players’ bond goes beyond being teammates as they share meals and have sleepovers at each other’s houses. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesIn addition, the Afghan players have been hurt by the re-emergence of Keramuddin Keram, the former president of the Afghanistan Football Federation, Popal said. Keram, who was charged with sexually abusing players on the national team after Popal made the case public, had been hiding from authorities after his indictment. Now, with the Taliban in charge, he has returned to public life.“Our players have suffered so much in so many different ways, and it’s disgusting how they’ve been treated,” Popal said.Popal and the national team players said they didn’t want the I.O.C. or FIFA to bar the Afghan men’s team because the women’s team does not exist anymore. There should be a way for both the men’s and women’s teams to play, even while the Taliban is in control of the country, they said.If FIFA isn’t willing to help, Popal said she would like to establish a football association that includes all the players living in the Afghan diaspora and run that association from outside of Afghanistan. Other countries affected by war or countries that curtail the rights of women could follow her lead, she said.Already, Popal has ideas of running a training camp for the senior national team players in Australia, the under-17 players who ended up in England, the under-15 players who are now in Portugal — or any female Afghan soccer player. During that camp, there could be a tryout for the senior team that would theoretically play FIFA tournaments, she said.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe team won its second game as part of the Melbourne Victory club 10-0.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesFati, for one, would love that idea. Her dream as a young goalkeeper was to play in the World Cup. But right now, with the current restrictions on the national team and the practice the Afghan team needs to reach the sport’s highest level, the closest Fati will get is when the Women’s World Cup is held in Australia and New Zealand next year. Melbourne, Fati’s new home, will be a host city.While waiting to hear about its fate with FIFA, the Afghan team has been playing together at the professional club Melbourne Victory, with that club supporting the team’s travel, training and gear. The team competed in a state league and finished third in its division.But the players want so much more.“I am so mad at FIFA right now,” Fati said. “They are always saying that football is a family and that they take care of their football family. But that’s not the truth. They don’t care about us. They have forgotten us.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesNajim Rahim More

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      in Soccer

      Qataris Say Criticism of Country Amid World Cup Is Rooted in Stereotypes

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      Many in the country say the barrage of criticism about its human rights record and the exploitation of migrant workers is laced with discrimination and hypocrisy.When the singer Rod Stewart was offered more than $1 million to perform in Qatar, he said, he turned it down.“It’s not right to go,” Mr. Stewart told the The Sunday Times of London recently, joining a string of public figures to declare boycotts or express condemnation of Qatar as the Gulf nation hosts the soccer World Cup.In the prelude to the tournament, which started this past weekend, Qatar has faced an increasing barrage of criticism over its human rights record, including the authoritarian monarchy’s criminalization of homosexuality and the well-documented abuse of migrant workers.Yet Mr. Stewart voiced no such disapproval when he performed in 2010 in Dubai or 2017 in Abu Dhabi, cities in the nearby United Arab Emirates — a country that also has an authoritarian monarchy and has faced allegations of human rights violations but that has more successfully cultivated a Western-friendly image. Mr. Stewart declined a request for comment through his public relations firm.That kind of dissonance is one that has increasingly frustrated Qataris as they face the glare of the international spotlight that trains on each World Cup. The tournament has brought a disproportionate burst of negative coverage, they say, and spawned descriptions of their country and people that feel outdated and stereotypical, painting an image of Qatar that they barely recognize.Qataris say that they are calling out the double standards. Why, they ask, do Europeans buy natural gas from Qatar if they find the country so abhorrent that they cannot watch soccer there? Why don’t some of the international figures who have spoken out against Qatar do the same for the United Arab Emirates?They have also said that they hope the first World Cup to be held in an Arab nation will challenge stereotypes about Qataris, Arabs and Muslims.Instead, it sometimes seems to have done the opposite.A “fan village” in Doha, made up of shipping containers converted into small accommodation units.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn a speech last month, the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, called the opprobrium “an unprecedented campaign that no host country has ever faced.” Speaking to a German newspaper, the Qatari foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said that some of the criticism was racist and arrogant.Organizers have said that at least 15,000 journalists are expected to visit Qatar, a country with a population of three million, for the World Cup. The torrent of reporting has been overwhelming for a country that rarely makes global news. That is partly why Qatari officials wanted to host the tournament. It fits into a broader, decades-long push by Qatar’s rulers to turn the once-obscure country into a prominent global player, a strategy funded by vast natural gas wealth.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Why Do LIV Golfers Struggle to Explain Why They Left the PGA Tour?

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      The latest golfers to join the Saudi-backed series were vague and defensive in the face of hard questions about guaranteed money and human-rights issues.BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Last month, Justin Thomas, the world’s seventh-ranked men’s golfer, summed up the feelings of PGA Tour players like himself who have rejected the sumptuous money offers of the rival, Saudi-backed LIV Golf series to remain with the established tour.Thomas just wants his former tour brethren now aligned with LIV Golf to say they jumped for the money. “Like, I personally would gain a lot more respect for that,” Thomas has said. “But the more the players keep talking and saying that this is for the betterment of the game, the more agitated and irritated I get about it.”On Wednesday, Thomas, who made his comments on the “No Laying Up” podcast, would have been repulsed anew by the words of the three latest defectors to the rebel tour who appeared at a news conference for a LIV series event that begins Friday at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.“No, money was not a factor,” said Charles Howell III, 43, who was once ranked No. 15 worldwide but has slipped to No. 169. Howell insisted instead that he joined the breakaway circuit because golf “can be a force for change and good.”Paul Casey, ranked 31st in the world, also lamented that the focus of the new circuit’s successful recruiting efforts has been the bountiful money paid to jump ship.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More