It’s been such a fascinating season with two huge sporting events — the FIFA World Cup (Russia 2018) and Wimbledon — running concurrently, and unfolding for us heartaches and heartbreaks; hubris and arrogance and finally triumphs. But unfortunately Russia 2018 has seen disturbing instances of sexism and objectification of women

It was heartbreaking to see evergreen tennis sensation Roger Federer, who had emerged champion at Wimbledon last year after having been written off a couple of years ago by many a sports pundit, bowing out of the tournament in the quarter finals. His is a classic tale of the human spirit... defying knee injuries, back pain, lack of form, and advancing years, a cruel malady in sports where fitness reigns supreme, he proved all the naysayers wrong and bounced back. With Federer’s exit, one of course rooted for Rafael Nadal in the semi-final, only to watch him yield, but not before putting up a spirited fight, to Novak Djokovic, who himself has been starved of a big victory for long. The gritty Serena Williams losing was yet another heartbreak.

The mighty tumble

And in Russia 2018, how the mighty tumbled; the ignominious defeat of Germany, the holders, first by Mexico and then South Korea. And both the football legends Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo let their sides down when it mattered the most and Portugal and Argentina made early exits from the tournament. Japanplayed fantastic football losing to Belgium in the dying moments of the game. But the Japanese fans and players won both respect and hearts with the former cleaning up the stadium after the game with Belgium and the latter cleaning up their dressing rooms and leaving a sweet ‘thank you’ note.

England, which hasn’t won a World Cup after 1966, entered the semi-finals with a bang and amidst chants all over of ‘it is coming home’, with even Justin Timberlake stunning Londoners by singing so in a concert. But somewhere, a tad of arrogance crept in. Prior to their semi-final match with Croatia, the English team went into a training session substituting the football with a rubber chicken, ostensibly to get the team into the “mood” for the crucial match, but the underlying arrogance can’t be missed. Croatia’s Luka Modric told journalists that English journalists’ and pundits’ “lack of respect” for Croatia’s players motivated his team to work harder to defeat England in the semi-final. Both in the semis, and earlier, the Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic was seen lustily cheering every goal of her team. And later she rushed to the players’ dressing room and embraced each one of them in a congratulatory hug.

Morphed images

But what followed immediately after on social media was distressing; fake photos of her in a skimpy bikini started doing the rounds on Facebook and Whatsapp, with leering messages of “with a body like that of the Croatian President, I am supporting Croatia”.

What followed next is even more disturbing; social media had images and videos of women flashing, lifting their tops and the men around going berserk, with the women squealing in apparent delight. But while apparently some of these female fans have made this choice, however unsavoury it might seem to many of us, a major pitfall of this World Cup has been sexism and objectification of women; the groping of female fans, and worse, the accosting and harassment of Russian women on the streets.

Cliches and stereotypes have obviously played a major role in many fans taking for granted the “availability” or Russian women. Even female reporters have not been spared and were groped or kissed while on air. FIFA tried cracking down on broadcasters who’ve been picking out “hot women” in the crowd at games as part of its efforts to tackle sexism in football. The UK’s Independent reported: “The anti-discrimination group Fare Network has been working with FIFA to monitor behaviour at and around World Cup games and its executive director Piara Powar said sexism had been the biggest problem at Russia 2018.”

Remember the repors of women being molested during the Arab Spring? Small wonder then that Iran has banned women fans from attending football games. But, a group of female fans defied this diktat and was in Russia to cheer their team.

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