Soccer’s Shadow And Sunlight: the fascist history of the World Cup and 20 years of soccer without borders

At Harmony Bank, we believe that better happens together. We're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success. Our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions. No big bank bureaucracy, just a custom approach to help you thrive. From business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs, Harmony Bank provides a secure, modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank. We're better happens together. [Music] Welcome to the Edge of Sports Podcast. I'm Dave Zyrin. We are brought to you as always by the Nation magazine. We have a very special show this week. We are talking to the great journalist Kareem Zidhan from Sports Politica, who will be telling us about his new podcast series Power Plays, which is about the deep entanglement historically and in the present between FIFA, the World Cup, and authoritarian fascist governments. This interview is a wow. Also, we are thrilled to have on Ben Guchardi, the founder of Soccer Without Borders, a non-profit organization that creates belonging for immigrant and refugee youth through soccer, education, and community. And this is their 20th anniversary, so we're going to get some historical perspective about Soccer Without Borders and the way it has had to change in this deceptic world. You are going to want to hear what Ben Guchardi has to say. But first, let's go to him now, Kareem Zidhan. So glad to have you here on the podcast. Dave, it's so good to be back on the show. Absolutely. I mean, on this topic in 2026, absolutely, we have you here on the podcast. No doubt about it. So let's start there. I mean, beyond the fact, of course, that this is the year of the World Cup, what led you with your interests, with your both sporting and political proclivities, what led you to this topic? And how much did you know about this history of fascism, dictatorship, military violence in the World Cup, the intersection of those worlds? How much of that did you know before planning these episodes? These are great questions, Dave. I think let's take it back to the beginning to answer your first question. So for me, everybody tends to know me as sort of the MMA guy. And I know that's where I cut my teeth. But the sport I fell in love with first was football. And honestly, the first time I ever experienced politics in sport was in the world of football. So I had just, I was, I mean, I'm the son of a doctor and a teacher. And they were living in Bahrain at the time. So we weren't even in Egypt. So I spent a lot of my youth in Bahrain and the Gulf. And I came back to Egypt around 15 for the last three years of high school. And when I came back, I didn't have that many friends and my cousin told me, hey, come join my group. We're about to go catch a football game. And it just so happened to be my favorite team in Egypt, Lately, facing off an exhibition game against Barcelona. And this was the Barcelona of all. We're talking a young Lyomessi, Samuel Eto, Rinaldinio. It was that legendary squad. And they're coming on our turf to play my favorite team. So I mean, I wasn't going to miss that. So what I didn't know at the time, though, this is 2007, the Lately team, with its hardcore fans had just formed their very first ultra's group. And this is the very first ultra's group to exist in Egypt. And for those who don't know, an ultra group can be sort of anything from hardcore football fans to violent hooligans, you know, to even fascists, depending on where you are in Europe. But that really wasn't the case in Egypt. For us, young men sort of had no hope. This is pre-revolution Egypt, not that much has changed post-revolution, but pre-revolution Egypt, as a young kid growing up, you really didn't feel like you had much of a future. Being in a football stand was really one of the only times you could actually express yourself. So we went and attended, and I got to interact with these ultra's who were wonderful people. And they were just sort of raising these T-fo banners, chanting songs, singing, having a good day, and every once in a while would be chanting at the government. It just so happened that on this day, they pissed them off enough. That I actually got to see police officers come into the stands, pull out kids who look just like me. I mean, I'm 15, and I bet you there was a bunch of other underage kids there as well. The oldest was like 18 or 19, so we're dealing with children here for the most part. And the cops are taking them out one by one, dragging them and beating them badly with batons. Like ruthless attacks, and I had never seen anything like this. I'm 15 years old at the time, and all I'm thinking my head is, why is this happening? What did we do? What did we do to deserve this? I got lucky that day. I wasn't one of the people picked on. My cousin sort of had me on the side. Things worked out in that end, but it absolutely shaped my understanding of the world around me. It became clear to me that the government has something it fears about young men gathering in a sports environment. And Dave, they were right to do so. The Egyptian Ultras, these Ahli Ultras, called the Ultras Ahleui, ended up becoming revolutionaries during the 2011 uprising. They actually, because of their sort of ability to fight the police officers, which is really the focus of the Ahli Egypt was sort of attacking police brutality, going one-on-one, facing off with the cops. They had that sort of guerrilla warfare experience, so when it came time to the revolution, they were the ones who knew how to handle tear gas, for instance. You know, the sort of formations that the police had, they knew when they were leading them into sort of a dead end street. And that stuff saved people's lives during the revolution. Right? And one of Egypt's post-revolution, the first female to run for presidency in Egypt, was standing in a camel based out like specifically said that the Ultras saved her life that day. Now that goes to show you football can actually play a massive role in politics. This has always been in the back of my mind when people asked me, "Why do I see the world as, you know, the sports world as political?" I tell them I never really had a choice growing up in Egypt. And this is the story I always come back to. So this set the scene for why I wanted to tackle the politicization of international football specifically. And of course, we're heading into a world cup here. And I mean, Trump aside, even before Trump became the focus of the 2026 World Cup, when Saudi Arabia was awarded the 2034 World Cup, I asked myself, "How did we get to this spot?" Where it was simply handed to them on a gold platter, no resistance, no issues, voting secured 100%. And I came to realize that, and this is really the aim of the show, FIFA isn't just sort of being exploited by authoritarian regimes. It itself, over the years, has morphed into its own authoritarian regime. This is what we really are trying to emphasize here. We're telling the story not just of FIFA sort of hopelessly and helplessly wandering into the arms of happy dictators. That's not the story here. The story is that FIFA, as it change, as it became less transparent, more transactional, more corrupt, its perfect bedfellows were these dictatorships. I have to answer your second question. If I learned something new here, absolutely. I'll tell you initially, I thought to myself, "Oh, I must know the Mussolini story in 1934 World Cup. Come on. How much do I not know about this?" It turns out quite a bit. Did you know that journalists, for instance, went home with little fascist t-sets, basically, to take home to their families? That was happening. It was one of those moments from thinking to myself, we have been, else's journalists, have been complicit in so many events that we choose not to cover properly. Sometimes for the price of a t-set. Exactly. A fascist t-set. I hate to interrupt you, especially when you're on a roll, but I wanted to ask you about that 34th tournament. Before you share anything about what happened that 34 World Cup, I had that very question about how much of this is FIFA seeking out dictators. How much back then? Because we see what it is now. But even in 34, almost a century ago, how much of it was this incipient fascism seeking out the World Cup? And would you say that Mussolini was the first political leader to see the benefit in exploiting the global appeal of the sport, sort of similarly to the way that Hitler would do two years later with the 36 Olympics in terms of seeing this, you know, the fascist tendency towards pageantry nationalism. Absolutely. Mussolini laid the blueprint for how the FIFA World Cup would be exploited moving forward. It was a remarkable feat on his end because he didn't even love the sports. Mussolini, when you think of him, you think of race cars. You think of motor sports and sort of what that meant to fascism. If he's talking about sort of advancing his country technologically, modernizing Italy, well, fast cars really fit that bill. Boxing was big for him. The idea of course, sort of the perfect Italian male and the idea of your physical appearance. Football really didn't represent that. It was also not an individual sport. It was a team sport. But the way the Italians played the sport was absolutely brutal. And Mussolini learned that you can actually use the sport to unify different parts of Italy, which was at the time we think of Italy now unified country. But before this wasn't so simple, it was a new young country and its current form. And Mussolini figured out that football would be a great way to nationalize the country's interest and unified behind his vision of politics. And he really did that extremely well. Well, he actually did as well, because here's where we can talk about FIFA as sort of a helpless player in the story. Because if first president, Jules Ramey, was actually, as we've spoken to multiple historians on the series, all sort of agree that he was the best president FIFA's ever had. This is the man who truly believed in fraternity between nations. He was a devout Catholic. He was, you know, he believed in labor rights. He was generally a good person to the point that when the World Cup first went to Italy, he thought, well, getting great. It's going to come to Europe. It was in Uruguay before that. This should be fine. But he was so appalled with what he saw that when it came time to host the 38th World Cup, he actually chose to make it a very, as we found out, quiet World Cup. No politics whatsoever. That one was hosted in France. We're talking right in the lead up to World War II. And he said, no, no politics. And because he was in control, Jules Ramey is French. So he had more influence in what was happening in France and said, no, never again, we're not going to have that happen with our World Cup. This is the only time you actually see a FIFA president truly rebel against what had happened. You can sense he was key-felt guilty about it. He even said, it feels to me that this wasn't an event organized by FIFA, but by Mussolini. That's how influential Mussolini truly was in the process. He understood it. I'll give it to him. He really figured out the power of sports in that moment and the sheer force of the propaganda he could produce. Wow, incredible. And when Mussolini looked to do this in 1934, because there's so much about the Hitler Olympics in '36, where the mind is also on conquest, not just look at me. I'm the fascist leader, praise me. But also laying out a propaganda district can even organizational framework for expansion and violence. How much of that was in the '34 World Cup as well? It absolutely existed less than a couple of years later in Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. He was laying the foundations from then on, but there was also some hypocrisy. He had, in order to create sort of an Italian team that was truly capable of winning the World Cup, he needed to actually look for a diaspora Italians, basically. People who were living in South America, what were called the Orundi. And he actually brought them in and happily elevated their status so that they could compete in the team. And that's the team that helped win the World Cup. But when it came time for him to invade Ethiopia, all those Orundi said, yeah, we don't want any of this. And they went straight back to their countries. So it's really interesting to see sort of the hypocrisy of it all, it's like, yeah. An incredible, absolutely incredible. So let's get to South America in the episode two. So talk first and foremost about the FIFA of the 1970s. How different was it from the FIFA of the 1930s? I mean, you spoke about that there was this transformation over the course of the 20th century to today. In terms of FIFA, seeing itself not just as a-- I mean, tell me if I'm mischaracterizing what you said. But not just as sort of a lickspittle to fascist interests, but actually becoming a fascist, a self-conscious, sort of fascistic interest unto itself. Talk a little bit about where FIFA was by the time we hit the 1970s. Oh, yes. So in the 1970s, we're in a very interesting time for FIFA. FIFA's transition from Jules Ramey to a leader called Stanley Rouse and Rouse is in trouble at this point. He's this old, old British guy. And he's sent in his ways. And for the most part, he was a decent FIFA president, but also a one who-- and I'm sure you have heard this mentality before Dave-- very much politics stays very separate to sports. And he's sort of militant about that. To the extent that he was more than happy to allow South Africa, apartheid South Africa to compete in the World Cup, which led to all sorts of backlash, including from member states who rebelled significantly against him. So in comes this Brazilian swath figure named Joao Havelange in 1974, he talks a big game, says, we're going to reform FIFA. We're going to change FIFA. And we're not going to allow South Africa into the World Cup and into competition in general. And this sort of wins him all this appeal. It's a transitional moment because it feels like Stanley Rouse himself didn't understand what was happening politically around him. And it just opened the path for somebody like Havelange, who he's saying all these wonderful flowery things. But this is a man who is the son of an arms dealer. He's Brazilian aristocracy to an extent. This is a man who is about to take FIFA and understand that there's a lot more money to be made. FIFA at this point up until the 1970s wasn't the multi-billion dollar enterprise it is now. They hadn't quite figured out the power of sponsorships and commercials and broadcasting rights. That was Joao Havelange. So he is elected as FIFA president in 1974 and the deal started flowing in. There's a lot of money suddenly coming into FIFA. But FIFA still structured as it was as one of our guests end up saying, a chess club. Which is all good when you're a chess club. But when you're FIFA, that simply doesn't work. It leads to an exceptional amount of corruption and kickbacks in bribery and Joao Havelange thrives in this atmosphere. And he starts winning over member states. They start figuring out, hey, every single member, these countries get to get you have a football association. You're a member of FIFA. Every single one, every single one of their votes counts the same, whether you're the US, whether you're Zimbabwe, it's all the same vote. This is very different to the United States. And you think of how many electoral votes per state very difference is a one-for-one here. So he says, OK, instead of being diplomatic with the big boys, the ones who have more skin in the game, the ones who have more leverage, like say, Germany, France, the US, those countries, I'm just going to go make friends with all the smaller countries and start giving them money in exchange for their votes. And that's how he do it. He ended up making the association in South America called Connombol and Conca Caffin, North America. Just ended up becoming these voting blocks that would go in his favor. And that's how FIFA continued to maintain control. And to this day, since then, Seb Blatter and right now, Gianni Infantino, this is how they maintain power. They call these things development funds, where they hand these very poor member associations a lot of money to develop the game. But in exchange for that comes your vote, and your silence, and your obedience. And a lot of the countries are more than happy to play along, because it works in their benefits. I'll scratch my back, you scratch mine. And yet everything else is ignored. And as you start leaning into more authoritarian regimes, there is no resistance because there's so much money at stake for everybody. So nobody stops the world cup from going to Argentina. That's the question. Yeah, how does this-- Everything you just described, Karim, was so detailed. How does it then lead us to down the road of perdition to the Argentinian world cup? What's really interesting about the Argentinian world cup is that it was actually handed to Argentina before the most recent of the coup d'état that led to a general Jorge Rafael Videla. So the truth is that at the time, well, there was peronism, and there was all sorts of-- Argentina was in a very difficult place between its former leadership under Peron, and peronism in general was under attack, and you had all sorts of coup d'état simply happening left and right in the country. And eventually, you have this military junta that takes over. And they inherit this world cup. But the thing is they were a vicious regime from the get-go. They were disappearing thousands of people. And at one point, there are reports that they were throwing people off planes straight into the river plates, like this is a horrific regime from the ground up. The torture cells that they started, right? It was truly, truly a dark, dark time in Argentina. So this regime is thinking, OK, we're about to get all this attention pointed in our direction. Are we-- should we cancel? Should we take it forward? And Videla says, no, we're going to really lean into this world cup. And we're going to make it a big success for us. We're going to pressure the team to do well. We're going to invest in them. We're going to put the resources. And everybody's going to ignore entirely what we're doing on the side. Here's the thing. It could have absolutely failed. But it didn't because Argentina did so well. So well, in fact, that they would go on to win the tournament. And to give you a sense of just how much-- something like sporting success on that level, when it's your national sport, it's your national pride, and you are watching your team win, despite your own life being miserable, or despite your own personal suffering, there's a moment where you can suddenly escape from all of that and just embrace this moment unabashedly. And that's exactly what happens to most Argentinians. To the point that there's an incredible story from one of the people who was tortured and was disappeared inside this horrible network of torture cells that they had in Argentina. A one point, one of the generals looked at them and these torture victims and said, "You want to see just how much nobody is thinking about you right now? Come with me." And he puts them in a car and they go and Argentina had just won the World Cup and they're in the streets and they're in their car, but there are so many people in the streets that the streets get blocked and the cars can go anywhere. And this woman is inside saying, "I can just step outside, shout that I've been disappeared and nobody's going to turn around or even think about her." And to her, he would never truly understand whether the general did this on purpose to show her this or whether he felt sorry for them and said, "Come on out and have a day in the sun with everybody else celebrating in Argentina," but it's very dark to think about that. That's just how powerful sports are and it's not even just propaganda. When you have such organic success like that, your team is just doing so well and it's going to win the World Cup. It does something incredible to people. I have seen Egypt in matches that aren't as important as the World Cup when the country is silent. Think of the African Cup of Nations and Egypt being one of the most successful teams ever there. I have been in the country when we're watching the game, it is dead silent. And when a goal comes, you can almost hear the entire country erupt, all the buildings around you, all the apartment buildings, all the homes, everybody's cheering. It's a collective scream of joy that only sports can do. I don't think there's a political situation that does this. I don't think maybe music as well, but sports has this phenomenal ability to unite people even at the darkest of times. And FIFA and authoritarian regimes know how to exploit this. Now here's the big question for you. How does this history that you're looking at, that you're going to be looking at through this entire season of power plays, how does it inform what you see in front of us right now in 2026 in terms of the current state of FIFA, under Infantino, the nexus between him and Donald Trump and the state of the world in what I think we're all looking at in 2026 is in a pretty unprecedented fashion, a joyless World Cup relative to the ones that we've seen in cycles past. And in places that have been in explicitly authoritarian regimes, I mean, I've never really seen a World Cup in my professional lifetime that people are approaching with so much trepidation or even, I mean concern isn't even a strong enough word, but the word that you don't hear used is joy, excitement and revelry, I'll tell you that. Oh, it's outrage, I think, is what people are experiencing right now. You think of, let's not before we even get into the politics of it, the sheer price of the tickets. Now, this is something we should focus on because as I'm telling you, FIFA is starting to make more money. They're getting more corrupt and more transactional from the 1970s, 50 something years ago when Havalanj was elected, right? So from then, FIFA just continues to snowball effect with more and more money. And eventually they just get greedier and greedier and greedier to the point now where they have dynamic pricing on tickets because they can, because they know in North America people have dealt with dynamic pricing and will pay those prices. So they're gouging them for everything they're worth. And football is supposed to be an every man's sport. It's supposed to be a sport anyone can play because it doesn't require equipment like a hockey or an American football, right? It doesn't, it's supposed to have fewer barriers to entry, which allows more poor people to participate, more middle class people to participate workers, et cetera. That era of football has disappeared and FIFA's primarily responsible for that as well. So it makes, it feels like FIFA uniting with sort of American hyper capitalism was sort of the end stage that was inevitable to me. That is without the, and I think we would have had this problem, maybe not to this extent. Of course, we're not talking about the ICE agents on the street and who knows who's going to be kidnapped and taken off the street during the World Cup. That wouldn't have happened under Biden. But I think that we would have had the same economic issues with pricing of FIFA events. And just how much FIFA harms the economies it visits. Their contracts are horrific and they're not very transparent about it, but they create these several mile radiuses around stadiums where you actually can't operate unless you are a FIFA partner or a FIFA sponsor. So you think of all the bars in the area that can't actually operate. You think of the restaurants that can't operate. People can't sell things unless you're connected to FIFA. This was sold to us as an economic opportunity for all these host cities, including the city that I live in, right? So between Toronto, between Vancouver and Canada and Montreal, these were cities that were supposed to thrive and none of these places in Canada where you don't have Donald Trump are thriving at all. But then you add the current US presence. You add this environment of war that we're in. I mean, Iran is supposed to be competing in the US. How are they even supposed to do that right now when they're at a state of war that was inflicted upon them by the United States and Israel? This is it's they just left their headquarters today. I don't know if he saw the news. But apparently their training base is supposed to be in Tijuana now, like, or this is at least the reports I've heard that they're not actually training in the United States. They're training just south of the board, just south of the board in Mexico. So I mean, it's a horrible situation to be in and it's truly the root of this FIFA associating itself with the United States has been a matter of greed for it. And in particular, going all in and being such a sick offense for Trump, like you think of this FIFA peace prize. This is all done to pleticate a leader who has the power to make or break this World Cup and FIFA wants to make its money. So we'll see if this World Cup ends up being the failure that is predicted, then maybe they'll learn their lesson, maybe because at the end of the day money is all that talks. These are not people with morals. So it's not like saying, oh, well, you see what this dictatorship did after your World Cup. They don't care about that. They've already moved on to the next one. But money, money is what moves the world. And if they don't make their money, then they'll go to the place where they can make their money. Right? So to me, but it all comes down to how the football is in the actual tournament. If we end up with another extraordinary tournament with some breakout stories in incredible football, I wonder how much of that will mask what we see because unfortunately, I won't get too much away from the following episodes of the show, but we have an episode on Russia and we have an episode on Qatar. And in both those episodes, there are plenty of reasons to be upset with tournaments themselves. But the football was fantastic. Russia went on an incredible run in the 2018 World Cup. A run they couldn't have planned for, but which Putin took advantage of. He raised the pension age in Russia once again during that incredible run where most Russians had no idea what was happening and the ones who did were protesting, but they were only protesting in the cities where World Cup events weren't happening. So the world, the media, as journalists, fans had no idea it was happening. It was a masterstroke from Putin. He got what he wanted and, well, Russians thought they got what they wanted until the World Cup was actually over. In Qatar, once the tournament started, when you had the success of Morocco, when people started seeing Palestinian flags flying everywhere, Moroccan hugging their mothers on the pitch, messy going on an incredible run and winning the World Cup, storybook ending, incredible final. Isn't that what people are talking about now? Are they still talking about migrants workers, Dave? No, this is not the same way. This is the powerful sports are, right? And if we're not aware of how we're being manipulated, the truth is we will lose the thing we love. And this is what I try and tell people all the time, they're like, why should I care about the politics? I'm like, listen, if I can convince you to care about other people or to care about human rights or the politics, let me talk to you in terms of your sports. Look at FIFA. Look at this World Cup you're about to watch. This joyless World Cup is as it comes to be known. Your sport is getting destroyed. So if you're not coming at this from a moral perspective, come at this from just a nostalgic perspective. The sport you used to watch when you were a kid, that does not exist anymore, not in the same way it used to. And I really cannot stress that enough for your listeners. Yeah, and if we look at the process, in a real macro sense, in some respects, 2026 has already lost in that we're, I mean, look at when we're having this interview for goodness sakes. It's May 25th, usually by this time when I visited other countries like Brazil, when you're this close to the World Cup, you feel it in the streets. There are signs everywhere. They're welcomed to people who are coming in that early for the cup itself. They're pre-parties already being organized. I mean, you go to New York City right now, you would not know that the World Cup is coming. You'd certainly know the nicks are in the playoffs, but you would not know that the World Cup is coming. And when I've called friends in other host cities like Seattle, for example, you don't, you don't see it in the same way. You do see warnings about ice that people are putting out on their front lawn, but you don't see this kind of like, hey, everybody, the greatest party on earth is coming. So maybe they can still pull it off come game time, but I think if we're looking at this big picture macro pre game, I mean, it's already to me, dismal, absolutely dismal. I really saw that. I completely agree with you and I've been an Egypt for quite a few weeks now, and usually by now. This is a football mad country and it's not just mad for its own football like a Egyptian league and the Egyptian teams or even Moussallah but like this is we just love the sport overall and you're always whenever you pass by a cafe whenever you're out on the streets you can see people watching games I haven't seen any signs for the World Cup there aren't people talking about it there's no discussions around it the thing is beyond just looking at it from an American perspective the world is in a difficult place right now there's multiple war fronts open right now I actually think for the first time maybe this is just me in the world I operate in but I've been in multiple countries over the past few months and it's the same sort of dismal heavy feeling of are we really going to think about football right now we know see what happens when when the tournament actually starts if things you know change and let's truly hope that nothing really bad happens during the tournament exactly no exactly exactly because we we know how low this can go historically and I think what we're all seeing is that we don't really know where the bottom is when it comes to 2026 we have some historical guides of what the bottom could look like but it might actually be several floors below what has previously been excavated and I mean you think about the fact that beyond 2026 we still have 2030 where for the most part you've got Spain and Portugal and you've got Morocco and Morocco has been going through its own protests recently right the Gen Z youth have been protesting not to remove the government but they're protesting for public infrastructure for health care instead of spending on World Cup stadiums which is what you can see sort of the the effect this has this sort of race to host mega events is actually corrupting and it's cancerous to the countries that end up hosting it it's a terminal cancer because you have to suffer with the consequences with the debt with the mismanagement for years to come in some of these countries like Morocco can't take that risk right now right but these are at the end of the day hybrid or fully authoritarian states they don't get the say but only enough those protesters actually ended up getting some concessions from the government I believe there have been you know sort of attempts to add to the employment opportunities for the youth and to change situations and public health care but whether they'll stick to it or not whether they'll just get more vicious and oppressive we'll find out and beyond 2030 we've got 2034 we've got Saudi Arabia and the thing I'm most worried about at this very moment if we if the conversation was so fixated on migrant workers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as it should have been many many thousands died how bad is it going to be in Saudi Arabia a country I don't know 50 times bigger than Qatar with 40 something more million people in it way more infrastructure to build extraordinarily hot country as well I don't think it's going to be very good right yeah so looking ahead it's not like we can say well FIFA is going to change course after this it's already signed up for the next two World Cup 2030 might be a joy who knows 2034 is going to be difficult very well put Karim Zedan the podcast which I think everybody needs to listen to right now it's called power place what's the best way that people can access power place honestly power plays is available across all podcasts at platforms so whatever you listen to your podcasts on you will find power plays and if you happen to be a subscriber to sports politica which is my media platform covering the intersection of sports and politics I'm also uploading each of the episodes there so you can you can if you're following the newsletter you'll get it straight into your inbox every every week when it comes out and what's the best way people can follow sports politica sports politica so the the easiest way to do so would be probably to type in sports politica dot news it will lead you to the main page you can subscribe from there and you will get the emails every time they come out if not it is hosted on sub-stacks so if you have the app you can just subscribe from there and it becomes sort of like a social media for for written the written word let's see how long that lasts on a place like sub-stack but as of right now that probably is the best way to to reach me and we can get you back on the show to talk about it in the shadow of the cage absolutely oh that's a whole separate conversation that I cannot wait to get into you absolutely believe me I've been waiting for that conversation as well let's just see what happens with the UFC event at the White House at the White House a couple of weeks yeah and when work our way from there oh my gosh ah creeps down thank you so much for joining us here on the edge of sports podcast oh such a pleasure day thank you so much for having me we'll be right back after a quick word from the sponsor of this podcast the nation magazine we'll be back right after this but first a quick word from the sponsor of this podcast the nation magazine okay look the need for independent journalism has never been more important and the nation brings it each and every week like they've been doing since 1865 I'm serious this is what you got to read it's the nation magazine go to the nation dot com slash subscribe and please never forget that when you support the nation magazine you are also supporting the continued existence of this podcast so please subscribe go to www dot the nation dot com slash subscribe and now back to the edge of sports podcast we are back as promised our next guest is the founder of soccer without borders been good charty and happy 20th birthday to that organization also just a little factoid Ben is more than an ace coach and organizer he is a published poet of the books west portal and arguments just throwing that out there let's talk to him now Ben good charty Ben good charty thank you so much for joining us here on the edge of sports podcast oh it's a pleasure to be here thanks Dave I first and foremost let's not bury the lead it's been 20 years now of soccer without borders congratulations hell of a milestone tell our audience please what the organization is and what it does yeah so soccer without borders is a non-profit organization started in 2006 that uses soccer as a vehicle for positive change specifically working with newcomer youth refugees immigrants and asylis in the U.S. and Uganda and also underserved girls in the U.S. and Nicaragua and the sort of model of the organization is to use soccer as a way to bring people together so we have teams that that youth can join for free and they play in formal leagues both externally and in leagues that we run and once they join they also have access to a lot of social learning academic support and team building activities that really help them to build community to get to to make new friends to learn the language to practice their English and just to build build self-confidence to help them in their new journeys as they adjust to a new culture in place I understand of course the U.S. being your home base but of all countries what why Uganda and Nicaragua as the two others that where you work yeah yeah so Uganda is home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world so they have a very hospitable policy towards refugees from the region especially from Congo it's also the proximity to other conflict zones in the area and so there's been a lot of really innovative and compassionate work from Congolese and other refugees to sort of provide education to other refugee populations there a lot of which a lot of which doesn't have enough resources and so we were kind of invited to start partnering there and did that work there and Nicaragua was a similar thing we're in the earlier days we were invited to start doing some work in that area and then it just a grew through the leadership of some of the other my co-workers to really be specifically focused on girls and at that time there were very very few programs that were serving girls under the age of 15 at all one of the first U17 national team when the the the Garaguan Women Football Federation started I think it was like six or seven of the girls that were selected were from our program because it was one of the few places where girls were starting to play at an earlier age which is obviously a huge part of their development as on the athlete side so yeah those two countries happen I mean I think an interesting part about the work is I do think in most places this would be an effective it could work there would be interest in most cities in the US and many other countries and I think sometimes the challenge has been just like how do we focus on doing what we're doing well without overextending ourselves and at different times I think the organization's history it's been harder to do that so have you have you experienced resistance from other countries where you've tried to plant some roots and what would their arguments be to be against something that's so clearly positive for kids in for refugees yeah yeah in the last several years in particular in Nicaragua it has been quite difficult the political situation there I think something about 70 to 75% of NGOs have been canceled or sort of lost their status within Nicaragua and that's partly because they're seen as sort of like a threat to the The Existing Administration's pilot. priorities. And because of like foreign funding, obviously the relationship between Nicaragua and the US has become extremely tense. And as that regime there's gotten extremely repressive, there's just been a lot more tight and different control. So that has made it very difficult to operate the program there at this point. I think, you know, there's something similar. I mean, I think there is, there is often just with the colonial legacy, there is often an attention of what the role of, of external money is doing within the country. And I think rightfully so to be skeptical of that, with just given the, given the history. So there has been at times policies or things that make it difficult for kind of groups that are originate outside of the country to do that. At the same time, the, both of those programs are totally locally led. So the program in Uganda is read by an alumni Jules who came through the program is now the director of the program and in Nicaragua, it's all read led by a group of women there. So it's been tense at times, but overall they've also been very welcoming and appreciative of the fact that there's some really important work on behalf of kids in an educational sense happening as well. So it's kind of, it's oscillating between those things at different times, depending on political situation, current administration. But overall, it has been largely regarded as a positive thing and it's something like a net that's, you know, people are great. People tend to see the value in it. When you look back at the last 20 years, you know, a refugee crisis has worsened dramatically. The world is a much more scary place. Climate change is driving refugee politics in a way that would have been unimaginable two decades ago, which leads to all sorts of things like almost what they call a climate neo-fascism in terms of how immigrants are being treated in many countries, oftentimes by leaders who deny that climate change exists. And so how has the work of the organization had to change alter, adjust, adapt to the changing circumstances of the world? Yeah, it's a great question. I think one of the things that's been really interesting is, you know, I'm based in Oakland and that's the work that I know most intimately because I've stayed involved in the direct service side in the Bay Area as a coach, as the mentor. For a long time, up until COVID, I was, you know, for about 16 years, I was out every day on the field coaching and working with using that way. And one of the things that we saw was that, specifically as the number of unaccompanied minors who are kids who are leaving mostly Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador without parents and without papers, as the number of those kids really grew, as the, you know, socio-political situation there. And some of those countries really started to deteriorate that we started to see a really large number of those youth enrolling in Oakland unified school district. So at, you know, at a certain point you got to as many as 1400 of those students enrolled. And, you know, having a really precarious situation that they're fleeing, but also coming into a really precarious situation here where they're often living with extended family members, aunts, uncles, aunts, uncles, brothers, people who don't often have the resources to care for them. And in terms of how, you know, the organization has been influenced by that, it was like there was a real pressure to expand, to have more teams to be able to accommodate their numbers, to really make sure that we were able to do that in partnership with the other groups. And I think other groups that were serving those youth. And I think that's just sort of like a, sort of mirrors the way that we've tried to respond to the situation is that, you know, there's demographic shifts. For example, situation I've got to, when the Taliban came back into power, we saw a large number of Afghan refugees coming into some of our programs and needing to sort of adapt and really kind of think about how could we best meet their needs, you know, using the kind of core of our model, but then also thinking about what would make sense to adapt and how can we, how can our staffing adapt to also be representative and have the cultural fluency. And so it's often, it's often something that, you know, it's, it's, it's really important that we be responsive to what's happening and also to be able to keep have a strong enough core to what we do that it's consistent, but also have enough flexibility to adapt to the changing situation because to your point, things have changed so rapidly in terms of who's coming, what their needs are and then, you know, who's not able to come and, you know, what, what, what that, what that looks like. So I would say that that balance of consistency and sort of stability and knowing what works, but then also maintain a healthy amount of flexibility within the organization to be able to, to work in the space that does see so much change in sometimes in months and sometimes in years. Yeah, I mean, let's talk for a second about, about soccer as a sport. And I'd love it if you could weave some of your own history with the sport in this answer. But what is it about soccer that provides as a sport that provides a language that allows you to connect with young people who come from such a diversity of backgrounds, diversity of languages, diversity of cultures. I mean, we're in an era where the, the very idea of a monoculture seems like something prehistoric. And yet here is this sport that is able to bring people together. I'm sure you've given this thought over the years. What is it about? Yeah, for sure. I think thinking specifically about the sport aspect, I think it combines self-expression and creativity at the individual level and teamwork in a way that very few other sports can, in the sense that like there is such a personality that you can express through the play itself in terms of like, you know, you can just practice for hours, a particular move, copying, mimicking something that's so like for young people, it's like, I want to get that right, like that mindset of, you know, I have a three and a half year old, we're at the bike, this little bike park today and she just wants to get it right. And like, I was that way as a kid just wanting to get that move down and be able to do it on the field. So there's that individual piece, but then there's also the complete reliance on 10 other people. And I think that balance is where you can have a personality, you can have an self-expression, but then you can also, you know, it has to be intimately connected to the other people on the field are part of what makes it such an exciting and relevant medium because both of those things are very captivating for young people. And then, you know, just the simplicity of it in terms of what you need for 22 people, which is a lot of people to be able to do something fun. You need very little and you're able to do that in a, you know, it's very adaptable. You can also play four on four, you can play 11, 11, you play one on one, I remember growing up playing, I had three friends and we would set up one V1 V1 and we'd play that for hours just going after each other. There's so many ways you can actually play the game and adapt the game that really make it fun. So I think there's that piece of it and then just the, you know, the appeal where, you know, there is something when you feel like you're passing, you're working with somebody else. It really, if you create the right space, it really can start to feel like it doesn't matter how somebody's different from you, you can really see how you're connected to them and how you're working together. And that part of it, you know, that part of it makes it, you know, it's often referred to as universal language and it does provide an access point for people to work with folks who are quite different from them, to get to know people who are quite different from them, to have something in common. Some of the most beautiful experiences I had growing up, I was, I played on a team where they're coaching all the other players spoke Spanish and I got to learn Spanish from like 10 to 13. That was like such a useful experience for me. It served me so well in my life. And then, you know, some of the teams that I've coached, it's been like, you have the starting 11, it's kids from eight countries speaking nine different languages and it works, you know, and it's just a beautiful thing. They're 15, 16 years old and they're, it works even if some of them aren't, aren't able to necessarily communicate in a shared way. We can look at, you know, get the clipboard out and push, you know, point things around and we can really communicate that way. And so I also do think, I think there are many beautiful aspects of soccer, but I often talk about it. It's like, it's a tool and with the hammer, you can, you can build a house and you can also break a window. And I don't think, I don't have the sense of soccer as like a panacea that it's like, you know, all we need is soccer. It's, you need really intentional spaces where soccer can flourish and where, you know, where we can have a shared, a shared respect for each other, a shared respect for our humanity, a shared respect for cultural differences because there are also challenges that happen within those teams with, you know, 11 players from eight countries, there are challenges. If you're not committed to working with that and helping people use that as a learning space, it can turn the other way also. And so I think that's an important distinction is that it is, it is a very powerful tool, but it's one that needs to be wielded with a lot of intentionality and respect for it to be put in surgery. of, you know, compassion, humanity, positive community change, and if it doesn't happen that way, you know, I've also had a lot of really negative experiences, parts of teams, where coaches are screaming at me, or teammates are making me feel like I just blew it, and I think that's a real aspect of sport, and if you're not intentional about that, that aspect will rear its head as well in our context. What for you though, I mean, given how negative team sports can be at times, what for you in your life was kind of a either an aha moment or an aha process that said, "Wait a minute, this can also be a site of compassion, community building, and friendship, and be wielded in such a way for positive change." Yeah, I think I think some of it was just how much I love playing this sport, and just thinking about like how much joy it brought me, and knowing that that could happen, you know, for somebody else, that's like my thing is I just think all young people need something that they care about, and as a matter of what it is, it's just something that they want to practice on their own, that they want to do on their own. I think I was really fortunate, I grew up in San Francisco, and I went to schools where like, you know, we would have, as part of high school, the opportunity to go work with the younger kids at different schools and coach, and then when I was in college, I came home in summer, I was working at a community center in the Mission District, which is largely like a, largely historically been an immigrant community, and I got to work at a place called Jamestown Community Center that had the ethos of this idea of sports-based youth development. I think one of the earlier groups that really had a pretty robust program of free teams in the community, training parents to be coaches, to really start to become like really leaders within those communities, and I got to take part in that and see how that was working. I helped run like a Girl Sports Camp, which in the Mission there was very few opportunities for girls to participate, and it was a free camp where we had youth leaders that I got to help teach them how to coach their older girls, working with the younger girls, and it was just a beautiful thing. I really saw firsthand the possibility of that, and I knew that that existed, so I think growing up here in the Bay Area, there's, I think there's often a lot of sort of fairly advanced understanding of what something could be, which often we get, there's a lot of social movements I've grown out of here, and I was fortunate to be a part of that, and then later on when I was studying education, I was doing my student teaching in a classroom for English language learners, for high schoolers, and the feeling that I had was like, you know, half to two thirds of these kids don't want to be here at all, like they would rather just be home, this is not working for them, and I didn't want to start from that point of like our relationship starting from like I'm making you be here, and I felt like with soccer, you're choosing to come, and if you're going to come, then we can have this sort of sense of a shared sense of values, this is what this space is about. I recently learned there's a there's this really interesting work being done at UC Berkeley, there's something called the Institute of Othering and Belonging, and the thing that is they have a phrase that I love is called universal positive regard, and it's like what that means is like we're relating to the best in each other, I'm seeing what's best in you, and you're seeing what's best in me, and we want to relate to each other in that way, and I didn't have that framework or that word for what it was doing, but that was always to me what the work allowed was no matter what, no matter what your situation has been, when you come to this space like I want to relate to the best in you as a coach, and as the organization grew that was the thing that we were training on in different ways was how do we how do we do that? How do we keep that at the forefront of what's happening? And I think to me what young people need more than anything else is for somebody to relate to them in that way, where they they feel cared for, they feel love, they feel not judged, they feel like oh somebody is seeing this in me, and that's not always the case for a lot of young people, especially those who are having to flee some really difficult circumstances, and who, you know, one of the things that's so hard about coming to a new place is that parents have to work so hard just to make ends meet, that they don't always have the time and energy to, you know, when we go play our games on Saturday, just talk about boarders teams, it's like the other team will have 40 parents out there with the snacks and cheer, and we'll have like the coach and maybe one volunteer because the parents are all working, they don't have that ability to to come out and support in that way. So that that I really think that that has allowed through us to be through that relationship between the coach and the player for us to meet what I think is a core need of young people to feel them self-seeing in that light of universal positive regard, of respect, of non-judgment and of care, and I do think that that has been, you know, soccer does allow that because we both show up to the field wanting to be there, we choose to be here, where this is exciting, there's an energy there, and a lot of other things don't have that resonance for young people. Certainly true, let's take it to the World Cup, if we can't. I've never seen a World Cup that people are approaching with so much consternation as this one. There's serious concerns that the United States is basically going to be like a big trap for immigrants who are coming to see the Cup or enjoy the Cup. They've had to assure and reassure tourists that they won't actually be arrested at the airport. Travel advisories are being issued by countries saying it's safer to go to Canada or Mexico than the United States. I mean, I really, you know, Trump being given that FIFA Peace Prize and then proceeding to bomb Iran and Lebanon and support what Israel has done to Palestine. It's really staggering the way this World Cup is shaping up. How is soccer without borders connecting slash interacting with the 2026 World Cup? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's, you know, going back two years, there's this hope of this sense of, you know, all this, the 20-year anniversary in confluence with the World Cup and the men's World Cup and how could we, there's going to be so much excitement and energy around the game and around the possibility of it uniting people. It's one of those moments where the whole world is, you know, connected to the same thing, caring about the same thing. And the reality has been so disappointing in the sense that I think the things that they that have been valued are so much more about the, you know, access access to the games for very few people who can afford it here and another end in the other in Canada and Mexico as well. I think it has been, you know, buying large a lot of the work that's happening around social impact, which in some of the other World Cups in the past, there has been a lot of very intentional supportive efforts to, you know, to really build out programming, like soccer with that borders in those countries. And I think buying large, there's some things happening, but by large, it's been disappointing at each of the host sites. And I think there's a huge missed opportunity giving the amount of resources that are coming in that those are just being really funneled to people who have those things. And so I mean, I think we're still trying to, you know, to see where there are opportunities to plug in. One exciting thing is we'll be able to have some of our kids walk out with the players and on the individual level, there's a program through Common Goal and Quaker that we were, we've been participating in, which is a fantastic opportunity to be a life, those kids won't remember that forever. I mean, I still remember myself when I was 10 going to the 1994 World Cup at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. I didn't get to go into the games, but I was like selling pins outside and I just remember like seeing all these people all over the world, the Brazilian fans like just made such a big impression. So there are still some of those moments happening, but I think by and large, just the emphasis on profit and on greed and on kind of perpetuating the, you know, the corporate aspect of it has really made it something that feels very far away from most people and for an organization like us in our, in our, you know, our families that we serve, that it has been, it has been quite disappointing. And then when you think about something like the FIFA piece prize, it just almost makes a, makes a mockery of the work piece and, you know, it really almost makes it feel impossible to, you know, to feel like you can be aligned with what's happening, if that's what they're lifting up. So it's a real missed opportunity in my opinion. And I think, you know, we want to try to salvage what we can from it, but I also think it's, it's, you know, it's, it's by and large, it's been by and large, a disappointing relative to the high hopes that we held for the organization, for the potential benefit to underserved communities in particular. And yet you think it still has the potential to perhaps be transformative in the lives, in the lives of these young people, right? I mean, just the sheer spectacle, the excitement, I mean, we'll see how excited people are. A lot of that's gonna depend on the state response. - Yeah, I mean, there is potential though, right? Do you think? - I think there's a potential. And I do think, at the end of the day, people are, I think about Kampala Uganda and our program there. And I think about those restaurants just up the road from the field where we play. Those are gonna be packed. People are gonna be watching. There's, I mean, there's countries who it's their first world cup ever, you know, thinking about Kabul Verde, thinking about Haiti being in. Like, for those countries, it's just still gonna be a massive thing. And that, some of that transcends, you know, there are some of that that gets kind of beyond what anybody can control. It's to the people who, who, who want to see that, who want to celebrate their team, who want, you know, they're gonna lose their games, but they're gonna be, the whole country's gonna be out watching. And that's still gonna be a powerful thing. That's something that people are gonna remember for their whole lives. And, in that sense, you know, I do think, I do think it's still, you know, I think there's always, you always have the opportunity to try to help shape it and to try to help move it in whatever direction you can. And, you know, I still think we want to try to do that to the best of our ability. I know for our kids who are gonna get to go to those games, they will remember that experience for their whole lives, to get to walk out with, with, with players and be on the field and just look up into the stands and to be a part of that is gonna be a, is gonna be a special experience. And that doesn't negate all of the harm that's being done. You know, I don't, I don't see that and say, this makes it worthwhile. I don't know, but it's, it's, it's that constant tension between, you know, this is the world that we live in and it's deeply problematic. And, is there aspects of it that we can try to, to celebrate and make, make be positive without, does that, is that possible to do both of those things that wants to hold the problems with it but to also participate in it in ways, I struggle with that personally and collectively, you know? - Boy, join the club on that one. - Yeah. - In a real way. - Yeah. - You know, Ben, you've been so generous with your time. I always do like to ask people one question though, before, first of all, is there anything we haven't covered about the 20 years, soccer without borders, anything you'd like to share? - No, I think, you know, I just think, I think one of the things that has been really beautiful to see is just thinking about, you know, edge of sports and the work that you are doing is that there's increasingly an understanding that sport can be a meaningful aspect of positive social change and there's an increasing movement around people using sport in this particular way. And I do think that, you know, it's important to consider that we are part of what shapes what sport is or what sport isn't. And so, you know, I just wanted to mention that, that that's something that is kind of, there is some exciting work happening in that space and people who are trying to, you know, to push things in the right direction. - Mm-hmm. And one last thing, what's the music that Ben listens to when he's getting psyched up for doing some soccer without borders? What's on your soundtrack? - It was funny. The other day, we, so we did, for the 20 year anniversary, we had a big gala to do a big fundraiser. We'd never done something like this before. I had to choose a walk-up song for when I came up to see some work. - Ah, there it is. - And so I chose a fellow Kuti. So that's still something for me that I love and, you know, connects to the soccer certainly. And so I'll say that. - Right on. Hey Ben Gachardiman, thank you so much for joining us here on the edge of sports podcast. - It's my pleasure, Dave. - Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you've done through the years as a journalist and a thinker. - It's really kind of you. Really is, thank you, man. Well, that's all the time we have this week. Thank you so much to Karim Zedon, sports politically, just the best. You gotta go there, support the work. Thank you so much, Ben Gachardy, soccer without borders, the best. You gotta support the work. Thank you so much to the Nation Magazine, our sponsor. Thank you so much to David Tigaboo, who puts it all together. For everybody out there listening, please stay frosty. We are out of here, peace. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]