The World Cup is one of the most widely watched sporting events in the world, having more viewers than the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and even presidential debates.

This World Cup however, German fans are boycotting the event, and urging home viewers to not watch the enormous competition. Most boycotts these days aren’t anything major, but this time around, we get to see a really influential boycott.

It all started when the World Cup match was scheduled in Qatar. This shouldn’t have been a big deal, but German fans took it upon themselves to bring banners to the stadium, displaying statements such as, “Boycott Qatar 2022” and “Fair Play For Migrant Workers.”

The main reason as to why the World Cup has been so heavily criticized is because of the extremely harsh and radical methods used to prepare the country for the tournament. Officials from Qatar have been pushing back a figure of approximately 6,500 migrant deaths due to the World Cup preparations.

In addition to this, the Qatar ambassador Khalid Salman has made homophobic statements prior to the World Cup, and numerous fans have called him out for this.

Bernd Byer, from the Boycott Qatar 2022 initiative said, “All professional soccer is becoming more and more commercial. That’s just something you don’t identify with. And, of course, the same thing is happening in Qatar now. The decision is wrong because Qatar is a country where human rights don’t apply, where migrant workers are heavily exploited, where homosexuality is forbidden.” 

At this moment, the World Cup is scheduled to continue as planned, but ask yourself this: how far is too far for professional sports?