To be honest, I never was a big fan of football (soccer, for those of you that are American). I’ve always been quite lousy with the ball myself, and Russia, the country that I am from, isn’t exactly great at it either. But because this year the FIFA World Cup was being held in Russia, and the team seemed to do better than it ever has, I decided to follow the event as much as possible.

What I witnessed both amazes and disgusts me. On the one hand, I see so much happiness and union between people from all over the world, having the time of their lives while celebrating and cheering for their own as well as other countries. But on the other hand, I see how the mass media has been using the event to build anger and hate between people. It’s just plain awful and ugly.

Yes, I know that politics have always been a part of sports and probably always will be, but the extent to which it has happened this year is just beyond my ability to rationalize it.

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