{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/68e4c0be965488b63a6987c5/6a719d82c41b8c1d30621847?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Inbox: Why Dictators Love the World Cup | Feat. Karim Zidan","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/68e4c0be965488b63a6987c5/1785832325715-1b31f672-3a56-4fa6-aa9c-e6911f7f0b88.jpeg?height=200","description":"<p>Why does every dictator, sooner or later, want to host the World Cup?</p><p><br></p><p>What did a military junta that never wanted the tournament discover once the goals started going in?</p><p><br></p><p>And when a hundred thousand people are dancing in the street, who is that actually working for?</p><p><br></p><p>Peter Frankopan sits down with investigative journalist Karim Zidan, who has spent a decade tracking how autocrats turn football into propaganda — and who found his own way into the story as a teenager being dragged out of a stand by Egyptian riot police.</p><p><br></p><p>Mussolini wrote the blueprint in 1934 and nobody has much improved on it since: host the tournament, invest in the team, let the collective joy do the rest. Videla's junta inherited a World Cup it didn't want and got away with it. Putin raised the pension age while Russia were in the quarter-finals. Qatar ended a Gulf blockade without conceding a thing. Zidan's argument isn't that you should stop watching. It's that escapism and willful ignorance are not the same thing — and that the people buying your club are not your friends.</p><p><br></p><p>Karim Zidan's podcast series Power Plays, presented by the Human Rights Foundation, is at powerplays.xyz. His newsletter is at sportspolitika.news.</p><p><br></p><p>Join <strong>Legacy Plus</strong> for bonus episodes, early access, Q&amp;A's, fewer adverts and more.</p><p><strong>legacy.supportingcast.fm</strong></p><p><br></p><p>[0:00] Why the world's game keeps ending up in the hands of people who don't much like the world</p><p>[4:14] Cairo, 2007: a teenager in the Ultras section watches the police move in</p><p>[8:36] Mussolini's blueprint, and why he preferred boxing to football</p><p>[15:33] Argentina 1978: the junta that inherited a World Cup it never wanted</p><p>[26:19] \"A monstrous, cancerous, corrupt patronage system\" — Zidan on FIFA</p><p>[35:24] A message for Newcastle fans, and everyone else who welcomed the money in</p><p><br></p><p>Stay connected with Legacy:</p><p>Instagram: @originallegacypodcast</p><p>TikTok: @legacy_productions</p><p><br></p><p>Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:</p><p>Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com</p>","author_name":"Original Legacy Productions"}