Friday’s World Cup match in Seattle draws conversations about politics and Pride
When the U.S Men’s National Soccer team beat the Australian men on the pitch in Seattle, it showed exactly what the team—and especially Seattle—can give the World Cup.
On Friday, the city’s hospitality and appetite for demonstrating against global affairs may very well reach a new pitch.
Egypt and Iran play in the city’s fourth and final group stage game—one that will make history.
Iran and the United States have made a dubious kind of history already, according to UW Global Sports Lab director Professor Ron Kabrill, who says never has a nation at war been hosted by the nation it is in conflict with during an international sports competition.
“I think that says a lot about American society,” Kabrill said. “The big questions become ‘will Iran come to the World Cup and participate in the World Cup or will gas prices?’”
“If you’re Iranian or if you’re part of the diaspora, you don’t have that emotional distance. You don’t have that sort of disconnect with the conflict because you’re intimately connected to people who are experiencing the conflict,” Kabrill continued.
The Global Sports Lab studies major issues around the world, including how they relate to sports and how people engage with sports in their daily lives. The spotlight of the World Cup game gives a platform that few athletes will ever see again.
“The Iranian team showed up with the pins that said 168, marking the schoolgirls who were killed in the initial attack as a way to humanize the cost of war and make the cost more immediate for a global audience, including in the United States,” Kabrill said.
Homeria Backhtiari, an Iranian-American with family still in the nation, takes a harder stance on the Islamic Regime and its role in the war. As the U.S. and Iran negotiate an end to the war, she’s disappointed with the early framework that’s emerged.
“After the bearing the war and the bombardment and now witnessing that the agreement is going to happen without any mention of human rights in Iran,” Backhtiari said.
Backhtiari was hoping for a change of power in the country. She recognizes the breadth of the Iranian Diaspora have a multitude of feelings about the regime and even the team taking Seattle Stadium on Friday.
“This is a mixed feeling for some people, but to me, I cannot cheer them,” she said.
Backhtiari is working with dozens of other people to organize a rally ahead of Friday’s match with Iranian Americans from Portland, Vancouver and Los Angeles coming in.
“Our message sent to the world is to tell Iranians who live in Iran that we are here, we are defending you, we are your voices and we make sure that our voices are heard,” Bcakhtiari said.
It will be one of several demonstrations, as for the first time in World Cup history, Friday’s Game has been designated “Welcome to Seattle: This is How we Pride,” a kickoff to Pride weekend in Seattle.
“It is also a time to reflect how long it took to get the rights that we have in Washington state specifically as well as Seattle. Then we get to party and we get to recommit,” said Louise Chernin, the co-chair of the Pride Match Impact Council that helped organize the game.
The Pride game campaign comes with a push to share videos of how people celebrate and highlight small businesses, tying together Seattle’s two loves.
“We were talking not only about our great soccer culture, which everybody got a preview of with the US-Australia game. But also that one of the things that makes us unique is our culture of inclusion,” Hedda McLendon said, the Senior Vice President of Legacy for the Seattle FIFA organizing committee
The Pride Match has not come without critics—the participating teams of Egypt and Iran, recognized as two of the more repressivecountries for LGBTQ rights, have unsuccessfully petitioned against it. The game was picked as the Pride match before the teams were picked.
“They’re just two of the 65 countries around the world that criminalize homosexuality, and I think whether it’s Iran, Egypt, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar, Australia, or really the United States of America, there’s an opportunity for everybody to do better when it comes to LGBTQ inclusion,” Kabrill said.
The game is picked as representative of Seattle’s culture. To Kabrill, it rings similar to when Qatar banned rainbow symbols when it hosted the World Cup in 2022.
“What everyone was saying around Qatar was you need to respect the culture you’re entering into and that that’s the sort of sign of what the World Cup should be. Well, I think this is Seattle’s culture– to be inclusive and welcoming and affirming,” Kabrill said.
As people from across the globe descend on Seattle and the United States, Kabrill says sports have the power to unite or divide, depending on the intentions of the people who are visiting.
So far, he sees a host city in Seattle that has chosen to spread its inclusivity to its visitors and believes the rest of the U.S can do the same. It’s those kinds of relationships between nations that no politician can create.
“People-to people diplomacy becomes even more important in those situations because it might be the only way to connect with people. It’s very hard when you’re face-to-face with another individual to not see their humanity,” Kabrill said. “Seattle has really tried to be welcoming. I hope we see that on Friday with Iran. I think we will. And I think that can go a long way.”
