Saturday, 27 September 2025
Trump continues World Cup Appropriation
Life goes on, but it's different for some. Donald Trump plays golf while the urban poorest live in homeless encampments.."Sportswashing" may hide reality for some but it will take more than sport anesthesia to erase awareness of chasmic economic gaps in Toronto and beyond. Trump rails against dangerous cities and their inhabitants while his regular golf rounds apparently wipe out any expressions of sympathy for those unable and unlikely ever to play the president's favourite game.
Meanwhile, in his recent threat to remove 2026 World Cup matches from “dangerous cities” Donald Trump continues his rhetorical appropriation of the tournament by his class based politics of polemical division while contributing to a growing tide of “sportwashing” by tyrannical regimes. It is of course par for the course for Trump, with his barely disguised war on American inner cities heavily populated by racially diverse and poor communities. Trump’s racist and classist insinuations about inner cities are well known, but football, the people’s game, should be spared interpolations from his elevated and hostile political pinnacle. Trump off!, Donald is the TorontotheBetter response on behalf of lovers of “the people’s game” to the golf dedicated current president. TorontotheBetter pledges continuing responses to such predictable incursions into territory beyond his scope or capabilities. By inviting Trump to officiate at World Cup events FIFA resident Infantino seems lamentably to be continuing FIFA’s elevation of money and celebrity above the core values of the game that animate athletic engagement by people worldwide, whatever their income, gender or age.
Monday, 15 September 2025
The 2026 World Cup: a Canadian co-operative social economy opportunity
2025 is the International Year of Cooperatives and in 2026 the World Cup is coming to Canada. Why should Canadian co-ops care? Full disclosure: Libra knowledge and information Services co-op and TorontotheBetter co-founder Taodhg/Tim Burns played soccer for the Toronto entry in the North American Soccer League, predecessor of Major League soccer. Yes-the FIFA World Cup is the biggest and most followed single sports tournament in the world, and yes spectators from around the world will be watching remotely or visiting matches in person. And yes, not everyone is into soccer, though it is now the most popular sport in the world for men and women, young and old. But perhaps more important it is a rare opportunity for the world to learn more about Canada’s significant differences from co-hosts the U.S.A, specifically the more social nature of the Canadian economy, with, most notably its public health system and the existence of a third political party with a history of power in some of Canada’s provinces that has roots in the co-operative movement, that is the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation now the New Democratic Party. The tournament represents great opportunity for co-op organizations, particularly retailers, to make their goods and services known t the many new and repeat visitors who will be attending 2026 World Cup matches in Toronto and Vancouver in June and July of the year. Not only I the tournament an opportunity for new friends and customers, it will contribute to recognition of Canada’s social economy as a distinctive national feature as positively distinct from that of the two other Cup cohosts. Many around the world may not yet appreciate Canada’s difference from its southern neighbour. The World Cup is a rare opportunity to make this known to unique and/or infrequent guests international guests. It us from this viewpoint that TorontotheBetter will be posting regularly about the tournament as it unfolds.
Thursday, 4 September 2025
2026 World Cup: the values checklist
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With the FIFA World Cup coming to Toronto and Vancouver in 2026 TorontotheBetter urges all Canadians to take serious note of values issues concerning FIFA tournaments including the new Club World Cup that debuted in 2025 with the scandal plagued US President in attendance. Notwithstanding the benefits of football AKA soccer for human fulfilment and youth development a professional sport as huge as the one governed by FIFA has ethical responsibilities beyond sports. Canadian and other activists should be aware of recent issues like bribery by FIFA officials in 2015, the improbable award of the 2022 World Cup to football desert Qatar plus the problematic human rights record of scheduled 2034 World Cup host Saudi Arabia. Sports and ethics are inseparable and TorontotheBetter urges all to recognize this and act accordingly for a better and juster world in Toronto and beyond..
