When the World Came to Wellington: a personal view of the WWC

 Without wanting to endorse the FIFA marketing machine, I’ve been thinking about their slogan ‘Football unites the world’, and I have to say for me, it has through this Women’s World Cup, whose final New Zealand game is being played tonight. I didn’t engage with loads of overseas tourists, but it’s made me appreciate the diversity and linkages of my own friends here, as I encountered them, or re-encountered them, through football – and Facebook.

Looking back over my games:

The first game in Wellington (Spain v Costa Rica), I met up with a young Colombian I’d first met earlier in the year in a random encounter during a changeover between two different cultural shows at our local community access radio. He was Colombian, I was Dutch (Kiwi), and we found common ground in a concern over climate change issues. At that first (very cold and wet) football encounter on 21 July we also united in backing underdog Costa Rica.

My next match was through complimentary tickets passed onto me by a former work colleague (and Facebook friend) who responded to my call for company at some of the upcoming Wellington games. Through her daughter who was helping out at the games, she had four complimentaries for Sweden v South Africa on 23 July. So I went – along with a Malaysian New Zealander who plays weekly social indoor football at the Indian Cultural Centre, and two Maori-Samoan sons of a friend of mine who already had tickets to that game through another circle of friends.

Third Wellington game was NZ-Philippines, and the only way I could get a ticket was by asking my non-footballing friend with a wheelchair, whether she’d been won over by New Zealand’s unexpected victory in the opener against Norway to be interested in seeing their next game live. She was, well she was excited by going to see something a bit different anyhow. Over-confident New Zealand fans (like me) expecting a walkover then had to eat humble pie when WWC debutantes Philippines beat us 1-0 (the Filipinos in the crowd possibly outscored the New Zealand fans on vocal support as well). But I was genuinely happy for my Filipino workmates at this turn of events and gave one of them a big hug when I saw her straight after the game.

For the Netherlands v US game, I’d arranged tickets for an elderly couple from the Dutch Club, and for my former work colleague mentioned above; and got shouted my own tickets by the Netherlands Embassy for services rendered earlier in the year. At this even-stevens match, it was a delight to see after the match two guys walking side-by-side with complementary ‘Netherlands’ and ‘USA’ tee-shirts.

For the last Wellington game – the quarter final decider between Spain and Netherlands, I met up  with my Colomban friend again. Before the game, we checked out FIFA’s commitment to ‘rewilding football’ and debated whether it was greenwash, or a genuine growing commitment to environmentalism. After the game, I met up with my friend with a disability, who had become a ‘rent-a-crip’ (she’s ok with the term) for another friend of hers at this sell-out final game in Wellington. And with my daughter, we discussed the anthropology of football crowds – among other things, before venturing down to check out the fanzone.

In addition to the live matches, I’ve been posting blogs and sending messages about the football to friends around the country – and cousins in the Netherlands who have been following their team from a distance. So yes, I would have to say that for me football has been uniting my little world of people both near and far. And as regards the title of this blog – yes, ‘the world did come to Wellington’ but then again, you could say ‘the world is already here’. Keep it coming.

Final 8 - by the Women, Peace and Security Index

Rankings for the final 8 on the Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS). Sweden on top, and Colombia is the only developing nation left in the last rounds:

Rankings below are, first their rank among the 32 starting nations at the WWC, followed by WPS Ranking among all 170 countries listed in the Index

4 Sweden 7

5 England* 9  (*=UK)

6 Netherlands 10

10 Spain 14

11 France 15

15 Australia 24

18 Japan 35

27 Colombia 90

See the original discussion and full rankings here.  

NZ v Switzerland: how they fare on Women, Peace & Security

Crunch time for all teams in Group A today as they face off for their final matches to find out who progresses to the next stage. Off the field, Switzerland leads New Zealand on the Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS) being 6^th in the rankings (Index value: 0.898), putting Switzerland 3^rd among those at the Women’s World Cup. New Zealand is 13^th on the WPS (Index value: 0..873) putting it at 9^th among those at the World Cup.

I looked at elements of New Zealand’s score in my previous blog on digging deeper. But looking at its opponent today: Switzerland scored very high in financial inclusion: 98.9%. The country that did not give women the vote in federal elections til 1971 (and one canton held out til 1990 before allowing women to vote in local elections) – Switzerland increased its share of women in Parliamentary seats from 29.3% to 39% from 2017 to 2021. This was still well below highest scoring NZ at 48.3%. Switzerland scored relatively low in the absence of legal discrimination against women – 85.6% compared to Canada’s 100%.

But the most interesting statistic between the two countries is that women’s perception of community safety in Switzerland rose from 79.7% to 81.9% between 2017 and 2021, while New Zealand dropped to a low 50.3%. Switzerland also topped the group of developed countries for lowest levels of physical or sexual violence committed by an intimate partner, at 2%, while New Zealand’s level was 4%.

Digging Deeper: why NZ is 9th at the WWC on peace & security

I've just been exploring a bit on the basis for the Women’s Peace & Security Index (WPI), and took a closer look at the measures that led to New Zealand’s rank at 13 among the 167 countries examined by the WPI (and 9^th among those competing at the Women’s World Cup).

The WPS Index is assessed using three dimensions of women’s well-being: inclusion (economic, social, political); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels). Performance in these areas is quantified through 11 indicators, where a higher score indicates better performance. The indicators are aggregated at the national level to create a global ranking among the 167 countries. You can see the full set of indicators in the diagram below.

Just delving quickly into New Zealand’s ranking, I noted that it scored highly in Women’s employment, Financial independence, Absence of legal discrimination, and topped Women’s share of parliamentary seats in its group of 25 other developed countries. Indeed, the share of parliamentary seats went from 34.2% in 2017 to 48.3% for 2021.

However – New Zealand scored low among the same countries on women’s perception of community safety, declining from 54.3% in 2017 to 50.3%. Norway (NZ’s first opponent in the football) topped the group well above at 89.5%.

You can find out more detail about any country and the individual indicator levels that make up it’s overall index and ranking at: https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/ (click on the map, or click the country in the alpha drop down list).

 As a side note: for today’s big game in Wellington, based on the WPI, Netherlands and the United States are ranked at 6^th and 14^th respectively among the WWC countries. See the full rankings here.

 

New Zealand v Norway – on the equality indices

With New Zealand due to kick off against Norway today in the Women’s Football World Cup, looking at their rankings in the Women’s Peace & Security Index, Norway come out on top, while New Zealand is 13^th in the index (and 9^th among those appearing in the Football World Cup. See the rankings here.

HOWEVER, in the alternative Women's Workplace Equality Index, New Zealand comes up third (after Australia and Canada) with a 93.6/100 score based on a range of measures such as Accessing institutions, Building credit, Getting a job, and Protecting women from violence (where NZ scores poorly actually). This measures the formal legal obstacles to women’s economic participation, not actual participation. "While there is often a large gap between laws on the books and their implementation, formal legal equality is a critical first step to closing the gap between women and men in the economy." 

However, for a close match on the gender equality front – go to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2021 which has Norway and New Zealand at 3^rd (84.95) and 4^th(84%) respectively – after Iceland and Finland (not represented at the World Cup).

On the sporting front, I’d be looking for a close game between NZ and Norway tonight, two of my favourite countries, and with many similarities. But NZ must come out on top!

Women's World Cup 2023 - Ranking the countries on the status of women

Five days out from the opening kick-off in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, below is a table showing how the 32 countries in the tournament rank against each other, based on their standings in the 2021/22 global Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index, put out by Georgetown University at https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/ . Nothing to do with football, the index gives an insight into women’s status and empowerment in different countries – and that no doubt influences women’s ability to play and perform at international competitions.

I could have chosen a number of different indexes, but chose this one because it seems the most recent and comprehensive in the range of factors taken into account. Other possibilities include the World Economic Forum and the US-based Council on Foreign Relations for Foreign Relations. These both rate New Zealand much higher, so don’t accuse me of national favouritism!

THE RANKINGS:

Country WPS Ranking/170 countries
1 Norway 1
2 Denmark 4
3 Switzerland 6
4 Sweden 7
5 England* 9
6 Netherlands 10
7 Germany 11
8 Canada 12
9 New Zealand 13
10 Spain 14
11 France 15
12 Portugal 18
13 Ireland 19
14 United States 21
15 Australia 24
16 Italy 28
17 South Korea 33
18 Japan 35
19 Jamaica 43
20 Costa Rica 47
21 Argentina 49
22 Philippines 61
23 South Africa 66
24 Brazil 80
25 Panama 83
26 China 89
27 Colombia 90
28 Vietnam 107
29 Zambia 116
30 Nigeria 130
31 Morocco 138
32 Haiti 142
* = UK rank; no separate entry for England

(By the way, credit for the idea of ranking sports contest countries on social justice measures goes to the World Development Movement’s “Who Should I Cheer For?” in the 2010 Mens Football World Cup, and Caritas Aotearoa for its Rugby World Cup 2011 focus on inequality through “Level with Me”. Both blogsites have been taken down now, but you can read about them here: https://globaldimension.org.uk/articles/world-cup-2010-who-should-i-cheer-for/ and https://cathnews.co.nz/2011/09/09/social-justice-week-fairness-an-equal-chance-of-success/ )

 

FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022 - some Pre-Tournament Analysis

Launching the Playfair Qatar campaign in 2014:
Paul Nowak &  Frances O’Grady. From www.tuc.org.uk

A day before the controversial 2022 Football World Cup kicks off in Qatar, here's a range of comments and opinions on the morality of hosting it there, and whether to boycott – or not.

PlayFairQatar recently posted an update on the campaign that 5 years ago, managed to persuade Qatar to massively overhaul its labour laws and end the abusive sponsorship system for immigrant workers. Five years on, what has happened? Mixed results, according to a report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Britain, is that, "Legally speaking, the landscape faced by workers applying the finishing touches to the World Cup infrastructure is utterly different to the one faced by Qatar’s original workforce of trapped and coerced migrants."

"But labour laws are only as good as their enforcement, and … the picture on the ground did not reflect the progress on Qatar’s statute books. …the Qatari system was still chewing up and spitting out workers, leaving them burdened with enormous debts."

"Workers are still paying a shockingly high price to deliver the most expensive World Cup in history."  

In the lead-up to the competition, a German-based "Boycott Qatar" site has been calling on athletes, officials and TV viewers for an all-out boycott. Their call to action asks football fans to send FIFA mass mailings to signal their protest, boycott products bearing the World Cup logo and companies actively sponsoring the Football World Cup, not travel to Qatar, and not participate in any public broadcasts of the games.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain put the question of boycotting the World Cup to its international readers, and got a range of views. A few excerpts below:

I am boycotting. I haven’t watched a single minute of the qualifiers and I am about to suspend my football podcast feeds – about eight podcasts a week, from the Guardian and other places – to avoid World Cup chat.

Qatar’s human rights record is appalling but, as someone born in Nigeria, I have a different view of who the bad guys and good guys are in global affairs. While Qatar could do so many things better, I find the idea of boycotting Qatar, when I would have no qualms traveling to England or France, quite laughable. On the list of culprit countries in my mind – that is countries who have historically meted (and are currently meting) out unspeakable atrocities on my kind – Qatar does not register in the top 20.

and one that best reflects my sentiment:

I don’t think my boycott will make a difference. Enough people will watch that it will not be noticed. But I find my unease has grown so strong, my distaste so impossible to ignore, that I simply wouldn’t enjoy it. … No World Cup could better reflect the corruption at the heart of international football than this one. It is both an absolute indictment, and perfect definition, of what Fifa is.

And finally, a German sports promotion organisation called IPSO has tried to "Find the Balance: Boycott the 2022 World Cup in Qatar - or Not?", in looking at arguments for and against boycotting the Cup, including the view – held by FC Bayern München – that change can be effected through dialogue (they didn't convince me on that one). However, Amnesty International does not support a boycott: "We want to take advantage of the international attention at the World Cup. It is now important that the reforms lead to long-term improvements beyond the World Cup."

A sentiment shared by former German national player Toni Kroos "I think we should try to give the tournament the biggest possible stage to draw attention to the grievances in the country. But please not only before and during the tournament, but also afterwards …The media interest in Qatar must not fall away when the footballers leave again. That is important."