Episode 202: Qatar and the World Cup of Shame
In this episode Shireen Ahmed, Jessica Luther and Brenda Elsey discuss the (longstanding) controversy around the Qatar 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup including the ongoing inhumane working conditions and indentured servitude for migrant laborers building stadiums that have led to at least 6,500 deaths, the corruption of FIFA's host-country selection and the ways that European players are now voicing opposition to the Qatar-hosted event.
Shireen will also preview her interview with Telegraph journalist Fadumo Olow on the proposed Super League and navigating the world of sports during Ramadan. They'll then burn the worst of sport this week in the Burn Pile, celebrate Torchbearers like softball pitcher Hope Trautwein, share what's good in their lives and what they are watching in sport this week.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Links
Qatar: Little Progress on Protecting Migrant Workers https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/08/24/qatar-little-progress-protecting-migrant-workers
Why are football teams protesting against Qatar 2022 World Cup? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/28/why-are-football-teams-protesting-against-qatar-2022-world-cup
Qatar World Cup stadium workers earn as little as 45p an hour: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/29/qatar-world-cup-stadium-workers-earn-45p-hour
Air-con stadium opens as worker abuse continues: https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/qatars-world-cup-stadium-opens-amidst-claims-migrant-worker-abuse-1072421975
The ‘Disposable Populations’ of Sports: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/qatar-labor-world-cup
Report from Nepal on effects of Covid-19 on migrant workers (PDF) https://www.nhrcnepal.org/nhrc_new/doc/newsletter/Pandemic_compressed.pdf
Transcript
Shireen: Welcome to Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Shireen, and I am joined by Brenda and Jessica on this fine, fine spring morning. We have a fantastic episode for you today where we will be discussing everything trash about Qatar 2022 and stadiums, including the indentured servitude that takes place there and all the politics around it.
Shireen: Before we begin, I would like to talk about the merry season of spring. [Vivaldi’s La Primavera plays]
Now, when you think of spring, what do you think of? You think of flowers, you think of bees, you think of trees. Do you think of seas, Brenda?
Brenda: I think of allergies. [laughter] No, I love it anyway, even if I'm crying all the time and I wake up and I look all day like I've just woken up, even at like 9:00 PM. I look like I've just woken up because my eyes are just so puffy, but I'm still happy. I love spring and I garden and there's a lot of yard work. So, I can see now I have kale and cauliflower and lettuce, and it's pretty exciting.
Shireen: You have like your dinner right there, Brenda.
Brenda: I know, [laughter] I know I like a rabbit. So, I’m pretty psyched about it. But yeah, the allergies are a thing, they’re a thing.
Shireen: Jessica.
Jessica: Yeah allergies are terrible, but Texas wildflowers are a whole thing and we very famously have these flowers called bluebonnets that pop up this time of year and they just are everywhere and they're gorgeous. But we had a gardener plant some stuff in front of our house, native stuff because Aaron and I can kill anything and really need it to survive on its own. But right now we have two different flowers out front and for Shireen I went and looked up what they are and one is called a purple coneflower, which are these very tall shoots and at the very top of these very soft lavender pedals, and those are beautiful. And then we have these much shorter plants right now called Mexican butterfly weed that will get taller. But as of now, they're these short little things and they have these very beautiful yellow-orange pedals on them.
Shireen: That's gorgeous. I'm going to live vicariously through the small balcony that I have because Ontario has gone into a very severe lockdown for six weeks. So, I'm not a successful gardener. I'm known to have a black thumb, but I did do really well with my basil last year and I'm going to try that again, and I'm going to try maybe to branch out to zucchini again. I'm going to try and then hope for the best. I don't have allergies very often, but you know, I'm happy to commiserate any time. I just wanted to shout out also the song that you heard is clearly La Primavera concerto, Spring by Antonio Vivaldi. And this is very, very beautiful. It's by a violinist called Alana Youssefian who I'm obsessed with. So, enjoy that. Enjoy your spring. And I wish you all the antihistamines if you need it.
Brenda, can you tell us and bring us into a little bit of what's happening and what has happened around Qatar, the men's World Cup 2022?
Brenda: So, it's been 10 years that we've known that the vote took place, that the men's World Cup of 2022 would take place in Qatar. Immediately that was controversial, and we're going to get into that. But what has come out recently are more and more reports of deaths of migrant workers that are related to the World Cup. At the same time, there has been increased pressure from European football players and federations to withdraw support for the Cup based on not only migrant workers’ deaths but also issues like gay rights. People might assume that women's rights are the center of this, but they're actually not necessarily, or haven't been in the reports. That hasn't seemed to be…You know, Qatari women can vote. It is a monarchy. So, of course civil rights are very, very limited, but that's the case for men as well.
There are stricter restrictions under Sharia law. And that is going to probably prompt a lot of activity on the ground to try to make safe spaces for LGBTQ communities. But the Al Thani family, which rules Qatar and has for decades, has been bent on improving its image on the international stage. This is part and parcel of their program. So, it's ongoing, and we've seen this uptick in both reporting and protests.
Jessica: So, because there's so much construction around the World Cup and often because they have to do it so rapidly, it is not uncommon, sadly, for there to be deaths of stadium construction workers and labor abuse issues. For example, in South Africa in 2010, there was at least one construction worker who died and at one point 70,000 workers went on strike, halting the stadium construction at the time. Brazil in 2014, nine people died during the building or refurbishing of the 12 venues for the World Cup. There's an Al Jazeera piece from 2014 that said, “Many laborers who worked on construction projects ahead of the World Cup say they experienced rights abuses including long hours and dangerous conditions.
There were reports of 84 hour work weeks for these construction workers in Brazil. Russia in 2018, 21 construction workers died on the stadium building site. There was a Human Rights Watch report at the time that said that many workers face exploitation and labor abuses in Russia, and I think it's important to note that – this is how the New York times wrote this up – quote, “FIFA, soccer's corruption-plagued governing body, lacked transparency and had failed to demonstrate that its monitoring system had effectively identified, prevented, and corrected stadium labor conditions.” But I think it's important to say that what is happening, what has happened in Qatar up to this point, is like on a whole other level from what we've seen in these previous World Cups.
Brenda: A recent report released by the Guardian has said that deaths are probably under-reported, but at least 6,500 people have died and migrant workers have frequently been categorized as dying of quote unquote “natural causes.” The deaths have not been investigated. They are frequently from heat stroke, from unsafe working conditions on construction sites. They have had abuses in terms of their housing, their freedom of movement – often their passports have been confiscated. And so, what we've seen is a total lack of transparency and accountability in regard to these deaths.
Shireen: One thing that I really want to add about, you know, the populations that make up those that have died, the workers that have died, is that they’re predominantly South Asian. And I think that's really important in the scheme of things, because these are some of the countries in the world that do not affect the FIFA World Cup in terms of participation. India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka are not countries that qualify even through the AFC. It’s horribly and horrifically ironic that they're actually the bodies of which these stadiums will be built on.
By the time we get to 2020 it is estimated – and it was in a report in 2013, and we're going to link some of them because we've actually collected a lot of reports and reporting throughout the years – is that there will be almost 11,000 people who would have died. Some of the reports are actually quite detailed. So, just a trigger warning for anyone that goes through them, that the whole situation is egregious and unacceptable.
Jessica: And so I just want to say quickly that it's no surprise that the Human Rights Watch found that FIFA didn't seem to care much about stadium labor conditions in Russia. FIFA is a notoriously corrupt organization whose officials seem mainly concerned about lining their own pockets. The reason Qatar's hosting in 2022 is because there's massive corruption in FIFA. There was a lot of evidence pointing to both Russia and Qatar paying FIFA officials to vote for their sites to host this. Problems for the World Cup, I guess, the point is that they don't begin or end on the local level at these host sites, and the fact that we now have a human rights crisis around the World Cup almost seems like a really terrible logical end to all of this.
Brenda: So, voting. Hmm. 22 out of 24 committee members that voted on the 2022 World Cup have already been proven to have taken bribes. So, I think the other two just died or…I mean, every single vote that was cast for Qatar was dirty. There was a whole process that led up to that, that most people don't even understand, where they changed the whole system of how the confederations got the right to host the World Cup right before that. So, the wheels were set in motion a very long time ago. Qatar is likely the wealthiest country in the world, and I think that's one of the most painful parts about reading about these migrant workers is that on the one hand you've got enough money to spend hundreds of millions of dollars bribing, but safe working conditions or real pay is just, you know, forget it. It’s really an acute difference.
But there's a big lead-up, and part of it goes to the voting system. You know, the way in which these things get changed at the bottom before you get to the final bid area is through a one football federation/one vote, and it has empowered a lot of very small countries, and I'm not implying that small countries are somehow more corrupt, but it does mean that these officials who have very little scrutiny on them, who aren't really public figures, can be bought at a really relatively cheap price.
Shireen: One of the things that. Brenda did mention was how the Qatari royal family really wants to change its PR and it felt as of getting involved with FIFA and relative mafia might be a great idea. But anyways, like we said, there have been criticisms from very early on, even when the campaign was announced or bid was announced, but one of the things that they tried to do was in 2013, there was a workers charter actually launched. The BBC did report on it. I do want to also bring attention to just the general lack of care for workers in Qatar from 2013. Also, there was a French football named Zahir Belounis who actually threatened to go on hunger strike because he was playing for a club in Qatar and he wasn't being released. It’s very important not to divorce the royal family and what they own and control over these other things. They definitely have a say in everything that goes on in that country. That's how these type of autocratic monarchies work in the Gulf particularly.
So, just drawing from that, we knew it was a bad situation, but when even the culture around football is so stringently, rigidly controlled to a violent manner where families don't have freedom of mobility – and that's something else we have to remember with these workers, be they professional footballers, be they working in construction. Their passports are taken from them. They do not have the right of mobility. They have to apply for an exit visa. This is not something that I think we think of in the western world and those of us who are privileged enough to have passports. We don't have to ask to leave. Asking to leave can be more stressful than just entering a country. This happens in a lot of Middle Eastern countries and certain places, exit visas are required. So, I mean, that's something that we need to keep in mind as we look at this.
My friend Rafia Zakaria actually wrote a piece very recently for Dawn, the newspaper, the English-speaking newspaper in Pakistan. She wrote about workers in FIFA, in Qatar and she actually said that there are many Pakistanis who are actually working there, and this is why this part of the world should care. And whether it's Dubai, Doha or Sharjah, you know, it's just so so difficult because the situation at home, in their home countries, is so incredibly bleak that it seems as if there's this ton of money. And that's not what happens. So anyways, all this to say that the system that was currently there, the Qataris recently tried to change, so it was called Kafala and that was considered a reform.
This is what Rafia wrote: “Qatar must be congratulated for its Kafala reform initiative as human rights advocates and labor leaders have pointed out time and again, that the Kafala system amounts to a form of indentured servitude in tethering employees to employers. Unjust, coercive, and abusive. It has been long been seen that employees either bear the difficult conditions, including most of the non-payment of the wages, or be returned home. This latter option is not a possibility because many have incurred huge debts in order to get there in the first place. And this has been the locus of interminable cycles of abuse for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
It is likely that the Qataris have been inspired to make these labor law changes, owing to the scrutiny they have received and are likely to further encounter because they will host the FIFA Cup next year. Just the other day, Amnesty International released an open letter to Mr. Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA. The letter specifically expressed concern over the Qatari Shura council's transcendence over the Kafala system and the change of employer. It is also noted that even when labor reforms are made in Qatar they're rarely implemented.”
There's so many pieces to this. This is not the first letter, certainly, that has been sent to FIFA by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, or Human Rights First. And, you know, I think increased press on this is extremely important because hopefully it'll lead to change. I mean, we've seen the power of media and people and fans and creating that, but you know, who's to say what's going to happen? Brenda?
Brenda: I just wanted to ask you if you if there's some part of you that buys it, you know? That in the end that it's gonna prompt this reform, and somehow that them hosting this tournament, which seems so awful, will resolve in some change for workers' rights?
Shireen: No. And very, very plainly put: no. Because this is a system based on years of racism and xenophobia, shadism, classism to the extreme. What Rafia did mention is that in order to get to these Gulf countries, that they amassed a tremendous amount of debt to travel there with the companies pay, so as soon as they get there before they start working they own money that they can't pay back, presumably, during their term there. There’s no end in sight. It’s almost like there's just no light at the end of the tunnel. They live in squalor. I mean, one of the workers that I've read in the Guardian report died because there was a loose electrical outlet and there was water that flooded his room and he died that way, like their living conditions…And because at the end of the day, it is slavery because you're owed to the system. You’re owned by this financial system, which is owned by these companies who wash their hands of it.
And do these men even get proper burials? We don't know. Who's out there monitoring that? And it's almost as if human rights associations and organizations who are on the ground there get access anyway. There are people – I do want to remind our listeners – there are people who are doing the work in these places, but they're so limited and they are targeted and journalists get very limited access or either no comment either from the government, the royal family, or the construction companies – who I will remind everybody are owned by western companies. So, Brenda, how do we see players getting involved here?
Brenda: Well, it's been interesting for the last month or so you see countries like Germany and Norway start to wear these shirts that say various things. Now, FIFA absolutely prohibits any political statement on a shirt at all. The argument might be made that human rights aren't political in, in a partisan way, or I think you could make that argument. But in any case, they didn't persecute the Black Lives Matter shirts, and now they're not persecuting players for wearing the shirts, or fining or punishing them. And it's interesting because you wonder, you know, is this just a way that FIFA wants to let this go away? We're just not going to add any fuel to this fire by sanctioning any particular team that's wearing this? Are they hedging their bets? Is everybody hedging their bets?
I mean, part of the stadium construction deaths has to do with also football working conditions. This place gets to be 120 degrees. Like, it is not a place play football [laughs] and they're trying to air condition these massive stadiums. You know, you think to yourself, workers' rights and the parallel with workers on the pitch. Not that they have the same conditions, but that who's going to be able to call attention to this? And maybe it is these professional European footballers that could do it during the qualifiers. I mean, I certainly don't see a ton of momentum, but I think it's happening now because I think in part the Black Lives Matter protests, they got away with it with the FIFA fines. And now it's kind of becoming more and more normalized that these teams are presenting messages.
Shireen: Historically, Brenda, have any teams pulled out of the men's World Cup due to some type of ethical protest?
Brenda: No. Really, no. We have individual players and we have teams that say maybe. So, the only one that I know of…Okay, but listeners, correct me if I've missed something – but the only one that I know of is Uruguay pulling out of 1934 in Italy and saying it was about Mussolini, maybe.
Shireen: Maybe? Maybe?!
Brenda: Maybe, because they were pretty upset that some of the European teams didn't make the trip to the 1930 World Cup. So, they kind of had a tantrum and you want it to be about politics and then it seemed like an afterthought that there was fascism involved, but all the other countries were good with fascism. So, you know, there's that. And then Argentina sent an amateur team to Italy for that. So, yeah, it's just that important. It's just that important.
Shireen: So, my thing is when I read all this, and this is something that I've been falling in particular because in addition to you know, worker's rights in these particular parts of the world, I'm also very cognizant of the way it's written up. About 10 years ago when I was blogging, the problem was is that the criticisms were very much steeped in Islamophobia as well, and racism. And it's something that I stayed with and I wanted to monitor because I wanted to see how the Middle East…And we know, as Jessica explained, whether it's the way that stadiums and structures affect World Cups is not specific only to the Global South or the Middle East. I mean, there's corruption through all the ranks and all the ways that this is done, and we know this.
But in addition to that, why are people making noise now? Why is this an issue now? As Brenda said, we knew about this bid ten years ago. Why are people caring now? It's not as if people have just started dying. I mean, this is a question maybe for media, I don't know. Jessica, do you know why people start to care now when there's issues that go on systemically forever? Is there a reason why, about anything, people just start to care suddenly?
Jessica: I don't know. I have no idea how this works. I think that's one of the weirdest things about media is you never know what story will hit and why. I don't know if we have a good sense of why these players in Europe are all of a sudden…Or, I don't know if it's all of a sudden, but the way that it feels is all of a sudden, and of course they understand as well as anyone that them doing this will create a new cycle around this story. But yeah, I have no answer for you. I think it is a real conundrum.
Brenda: I do think the qualifiers, the fact that what they're doing right now is one national team playing another in order to qualify to get to the World Cup. So, this is the first time European teams have played as close as this to the World Cup, maybe? I don't know. I'm just throwing…I’m just spitballing here, but mixed metaphors.
Jessica: And I do wonder if we are having a certain moment of athletes speaking up in loud ways that, as Brenda said, the Black Lives Matter shirts they didn't get punished for. This on some level seems like the next step. And so now they're in qualifying, but…Yeah. I don't know why stories hit in certain ways at certain times.
Shireen: There are Amnesty reports from 2016 and it's literally titled the Qatar World Cup of shame, which is so poignant, and I think just very, very relevant. So, also there's a petition from 2017 to boycott. So, this is happening for a while. And just pulling from an Al Jazeera article that came out not too long ago, Germany's midfield or Joshua Kimmich said, “The boycott calls have come 10 years too late. It wasn't allocated this year, but a couple of years ago. One should have thought about boycotting back then,” said Kimmich. And that's something that I think of, but also to Brenda's point, maybe they're getting more attention because they're on the qualifiers. So, it's all these things. Jessica, I know we're coming up to the Olympics too in China. How does this affect that context?
Jessica: Yeah. If you think about, there's going to be another mega event sporting event next year before the World Cup that will also be a flashpoint around issues of a host country’s human rights abuses. I mean, China is going to host in early next year, the Olympics, and back in February in episode 192 we talked about a lot of stuff around the Olympics. I said then that the World Uyghur Congress has described the 2022 Olympics as a “genocide Olympics” because of “the Chinese government's appalling rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent.” There've been rumblings from the US about a possible boycott. China has responded by saying there would be a robust Chinese response to a boycott. And I just think it's a good reminder for everyone that these international mega sporting events are part of a larger geopolitical landscape that they are quite literally bigger than sports, and decisions around where to host and whether to attend can have major political fallout that goes so far beyond the pitch or the sporting arena.
Shireen: Yeah, definitely. I think that what Brenda mentioned earlier, like FIFA saying sports aren't political – well, we basically trashed that, but it's really interesting that they cling to this idea that sports are not political to try to maneuver. They'll use it as a shield as need be, but then deflect away from this. I mean, we will be adding links in the show notes and petitions in there if people want to sign them and get involved, because I think it's important as we continue, because in no way, unfortunately, do I think the system of death and building stadiums is ever going to end.
Documentary speakers: We're prisoners. Every day we eat bread and drink water without money. We can't afford anything else. Month after month, our situation is getting worse. I can't do it anymore. I just want to go home. We can't even call our families in Nepal. If only the company would just pay us the money we deserve. We were afraid for our safety, especially at high altitude. Two workers died in the stadium before my eyes, we were in shock. We refused to continue working, but the superiors forced us. Another time seven workers were beaten for no reason in [inaudible]’s office. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to be dead. We need to be rescued from this situation, because it's also about our families in Nepal. Somebody's got to help us.
Shireen: On this week's interview, I will be talking with Fadumo Olow, a sports journalist at the Women's Telegraph in London, England. We will talk about the proposed European Super League, why the world of football actually feels like the upside down, and how she navigates this space during Ramadan. On to everyone's favorite segment: the burn pile! Brenda, what are you torching?
Brenda: This is a tough one because I just want this in our episode, basically, I'm shoehorning this. It’s more than just a burn, but in response to the fatal shooting by a police officer of 20 year old Daunte Wright, an African-American in the suburbs of Minneapolis, there's been a sense of exhaustion and rage and all of the things that we saw since the death of George Floyd, since 10 years ago, since, you know, extra-state violence in the 1970s, just on and on and on. And in reaction to that, the Yankees player Aaron Hicks decided to sit out in the game between the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays last week, and said that he was just so tired. Obviously police violence against African-Americans is too big for a burn pile. There's not an incinerator large enough. It's too trite.
So I want to focus on this fact, which is that sports is a workplace, that they have not figured out how to respond to this and how to create a place where African-American players can feel fully supported without having to individually ask for it. And so, the manager of the Yankees was actually very supportive and fielded questions about it and seemed to completely understand. But the fact that he had to ask, the fact that this isn't something that they're thinking through is pretty infuriating at this point, because this is happening again and again and again, and these athletes have voiced their pain and have been really clear, and asking for a one-off mental health day just isn't enough. He needs more, he deserves more. So, I want to burn that lack of care for athletes in this particular situation. Burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: I'm going to go next. For those of you that pay attention to the NWSL, last week was opening weekend. But what emerged from that was just a mess of things, one of which I do want to torch. Specifically, Chicago Red Stars player, Sarah Gorden tweeted after the match against the Houston Dash that her boyfriend came to watch her play and came down to talk to her – as many of the players’ family and close friends do – but that they were racially profiled and approached by security when he got close to her. She said they looked around the stadium and all the other players were white. Their family and friends were talking to them, but they were the only ones approached. Sarah Gorden tweeted that she asked the security guard why he was only talking to them, and he said he would go talk to them later, which she also said he never approached any of them. And these players have multiple photos with their people.
I'm reading from her tweet on April 12th, 2021. And she said, "This is just another reason why we kneel.” This was the point. Now, into that, she was upset and it got a lot of attention. Obviously the Black Players Coalition tweeted about it. She was supported by a lot of different people who just said that this was unacceptable. The Red Stars on the Dash have said, they're going to have “investigations" into it. I don't know what that means. We record Sunday morning, and the investigations have actually not been released yet, the recommendations or results from that investigation. I contacted a soccer journalist at SB Nation Steph Yang, and last night she said they hadn't heard back yet. They didn't know. And we will be either updating this and adding more stuff to the show notes.
But what I do want to do is people out there thinking that this is a small thing – it’s not a small thing. This is part of the structure of racism that is embedded into sport and these leagues and these organizations in these places. It is very obvious why Sarah Gorden and her partner were targeted as racialized players and it's unacceptable. There's no place for this in the NWSL – who did release the statement, but then again, the Houston Dash's response to this was meek at best. There should have been very important language, there should've been very stringent language.
I do want to actually say that players and supporters were enraged. Supporters were very disappointed and angry and did say that, and friends, that is very important. If you're a supporter of these teams and they come out with a weak response, absolutely it's our responsibility and necessity for us to speak out against it. I want to take this, I want to hold space for Sarah Gorden and her family who are undoubtedly traumatized by this, and it's extremely upsetting. At the same time, Sarah Gorden has to continue to be a world-class athlete while all this is happening. I want to take these systems, I want to take that security guard and that culture of racism, and I want to burn it. Burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: Jess, take us home.
Jessica: Yeah. We have this through line this week about athletes as laborers and working conditions. So, I'm on my same shit. This burn’s an update and an extension from last week. The Vancouver Canucks did not return to play on Friday, as was expected a week ago.
They are, as we record this, scheduled to finally play again tonight on Sunday. They have not played since March 24th, because nearly the entire team – you can't overstate this – nearly the entire team has had COVID. They're still scheduled though to play 19 games over 32 days. JT Miller, a veteran forward on the Canucks, spoke out last week about this return to play saying, “This is nothing to do with hockey. To be brutally honest, we're going to need more time than this to come back and play hockey. Even the guys that didn't get it aren't ready.” Which is really…That last statement about just the mental and emotional toll of this.
Canucks general manager, Jim Benning, responding to Miller's comments, said, “As our players started coming back and working out then the constant communication, they were having some symptoms that were different than regular COVID and it took them a little longer to get up and going.” A day before Miller spoke out, Jayson Tatum, the 23 year old Boston Celtics forward, talked about his own long recovery from COVID, which he had in early January this year. "It’s a process. It takes a long time. I take an inhaler before a game, since I tested positive. It's kind of helped with that and opened up my lungs. I never took an inhaler before.” And I keep thinking about Asia Durr, the New York Liberty guard, who told HBO Real Sports back in January that her recovery from COVID, which she had last summer, has been long, hard, and slow. She lost 32 pounds, 21% of her overall body weight, and is unsure if she'll be able to continue playing basketball.
There’s been a lot of focus on the possibility of long-term heart issues with COVID, and I do want to say there is good news on that front. A new study has found that only 0.7% of 3000 collegiate athletes who tested positive for COVID showed signs of possible probable or definite myocarditis. That is great news. I hope the data continues to break that way, but it's not just ongoing heart issues that people fear when it comes to recovery. While Jason Tatum dropped 44 points on the Warriors on Saturday, we cannot let that erase what he has told us about how hard it has been for him to come back from COVID.
It is still bonkers that sports have by and large resumed as if the pandemic is no longer happening, all while cases are surging again in certain places like Ontario or Pennsylvania, as these variants are spreading. We keep hearing from athletes about the impact of this virus on their lives, on their bodies, on their mental health, on their ability to play sports. I'm worried for the Canucks players. I'm worried for the Colorado Avalanche, which just had three games postponed by the NHL because of COVID. I'm just so worried still, and too often right now, especially with pro sports, it feels like not enough people are worried alongside me. And I just want to burn that today. So burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: Now, on to some lighter fare. Jessica, can you please tell us in this segment of torchbearers of the week, who is our firecracker?
Jessica: Des Linden set the women's 50k – which is 31.06 miles – world record this past Monday, finishing the race in 2 hours, 59 minutes and 54 seconds. So, she came in under three hours, a world record for the distance. That's more than 7 minutes ahead of the existing record set by British ultra runner Aly Dixon back in 2019. Des Linden averaged a 5 minute 47 second per mile pace over those 31 miles. It is an incredible feat.
Shireen: Brenda, who's the team bringing the fire?
Brenda: The team bringing a fire is Valencia Basket Club SAD. They are the Euro Cup women champions, beating Reyer Venezia 82-81 19 year old. Raquel Carrera sealed the win with a free throw in the last second of the game. It is Valencia Basket Club’s first title.
Shireen: I would like to offer a hearty congratulations to English track superstar, Dina Asher-Smith, as our lightning bolt of the week. Asher-Smith wins the international sport press media award for column of a year in the Women's Telegraph. Congrats from all of us at Burn It All Down. Jess, who are the guardians of the blaze?
Jessica: Whitney Ashu and her teammates at Vision Elite Volleyball Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The 14 and 15 year olds called out their coach, Ben Solmundson after he began using racial slurs and making derogatory comments when discussing racial injustice. Solmundson was fired from the club. Thank you, Whitney, and all of your teammates, for what you did to make the volleyball community safer.
Shireen: Brenda, who is master of the flames?
Brenda: With his win at Augusta, Hideki Matsuyama became both the first Japanese Masters champion and also the first Japanese golfer to win a men's major tournament.
Shireen: Can I get a drum roll, please? Give me your Phil Collins.
[drumroll]
Torchbearer of the week goes to Hope Trautwein, a pitcher for the University of North Texas softball team, faced 21 batters over seven innings last weekend when the team played University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She struck all of them out, not a single ball in play. And according to the New York times, “it was the first seven inning perfect game with 21 strikeouts in NCAA Division 1 history.”
What's good? Jess, tell me what's good.
Jessica: Spoon cake is still good, which is important. [Shireen laughs] I just made a video for the Patreon, so if you're interested in spoon cake, you can go watch me make one. But I made that last weekend and then I made another one, a couple of days ago. I had a lot of blackberries so I had to, I had to. Then I will just say, and this feels really weird after the one I just burned to even say this, but Austin has its first major pro team! We had now have an MLS team, Austin FC. They played their opener yesterday. They lost to Los Angeles FC. I can say, other than the one time I went to an Atlanta United game with my family that lives there, this is the most MLS I've ever taken into my life and it's been a whole game. But like I have downloaded the calendar so I can keep up with when they're going to play.
They don't have their home opener until June, which seems wild. June 19th. They play a lot of games away. But they announced not that long ago that their mascot, at least for this year, are foster dogs from Austin Pets Alive, which is our no-kill shelter, which is a lovely because…Ralph is not an Austin Pets Alive rescue dog. He is a Blue Dog rescue dog. But it does feel like Ralph is basically the mascot of the soccer team. [Shireen laughs] So, that is exciting. It does feel weird to think about people gathering here at this time to watch the games, but I don't know. There's something…It’s fun. It's fun. I see it. When they announced the mascot thing, I was like, oh, I get it. Okay. This is how they get you. [laughs] And so my goal at this point is not only to get all of us jerseys, but to get Ralph one as he is the mascot of the team.
Shireen: That's beautiful. I knew I always had a strong connection to Ralph, but I couldn't pinpoint it to soccer, but now I understand.
Jessica: Now you know.
Shireen: I'm gonna say that online writing rooms with my cohort are saving my life right now. I was in one for seven hours yesterday with two of my classmates. I had my last class of grad school this week and I was a little sad because I love my class so much, just 25 of us, and we've gotten really close. Some of us have never met in person because my program has been exclusively online, and I was feeling a little verklempt as I was like in my last class. And then I was like, yo, it's eight o’clock, time for me to break my fast! I'm out! [laughs] I love them, but I also love food. I think I mentioned this in the show before we're planning prom, and we will have a prom when hopefully…And I think we're clinging to that because like Jessica did mention in her burn, Ontario is really in a mess, and people are feeling frustrated and there's a lot of despair.
Canada at this point has more cases of COVID per capita than the United States. It's very hard to deal with and, you know, we're trying to find positives and everything. So, I'm trying to stay positive. I have a shit ton of papers that are due in the next little while, and it's Ramadan, and I'm trying to amass that joy. I did also make date balls this morning, which Brenda, I thought of you, because I feel like you would eat this because you would. It's like, healthy and whatever. And there's no baking. So Jess, I felt like you, but without the actual baking part. You take like a cup of pitted dates – and I got a gift from a friend of mine. That's actually something else that's, what's good in my community because we can't share meals together.
Friends are dropping off food and buying food and dropping it off to people. It’s lovely. Every other day my neighbor sends stuff over, my close friends…Chocolate covered dates or whatever. One of my best friends, Mahma, sent me a box of Palestinian dates, which are delicious. And I pitted them, put them in a blender with almonds and some cinnamon salt. Then you blend them and then you roll them up and there's date balls. So, that's excellent. And that's what I'm doing, and I feel like a baker even though there's no baking. Bren?
Brenda: It's a hard time for this section of the semester. It's a lot of grading and it's hard to find what's good, but I did get tickets to Bad Bunny for 2022.
Jessica: Oh my gosh. Where are you going to see him?
Brenda: Montreal. Because everywhere else, the tickets were like $600 and they were too expensive.
Shireen: When are you going?
Brenda: March of 2022.
Jessica: Wow. You have a lot of time to look for it.
Brenda: I know. It's so long.
Jessica: That's actually really lovely. I actually like that.
Brenda: It is! Because it's just, of course I hope something comes up in between that time and I can see him before that. But yeah.
Shireen: I thought you were going to say, you could see me before then, but that's okay. [laughs]
Brenda: That a definite priority, but right now your prime minister is not having us, vaxxed or not.
Shireen: He’s shut down…I can't even travel to Quebec right now. They've shut down all cross-border provincial travel.
Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. So that's my what's good. And that's it, really.
Jessica: That's really good though. I'm very excited for you.
Brenda: Yeah. I’m hanging on, I'm hanging on to that, and maybe just picturing Shireen in a prom dress and Ralph in an Austin FC little doggy uniform. Those are also what's good right now, that just happened.
Shireen: Brenda, there was a Bad Bunny cross stitch that my friend did. I'm going to find that for you and I'm going to…Do you cross-stitch?
Brenda: Yes. I know how to cross stitch. I do have a Bad Bunny glitter mask that I wear.
Jessica: I'm sorry, we have not seen this? [Shireen laughs] Like, this is the first I've heard about this during the pandemic! What?
Brenda: My mom got it for me.
Jessica: Okay, well, we're going to need some photographic evidence of this. Please. Thank you.
Brenda: Yeah, lots of people don't know that he wore masks beginning in 2017 during the protests in Puerto Rico because of face recognition. So, a lot of times you see old concert footage and you think it's recent and it’s actually not, he's just that much of a trailblazer [laughter] and I'm sure a future flamethrower.
Jessica: Okay. So let's return to the fact that we need photographic evidence.
Shireen: I appreciate that. I expect a WhatsApp immediately.
Brenda: For sure.
Shireen: I also want to add one quick thing to the what's good pile, our wonderful producer Tressa Versteeg is back and we’re happy to see her and talk to us about pooping in the wild. So thank you, Tressa. Love you.
Jessica: Tressa just rafted down the river through the Grand Canyon. Let's be clear about what has happened here. [Shireen laughs] We are very excited she's back.
Shireen: Yes, absolutely. What we were watching this week: we were watching the NWSL and hoping that racist culture doesn't happen there. We were watching the NBA. There are also Champs League finals for men and women coming up. We're down to four. There was a lot of sadness for Liverpool fans this week, but not for me or Brenda. Also want to say all the collegiate sports that are happening, good luck to all the NCAA athletes that are out there. We're thinking of you, and we really hope amongst all of this that all the athletes stay safe.
Brenda: And do their homework. [laughs]
Shireen: That's it for Burn It All Down this week. You can find us on the Blue Wire network, and although we are done for now, you can always burn with us all day and night with our fabulous array merchandise, including pillows, mugs, tees, hoodies, bags, and so many fun things. Check out our website to find out how. Burn It All Down lives on the Blue Wire podcast network. It can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn. We appreciate your reviews and feedback, so please subscribe and rate and let us know what we did well and how we can improve.
You can find us on Facebook and Instagram @burnitalldownpod and on Twitter @burnitdownpod. You can email us, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, where you will find previous episodes, transcripts, and a link to our Patreon. We would appreciate you subscribing, sharing, and rating our show, which just helps us do the work we love to do and keep burning what needs to be burned. And as usual flamethrowers, we can absolutely not do this without your continual support. We wish you safety and health and whatever joys you can muster during this chaotic and unprecedented time. As Brenda says, burn on and not out.