The Group of Death. And Torture. And Incarceration.

This will be red meat for the “Hate America”, “we’re worse than anyone else” crowd.

And how do you cheer for a country that kills Innocents around the world and has been fighting wars and distributing weapons for decades? Fortunately, we don't have to because the US didn't qualify for the world cup!

I imagine that many people critical of nation-state politics will be struck at the selectivity of the author's choice of nations to focus on, even with the metaphorical trope of the group of death to structure the piece. But I find that the concluding sentiment is reduplicated worldwide when I travel and people take pains to let me know that Trump does not represent most Americans, and that they are rooting for America to correct itself in 2018 even while they detest the buffoon fascist and his minions. With 'work and luck, that imagination can become a reality.'

What a disgraceful title and Op-Ed! I am no friend of Saudi Arabia, but I ask you: Which nations have been blindly supporting it since its inception? Does Anglo-Saxon ring a bell? And I assume the U.S. would have been included in the Human Rights Group of Death, had it qualified for the World Cup Finals, for having invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, bombed Libya and Syria to smithereens and weaponized Saudi Arabia in its genocide against Yemen. How did Guantanamo, Extraordinary Rendition, Abu Ghraib, two million dead and 20 million Middle East refugees slip under Mr. Okwonga's radar? Even Russia's annexation of Crimea appears tame in comparison to what the U.S. has done this century alone. I don't understand the purpose of such articles, other than to invent scapegoats for abominable U.S. foreign policy atrocities. Sure, all the mentioned countries have committed human rights crimes, but the U.S.'s tacit support of Al Qaeda and ISIS, in tragi-farcical attempts at regime change, created the conditions for the Caliphate's temporary success. The "human rights group of death"? Mr. Okwonga, please stick to football reporting, at which you excel, and leave political commentary for analysts with a knowledge of political history.

Speaking of The Group of Death I'm not too proud of the US lately. We have baby prisons.

Sports is a great equalizer and unifier. That disparate communities can set all else aside and enjoy sporting events as one is good,it brings people together naturally.. much better than pointing indignant fingers and chanting "SHAME" 24/7.

I have a trouble to understand why it is OK to sell the weapon to such countries as Egypt and Saudi especially at time when they are killing civilians, but it is not OK to support their football teams. Russia just plays their players, the West supports their rulers.

On top most players are white males which is segregation and unfair to minorities and women. FIFA should impose quotas on the percentage of minorities and female players that each team must have. And the age discrimination is in evidence as well. Some percentage of the players has to be older than 60. Also, why a single ball? It is unfair as well. Every player should get a ball to play.

Thank you for your observations. Yes, we never want to forget what these societies represent.

A couple of years back there was a wonderful documentary on the Soviet hockey team, titled Red Army. The theme was how the government used the team for political purposes and the movie showed how deeply it demoralized the players, giving a whole different perspective on of the Miracle on Ice. If you knew then what we know now, you would appreciate the cruelty to which the best players in the world were subjected. And you might even give them grudging support. The story of every team is different and one solution does not fit all.

Footballers should not be held responsible for the actions of their government. Also, while you may decry the human rights records of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and others, how do their records compare with ours? I'm ashamed to admit that my country, the USA, was responsible for starting an unjustified war against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and had indirect consequences such as making ISIS possible. But I don't expect our national sports teams to be punished for the sins of George W. Bush.

Sports does allow us to temporarily escape our everyday problems. No theater accomplishes that goal more effectively than the World Cup. The world’s universal love of the beautiful game crosses all time zones, continents, nations, political systems, races, ethnicities, religions, customs and languages. Since soccer is a passion we all share, the World Cup provides us with a quadrennial snapshot of an idealized world peace in which people are amicably observing, celebrating and mourning together like a gigantic family. Over the years, the World Cup has become wildly popular even among people who don’t know why a red card is issued. This is what I refer to as the warm, tribal response to the joyous, common Heaven-on-Earth experience millions of people throughout the world are enjoying while observing this event. However, sooner or later the spectacle ends and the athletes, coaches, fans and reporters must return to the real world, represented by their native countries. Sadly, some of these fine people will return to modern fascist states that violently trample human rights. We must seize the opportunity this grand platform of peace presents us with to effectively protest these renegade governments without punishing their innocent citizens.

I love the black comedy of the writing, but also the animated illustration which, if I'm not mistaken, seems to depict members of team Saudi Arabia (in green) passing the ball around a couple of Russian players in front of a freshly-dug grave! If I'm correct, then this may be the exact situation described in the essay, and yet I'm at a loss for an interpretation related to human rights. Instead, I question how we, the US, didn't qualify when a team as bad as Saudia Arabia -- called by some the worst in the tournament -- did? I now wear my México World Cup T-shirt on the days they play. I bought it in 2014 to get a smile out of my Mexican-American swim coach. When I wore it today, a super-friendly Mexican-American guy in my bike group said I don't look at all Mexican, but of course, I had to dispute that!

The ideal of international sports is to bring people together. Occasionally, that allows for a lessening of tensions and improved diplomacy between enemies, for example, as recently occurred between the two Koreas at the Winter Olympics or longer ago when "ping pong" diplomacy led to better US-China relations. Rarely, the international community has shunned and banned a pariah from competition, such as apartheid era South Africa. But, more often nationalism co-opts sports for political purposes. This was Nazi Germany in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, it was the Soviet Union/Russia in every Olympics it has hosted and now the World Cup. Every host nation tries to put its best face forwards during these events, but not all use the events to propagandize regimes that are tyrannical and that engage in widespread, systematic abuses of human rights. And yet we cheer on national teams, wave flags, and chant slogans. This conflict between the ideals of sport and the realities of politics will continue as long as teams represent countries and the events require host countries to foot the bill. In other words, it will continue to be this way forever!

We execute our citizens. We torture people in the United States. We incarcerate people at a higher rate than most countries. We do less rehabilitation of the people we incarcerate because our politicians tell us that rehabilitation is a waste of money rather than the truth which is that incarceration without rehab is useless. We have an Attorney General who is a racist, a president who incites violence, and a government that is engaged in cutting programs that help working people in order to justify a tax cut for the richest. We love guns in America. We let law enforcement shoot first and ask questions later. We despise strangers to the point of demonization. How is the United States not included in this group of death?

Who in the US cares, we have people who disrespect our flag and what it represents due to our system not being perfect. And I don't follow soccer, not at all.

The U.S. sanctions killing of its citizens, especially young Black men too, either by the police on the street or disproportionately via the death penalty in prisons.

No one cares. Only football matters to the spotts fans. That's the lesson of football.

We are increasingly becoming a nation that ought to be put into the Group of Death. Especially under this administration that has begun interning civilians, I find, as a native born American citizen, it hard to put aside the hypocrisy necessary to condemn nations such as Saudi Arabia or Russia. That said, Mr. Okwonga speaks to a much larger point. Its culmination leads very much to spectacles such as the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Are we in fact sanctioning brutal, racist and/or fascist regimes when we permit their nations to send representatives to compete on the world stage? Or should we rightly consider boycotting them, in a manner done by President Carter some forty years ago? Others here believe the answers to these questions are very simple. I don't.

Yes, and at sports events, why am I required to salute the flag if that flag stands for cruel policies which create suffering in its own country, or if that flag represents a tyranny or a sadistic President or dictator, why am I required to pledge loyalty to that which I abhor? Let the athletes compete, then it is just a game. And if they want to take a knee during the anthem, I admire them all the more.

FIFA's corruption brings you Russia as WC host.

Why are we supposed to ignore the Human Rights offenses of the parent nation of a sports team? The Olympics of 1936 taught us the mistake made holding them in Germany, whose leader had published Mein Kampf well before those games were played. We do this for money short and simple. Illicit earnings from sports are despicable. I am of Scottish descent and find gambling abhorrent. All sports are now reduced to how much money they will create for the lascivious management of both the World Cup as well as all competitive Sports. Get rich quick schemes such as sports betting are destroying sports. So, for the sake of money we abandon all ethics; now, New JErey has legalized sports betting in all current gambling facilities. Politicians drool over anticipated revenues regardless of the ruin it could bring on in the lives of the citizenry. Money is why we "cheer" for the teams of nations with decrepit and degenerate Human Rights records, make no mistake about it.

I do not believe it to be hypocrisy if you cheer for the players of a particular team to win, while also trying to be cognizant of the ills of their their government. You can collectively or individually protest by displaying placards, or wearing certain clothing/colors. You could turn your back whenever they score a goal. It is up to us all to try and be global citizens within this world and join in solidarity whenever and wherever we can to have our voice heard on human rights. Football is no different than any other sport.

Case in point: In a time of rising ethno-nationalism, multi-ethnic national teams contradict this narrative. Already in the previous go-round in 2014, the German national team’s two top scorers were both Polish-born – Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski. According to The Economist, nearly half of the 2018 squad has a so-called “migration background.” As it reports, “The names on the jerseys include Boateng (Ghanaian), Mustafi (Albanian via Macedonia), Bellarabi (Moroccan), and Khedira (Tunisian). Even some of the German names belie foreign origins. Antonio Rüdiger’s mother is from Sierra Leone. Bernd Leno has Russian roots.” Overlooked in this array are Mesut Özil and İlkay Gündoğan, deservedly so as both were born in the quintessential coal and soccer town of Gelserkirchen (home of legendary Schalke 04), whose rosters in previous generations bristled with Slavic names like Kuzorra, Szepan, Kalwitzki, and Tibulski.

Aren't you cheering for the men playing the game? They are not elected officials. They're athletes.

Sadly, we kill our citizens too, not to mention the drone terror we export. We as a country are in no position to be critical of human rights anywhere else until we reel in racist killer cops, reduce our prison population -- and especially the locked-down isolation cells so prevalent until we stop imprisoning refugees and building concentration camps for kids and crack down on hate-groups.

Perhaps I am in the minority, but when I cheer for a football team I am cheering for the players on that team, and its manager. I am not cheering for the country as a whole. If that were the case I, as a radical Libertarian, would find it difficult, if not impossible, to cheer for anyone at all. There are many factors which enter into my support for a team, but the internal or external politics of the country are not among them.

The implication offered by this op-ed is that arenas where societies vie against one another peacefully and putatively as equals (to the extent that competitive sports do that) somehow are made invalid by the natures of their societies and the form that their governances take. Yet international sports, such as the Olympics and the World Cup, were not invented to pretend that such differences don’t exist but to establish the premise that such differences can exist yet not necessarily precipitate war; and to suggest that peaceful interaction on the sports field can influence mass audiences across societies to be more open to the ideas of others. Yet we increasingly huddle around our own particular burning bushes to the complication of such efforts to interact more effectively without war, despite fundamental disagreements. The convictions and practices of societies that kill excessively are not going to moderate without a willingness on their part to examine other societies that don’t; and our own willingness to beat their heads in at World-Cup football aids in the process of moderation to the extent that any influence can.