Dr. Mahfoud Amara
As the FIFA World Cup unfolds across North America, debates surrounding the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams continue to dominate conversations. Critics argued that increasing the number of participants would dilute the quality of competition, create unbalanced matches, and weaken the prestige of the world’s biggest sporting event.
Yet the tournament is revealing something far more significant than the game. It is demonstrating that football’s greatest strength lies not simply in technical excellence but in its extraordinary ability to reflect the diversity of our globalised world.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this World Cup is how it challenges traditional understandings of national identity. Modern national teams increasingly represent complex stories of migration, multiple belongings, and transnational experiences rather than narrow definitions of nationality.
Take Morocco as perhaps the most striking example. Much of its celebrated generation of players who played against Brazil were born outside Morocco. They developed their football education in European academies while maintaining deep emotional, cultural, and familial connections to Morocco. Their success illustrates that identity is not confined by birthplace. Instead, it is shaped by heritage, culture, language, family, and a sense of belonging that transcends borders.
The same phenomenon can be observed across numerous national teams. Sweden’s goalscorers may carry Tunisian roots; French internationals often have origins across Africa; Algerian, Senegalese, Nigerian, and Ghanaian diasporas continue to shape European football while simultaneously strengthening the football cultures of their ancestral homelands.
Rather than representing divided loyalties, these players embody a new reality in which multiple identities coexist. They demonstrate that individuals can proudly belong to several cultural worlds at once.
This lesson arrives at a particularly important moment. Across many societies, political debates increasingly revolve around questions of national identity, immigration, integration, and cultural cohesion. Too often, these discussions frame diversity as a challenge or even a threat.
Football tells a different story.
On the pitch, diversity is not an obstacle to collective performance; it is often its foundation. Teams benefit from different tactical traditions, linguistic backgrounds, educational systems, and cultural experiences. The creativity born from these intersections frequently produces the most dynamic football.
The World Cup therefore becomes more than a sporting competition. It serves as a living laboratory of intercultural cooperation, demonstrating how shared objectives can unite individuals from remarkably diverse backgrounds. In a world increasingly connected through migration, education, and technology, football and sport in general become one of the few spaces where plural identities are not merely tolerated—they are celebrated.'
Dr. Mahfoud Amara is an Associate Professor in Sport Social Sciences and Management at Qatar University.
Dr. Mahfoud Amara is an Associate Professor in Sport Social Sciences and Management at Qatar University.
