(Berlin) For Germany’s first match at the World Cup in Qatar, scheduled for next Wednesday against Japan, the screens of the Berlin bar Fargo, usually frequented by soccer fans, will remain off.
Located in the young and festive district of Friedrichshain, this café, which usually adapts its hours to round ball competitions, will open this time one hour after the end of the match.
“We do not accept that a country uses the World Cup to improve its reputation,” Fargo spokesman Joschik Pech told AFP.
“We didn’t get used to the idea of having fun watching matches shown by a dictatorship where you can’t live your sexuality freely and where you are persecuted,” he adds.
Fargo is one of dozens of bars in Germany, including several in Berlin, who want to boycott an event that is nevertheless very popular with a football-loving nation, which has four final victories to its name in the queen event.
In the crosshairs of critics of Qatar, its mistreatment of immigrant workers, its discrimination against women and its hostility towards the LGBTQ community.
Criticisms swept away by the small emirate in the Middle East, which highlights its recent progress and whose local media have castigated the “arrogance” of Western countries.
In Germany, several emblematic places have given up broadcasting the matches. Officially for fear of coronavirus infections, bad weather and high energy costs. Thus, there will be no retransmission on the big screen near the Brandenburg Gate, usually an unmissable meeting place for fans in Berlin.
Many fan clubs, including those of Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, have recently called on spectators to boycott.
Alternative programs
Not content to ignore the tournament, Fargo will offer several events at match times, including human rights lectures and trips to amateur games and women’s soccer.
“We expect a decline in our turnover and our profits, but we do not think that will lead us to bankruptcy,” said Mr. Pech. He hopes to attract audiences through his alternative program.
Among Fargo customers, this choice is not unpopular. 24-year-old Sebastian, who describes himself as a “soccer fan”, told AFP to support the boycott: “So far, I have followed all the world cups. I would have liked to watch the tournament, but I won’t”.
“When people freeze them in their apartments because of the high cost of energy in Germany, watching a competition in air-conditioned stadiums is unacceptable,” he argues.
Stella, 22, another Fargo regular, also plans to boycott a World Cup for the first time, hoping that this will lead to more critical thinking about the awarding of the competition.
“To tell the truth, people should have already realized the need to boycott certain countries that have hosted the World Cup in the past,” she judges.
Nevertheless, she admits that if Germany reach the final and “her friends call her to watch the game, it will be difficult to say no”.
“But I don’t expect us to play well. So that won’t be a problem,” she laughs.
“Everyone to decide”
Other Berlin bars have decided to broadcast the matches while denouncing human rights violations: this is the case of Tante Kaethe, with the holding of a photo exhibition of Nepalese migrants who built the Qatari stadiums.
Next to Fargo, Salama El-Khatib, owner of the eponymous bar “Salama’s bar”, says that “everyone is free to watch or not”.
“I will show all the matches, from start to finish, between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., without exception,” he told AFP.
Arrived from the Middle East in Berlin to study in the 1980s before opening his bar in 96, he says that he and his customers often discuss human rights issues (in Qatar).
But he did not consider a boycott: “the discussion comes too late. We should have done it four years ago.