We don't life FIFA

Nine years after it won the bid to host the World Cup, and despite promising a host of reforms to address longstanding violations, Qatar’s human rights abuses persist. Allowing neighboring countries with similar – or worse – records to share hosting rights so late in the game would have indicated FIFA’s stated commitments to delivering a rights-respecting World Cup are no more than empty words.

The hate against FIFA is the new global shout. It was born occupying a side of a train in Rio de Janeiro and exploded in a street sign in Bangalore, India. It is written with a laser, in a projection on a wall in Belem do Para, in the Amazon. It walks, embraced by many hands, through the streets of Athens. It slides as a virus into the FIFA Fan Fest in Brazil, on giant banners. The shout gets mixed with the demands of civil rights in the squares of Turkey. It appears on the walls of Berlin. It becomes a festive choir during the burning of the World Cup trophy in Mexico City. And it sticks to the walls of the FIFA headquarters in the Swiss city of Zurich, which was attacked by activists with "fight FIFA", as a temporary slogan.

The message is clear: #fifagohome.