This World Cup has united people in hatred and bigotry
For one month, football brought nations together. It also revealed what still unites them.
Every four years, something rather extraordinary happens. For a few fleeting weeks, the world seems just a little smaller. Nations divided by politics, religion, language and history suddenly find common ground. Complete strangers embrace after spectacular goals. Families wake in the early hours of the morning to watch together. Children from every continent dream of lifting exactly the same trophy.
There are few things left that genuinely unite humanity; the FIFA World Cup is one of them.
It is, in many ways, the closest thing our fractured world has to a global celebration. FIFA itself has 211 member associations, more than the United Nations has member states. Every four years they gather, not to negotiate treaties, debate politics or settle historic grievances, but to play football.
Or at least, that is the idea.
Because as this World Cup has demonstrated, there remains one people who are seemingly unable to be left alone to simply watch football. One people who, even when their national team isn’t playing, somehow become part of the story.
The Jews.
That isn’t because Israel reached the latter stages of the tournament, it didn’t. It isn’t because Israeli referees decided crucial matches, they didn’t. It isn’t because Jews exercised influence over the outcome of a single game, they couldn’t.
Yet, as this World Cup progressed, one extraordinary pattern began to emerge. Whenever certain countries lost, football stopped being the explanation.
The Zionists became the explanation.
That distinction matters. There was a time when people advancing these theories would simply have blamed “the Jews,” today they blame “the Zionists.”
The vocabulary has evolved, the conspiracy has not.
For centuries Jews have been accused of secretly controlling governments, banks, newspapers, revolutions, wars and financial crises. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion imagined a hidden Jewish network manipulating the world from the shadows. Nazi propaganda blamed an international Jewish conspiracy for Germany’s humiliation. The faces changed, the countries changed and the accusations adapted to whatever frightened society most at that particular moment.
Somewhere, hidden from public view, Jews were supposedly pulling the strings. Today, replace “the Jews” with “the Zionists.” FIFA, referees and football have been added to a list which already included banks and governments, but the conspiracy remains almost perfectly intact.
Algeria were among the first.
Before their opening match against Argentina, Algerian supporters filled the streets with pro-Palestinian chants, that was their right, if somewhat obvious what lay behind it.
What followed their defeat was something altogether different. One of Algeria’s best-known television pundits claimed live on air that Lionel Messi and FIFA were protected by an international Jewish lobby. Think about that for a moment. A World Cup match, a missed opportunity, an international Jewish conspiracy.
Imagine if an English broadcaster had blamed defeat on an international Muslim lobby. Imagine if a French pundit claimed black people secretly controlled FIFA. Their career would have ended before the programme had finished. Yet when Jews become the hidden force supposedly manipulating world events, the outrage is remarkably muted.
Then there was Egypt.
Following their elimination, allegations quickly spread that FIFA wanted Lionel Messi and Argentina to progress. Complaints about refereeing quickly evolved into suggestions that shadowy Zionist interests had somehow engineered the outcome.
Morocco offered perhaps the clearest example of how modern antisemitism now operates.
Following their defeat, conspiracy theories spread online claiming one of the referees was Jewish and had deliberately engineered Morocco’s elimination. There was only one problem; he wasn’t Jewish.
That obstacle did not matter. Someone simply edited his Wikipedia page to say that he was. Reality failed to support the conspiracy, so reality itself was altered. Think about what that tells us.
The fabrication relied upon one of antisemitism’s oldest and most persistent myths, that Jews conceal who they really are while secretly exercising influence behind the scenes. The idea that Jews are hiding in plain sight, masquerading as something else while manipulating events, has fuelled centuries of persecution.
The technology has changed, the prejudice has not and then came the inevitable consequence. Not more debate, better football or reflection. Hatred.
“Hamas.”
“Hamas.”
“Jews to the gas.”
Those chants echoed through the streets of Europe after Morocco’s defeat. Morocco had lost a football match, Israel had not played, no Jew had influenced the result. Yet Jews became the target.
That is because antisemitism is unlike any other prejudice. Most forms of racism portray their victims as inferior. Antisemitism portrays Jews as omnipotent. It does not merely hate Jews, it explains the world through Jews. It tells people that behind every disappointment, every crisis, every humiliation, there is an invisible Jewish hand pulling the strings.
That is why it survives, it isn’t simply prejudice, it is an explanation and explanations are dangerous because they become permission.
When coaches, television pundits and national media tell millions of supporters that Zionists are responsible for their country’s defeat, they cannot feign surprise when Jewish communities become the object of anger hundreds or thousands of miles away.
No other minority occupied this role during this World Cup. Nobody blamed Muslims when England lost. Nobody accused Christians of manipulating Brazil’s elimination. Nobody claimed black people controlled VAR when France were beaten. Only Jews continue to serve as the world’s universal explanatory device.
Which brings us to Sunday’s final, Argentina against Spain.
On paper, it is simply a football match. In reality, it perfectly captures the impossible position Jews increasingly find themselves in.
Argentina have spent much of this tournament portrayed by conspiracy theorists as beneficiaries of shadowy Zionist influence, fueled in no small part by President Javier Milei’s unwavering support for Israel. Somehow, backing the world’s only Jewish state has become evidence that Argentina’s success could not possibly have been earned on the pitch.
Spain arrive from the opposite direction.
Since 7 October, the Spanish government has recognised a Palestinian state, joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, suspended arms exports and positioned itself among Europe’s most outspoken critics of the Jewish state.
Nor has that mood been confined to politics. Spain’s most celebrated football figure, Pep Guardiola, has repeatedly used his global platform to portray Israel as uniquely malevolent. Its most internationally recognised actor, Javier Bardem, has done much the same. Lamine Yamal celebrated Barcelona’s La Liga title beneath an enormous Palestinian flag.
In recent weeks alone, Jewish tourists have reportedly been chased through the streets of Barcelona. A Jewish poet was prevented from appearing at a literary festival. During the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, crowds unfurled banners calling for Israel’s destruction. A Jewish cemetery was desecrated.
None of these incidents exist in isolation, while together they point towards something increasingly difficult to ignore.
When hostility towards Israel becomes part of a nation’s cultural language, Jewish people rarely remain outside the conversation for very long.
Which means Sunday’s final presents a cruel irony.
If Argentina win, many who have spent this tournament blaming Zionists for every defeat will conclude the conspiracy has finally been confirmed.
If Spain win, what should be remembered as a glorious sporting achievement will almost certainly become another opportunity to platform hostility towards Israel on one of the world’s biggest stages.
Either way, Jews once again become part of a story that was never ours.
The World Cup reminded us that football remains one of humanity’s greatest unifying forces.
Sadly, so does antisemitism.
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