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Received — 28 September 2026 ⏭

Deliberately losing a Michelin star to try to win it back in 52 days: Apple TV’s culinary miracles

✇El País - English
By: Héctor Llanos Martínez
28 September 2026 at 14:51

Jesse Burgess, host, filmmaker and co-founder of the award-winning food and travel channel Topjaw, says his role in the documentary series Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars is a dream job. In reality, it’s an even more polished extension of his earlier social media work: he travels the world to introduce viewers to the intense realm of haute cuisine. He visits (and samples) the planet’s most acclaimed restaurants as they face the Michelin Guide’s annual season.

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© APPLE TV+

Host Jesse Burgess with a uni bruschetta at Calusso in Fort Lauderdale in the second season of 'On the Edge: In Search of Michelin Stars'.
Received — 23 September 2026 ⏭

10 Controversial Documentaries That Shaped Public Perception

✇Listverse
By: Jamie Frater
22 September 2026 at 08:00

Documentaries are often treated as one of the closest things cinema has to truth. Unlike fictional films, they present themselves as carefully researched windows into reality, promising audiences facts instead of fantasy. That reputation gives documentaries significant influence. A persuasive narrator, dramatic music, selective editing, and confident “experts” can convince millions of people that they […]

The post 10 Controversial Documentaries That Shaped Public Perception appeared first on Listverse.

Received — 21 September 2026 ⏭

8-year-old child caught driving an ATV motorcycle on Paros

✇Keep Talking Greece
By: keeptalkinggreece
21 September 2026 at 16:54

An 8-year-old child was caught driving an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) widely known in Greece as “γουρούνα” (quad bike) at the port of the island of Paros on Saturday. The child was accompanied by a 33-year-old US national sitting on the back seat. According to some media, he was the child’s father. The vehicle had overturned, […]

The post 8-year-old child caught driving an ATV motorcycle on Paros appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Received — 20 September 2026 ⏭

Press TV condemns Israeli abduction of West Bank correspondent Naqaa Hamed

✇BT News
By: Abdul Rahman
20 September 2026 at 15:56

Iranian news outlet Press TV called the detention of its West Bank correspondent Naqaa Hamed by the Israeli forces an “aggressive terrorist operation” aimed at silencing the truth about its occupation and genocide of Palestinians. It demanded the immediate intervention of the international community for her release.

“The desperate attempt by the Zionist war and security machine to block the flow of free news and boycott structured crimes in the West Bank is clear evidence of the occupier’s fear of independent” reporters “who expose widespread human right violations,” the Press TV statement, published on Thursday, September 17, said.

Naqaa Hamed was abducted by the Israeli armed forces from a checkpoint at Tuqu, near Bethlehem, in the occupied Palestinian territory on September 15. 

She, along with her cameraman, were returning after reporting about rising Israeli settler violence on Palestinians in Masafer Yatta.

One eyewitness, a TRT journalist accompanying Hamed in her car, claimed that they were detained at the checkpoint and made to sit on the ground for 45 minutes while Hamed was taken alone for interrogation.

After the interrogation, cameraman and TRT journalists were let go but Hamed was arrested and sent to an unknown location.

Later it was reported that her detention has been extended until September 23 by an Israeli court.

Though no official confirmation has come forward about the charges against Hamed, Israeli media quoted unidentified military sources claiming her arrest was linked to her alleged cooperation with “the enemy entity,” presumably Iran, and espionage.

Hamed (38), a Palestinian-American and mother of three children, has been subjected to repeated physical attacks by Israeli forces in the last few months. She has also been subjected to a smear campaign on social media. 

According to Press TV, rubber bullets were fired at her when she was reporting near Qalandia camp in December 2025. She was injured again in August this year by an Israeli stun grenade and tear gas fire.

The intimidation and smear campaigns on social media, started by pages affiliated with the Israeli occupation regime, targeted Hamed by questioning her credibility and calling her a part of the “Iranian propaganda machine.” 

Israel is the worst place to be a journalist

Israel has one of the worst records when it comes to killing and arresting journalists. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have been either killed or arrested by the Israeli occupation forces since the beginning of the war and genocide in Gaza. 

According to various sources Israel has killed over 250 journalists and media workers in the West Bank and Gaza since October 2023. 

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, currently nearly 40 Palestinian journalists are in Israeli detention, including five women. Almost half of these journalists are kept in prison under the draconian provision of Administrative Detention, which allows the authorities to keep them in jail for an indefinite period without any formal charges or trial.

The Iranian media channel Press TV underlined that Hamed’s arrest by Israeli forces violates international laws about immunity to journalists in war zones. It demanded the UN, its High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other international human rights groups to come out of their “shell of inaction and meaningful silence” and take measures to end Israel’s impunity.

“As long as responsible institutions remain in the shell of silence and inaction, Naqaa Hamed will not be the first, nor the last journalist to be targeted by the illegal actions of the Zionist regime,” the Press TV statement said.

Received — 19 September 2026 ⏭

Raffinerie, l’Italia decida di essere un Paese

✇Casa del Sole TV
By: Jeff Hoffman
19 September 2026 at 10:50

Raffinerie, l’Italia decida di essere un Paese
di Margherita Furlan
19 settembre 2026

Aramco compra gasolio nel Mediterraneo dopo gli attacchi alle sue raffinerie. In quella stessa finestra di mercato si forma il prezzo che paghiamo alla pompa. L’Italia ci arriva senza impianti e senza bandiera
La fila di Aramco
Da alcune settimane Saudi Aramco presenta offerte d’acquisto nella finestra di contrattazione gestita da Platts per carichi di gasolio nel Mediterraneo. Secondo gli intermediari che seguono quella piattaforma, la società statale saudita cerca migliaia di tonnellate di prodotto raffinato; altri operatori riferiscono che sta sondando anche il mercato della benzina in Europa. L’azienda ha rifiutato di commentare.1
Conviene soffermarsi su cosa significhi. Aramco estrae, raffina e vende: è strutturalmente venditrice di distillati, non compratrice. Nel luglio 2025 l’Arabia Saudita aveva toccato il massimo storico delle esportazioni di gasolio, con una media mensile di 611mila barili al giorno, e Aramco si presentava come fornitore quasi solitario nelle finestre di valutazione del Nord Europa e del Mediterraneo, spesso a prezzi inferiori a quelli degli altri.2 Quattordici mesi dopo si mette in fila dall’altra parte del banco.
Il motivo non è un capriccio commerciale, sono gli impianti. Gli Houthi hanno rivendicato l’attacco alla raffineria di Yanbu, sul Mar Rosso, e nel corso dell’estate hanno colpito ripetutamente il centro di trattamento di Jazan, più a sud. Poi, il 10 settembre, droni partiti dall’Iraq hanno incendiato le stazioni di pompaggio dell’oleodotto Est-Ovest nelle aree di Riad e Medina: il ministero dell’Energia saudita ha confermato l’attacco e la chiusura «precauzionale» della conduttura, mentre le immagini satellitari mostravano il pennacchio di fumo sopra la linea e i danni estesi a una stazione vicino ad Al Mesba’ah.
Quella conduttura non è un’infrastruttura qualunque. Con lo Stretto di Hormuz sostanzialmente sbarrato dallo scoppio della guerra tra Stati Uniti, Israele e Iran nel febbraio 2026, l’oleodotto Est-Ovest è diventato la via di fuga del petrolio saudita: milleduecento chilometri dai giacimenti orientali al porto di Yanbu, con circa cinque milioni di barili al giorno dirottati su quella direttrice. Lo aveva detto l’amministratore delegato di Aramco, Amin Nasser: nel contenere la crisi di approvvigionamento il tubo aveva pesato più del rilascio delle riserve strategiche.3 Gli attacchi dell’aprile precedente avevano già sottratto al regno circa 600mila barili al giorno di capacità produttiva. Ad agosto l’estrazione saudita era scesa a 6,24 milioni di barili quotidiani, un livello che nessuno si aspettava di vedere dal principale produttore dell’OPEC.4
Nel frattempo si chiudeva anche l’altra uscita. Gli Houthi hanno proclamato a luglio un blocco marittimo contro le navi saudite, hanno preso il porto yemenita di Mokha e si sono avvicinati alle isole Hanish, cioè alla soglia di Bab el-Mandeb; il traffico attraverso quello stretto è calato di circa il sessanta per cento. Hormuz da una parte, Bab el-Mandeb dall’altra, l’oleodotto in mezzo è fermo: il regno che ha costruito la propria centralità mondiale sulla capacità di consegnare greggio ovunque si è ritrovato con tre porte socchiuse e un ordine d’acquisto da firmare nel Mediterraneo.
Il resto è politica. Nei giorni dell’avanzata su Mokha il principe ereditario Mohammed bin Salman avrebbe telefonato due volte a Donald Trump per chiedere raid contro il movimento yemenita, secondo funzionari statunitensi citati dalla stampa americana.5 Riad, per ora, ha evitato la rappresaglia diretta contro l’Iraq e Baghdad ha condannato l’attacco e apprezzato la scelta di non reagire.6 Il petroliere più potente del pianeta ha scoperto che la sua potenza dipendeva da cose fragili: una stazione di pompaggio, una colonna di distillazione, una rotta.
Il bersaglio non è più il pozzo
C’è una regolarità, in questi mesi, che i comunicati non dicono e le mappe sì. Nessuno bombarda i giacimenti. Si colpiscono le stazioni di pompaggio, le raffinerie, i terminali, i tubi. Il giacimento è profondo, disperso, difficile da distruggere e costoso da presidiare; l’impianto che trasforma il greggio in qualcosa di utilizzabile è invece un oggetto concentrato, visibile dal satellite, vulnerabile a un drone che costa quanto un’utilitaria. La stessa grammatica si legge sul fronte opposto dell’Eurasia, dove da due anni le raffinerie russe sono bersaglio sistematico dei droni ucraini, con fermate di impianti e contrazioni della produzione di carburante. Non è una coincidenza tecnica: è una dottrina che si è diffusa perché funziona.
Clausewitz aveva chiamato centro di gravità il punto da cui dipende la coesione dell’intera forza avversaria, quello contro cui vanno concentrate tutte le energie.7 Per un secolo si è creduto che nel settore energetico quel centro fosse la risorsa: chi possiede il sottosuolo comanda. La stagione che stiamo attraversando dice il contrario. Il centro di gravità è la catena di trasformazione e di trasporto e chi la colpisce ottiene con mezzi minuscoli effetti che nessun esercito convenzionale potrebbe produrre a quel costo. Un movimento armato yemenita, senza marina né aviazione, ha ridotto le esportazioni del primo produttore mondiale e ne ha fatto un compratore di gasolio sul mercato libero.
Ne discendono due conseguenze che riguardano direttamente l’Europa. La prima è che il vantaggio difensivo è scomparso: proteggere una rete di impianti e di condutture costa incomparabilmente più che attaccarla e nessuna quantità di navi in scorta può cambiare questa aritmetica. La seconda è che la sicurezza energetica ha smesso di essere un problema di contratti di fornitura per diventare un problema d’infrastrutture fisiche. Si può avere il barile e non avere il litro. Si può avere il litro e non avere il modo di farlo arrivare. Chi ha smontato pezzi della propria capacità di trasformazione pensando che il mercato avrebbe sempre provveduto ha fatto una scommessa sulla stabilità permanente delle rotte altrui. Quella scommessa, nell’anno in cui il re del greggio si mette in fila per comprare carburante, si sta rivelando per quello che era.
Il prezzo non nasce alla pompa
Qui il ragionamento smette di essere mediorientale e diventa italiano perché il collegamento fra Yanbu e il distributore sotto casa non è una metafora, ma un meccanismo documentato e pubblico.
Il prezzo industriale dei carburanti in Italia, cioè quel che resta una volta tolte accisa e imposta sul valore aggiunto, non segue il costo di produzione delle raffinerie nazionali. Segue la quotazione internazionale dei prodotti raffinati nel bacino mediterraneo, il cosiddetto Platts CIF Med, rilevato dall’agenzia che pubblica le valutazioni giornaliere sulla base delle contrattazioni fisiche. Lo scrive senza giri di parole l’associazione delle aziende petrolifere italiane nella propria nota metodologica sui prezzi: la materia prima del prezzo alla pompa è la quotazione Platts, e il margine lordo è la differenza fra il prezzo di vendita al netto delle tasse e quel valore. Lo ripete la stessa associazione quando deve spiegare perché il greggio scende e i carburanti no: il riferimento non è il Brent, sono le valutazioni dei raffinati.8
Vale la pena fermarsi su cosa sia quella finestra. Non è una borsa regolamentata con un’autorità di vigilanza pubblica: è un processo di valutazione gestito da una società privata di informazione sui mercati, alimentato dalle offerte che gli operatori presentano in un intervallo di tempo definito. L’Autorità garante della concorrenza e del mercato, in un’indagine del 2023 sui prezzi dei carburanti, ha osservato che i riferimenti internazionali dei prodotti petroliferi, Platts compreso, sono esposti a rischi di opacità, e lo ha argomentato richiamando da un lato procedimenti per sospette manipolazioni conclusi in giurisdizioni extraeuropee, dall’altro l’adozione di apposite linee guida da parte delle autorità internazionali di regolamentazione.9 È un’istituzione italiana che dice, in punta di diritto, che il termometro del nostro prezzo alla pompa non è un oggetto neutro.
In quella finestra, da alcune settimane, compra Saudi Aramco.
Il risultato lo hanno letto tutti sui cartelloni. Il 16 settembre 2026 il gasolio in modalità self service ha toccato il massimo storico italiano a 2,246 euro al litro, quasi due centesimi sopra il precedente primato del 17 marzo 2022, con 2,326 euro sulla rete autostradale e la quotazione all’ingrosso oltre i milleduecento euro per mille litri; il giorno seguente il servito viaggiava a 2,376.10 Senza il taglio dell’accisa il prezzo medio nazionale sarebbe stato di 2,416 euro.11
Nessuno impone a Roma cosa pagare. Semplicemente, il quadro dentro cui quel prezzo si forma è stato costruito da altri, si aggiorna ogni giorno in una finestra di mercato dove lo Stato italiano non siede, e il nostro margine di azione si è ridotto a decidere se restituire ai cittadini qualche centesimo di accisa. Non è dipendenza dal barile: è dipendenza dalla struttura.
Il mercato si era già ristretto
C’è un antefatto che rende il gesto di Aramco molto più pesante di quanto appaia e che riguarda l’Europa da vicino: la riserva di gasolio del Mediterraneo si era assottigliata per decisione politica mesi prima che i droni arrivassero su Yanbu.
Fino al 2022 circa il quaranta per cento del gasolio importato dall’Unione europea veniva dalla Russia. L’embargo ha chiuso quel canale ma non ha ridotto la domanda: l’ha deviata. Si è aperta così la scappatoia della raffinazione, il cosiddetto refining loophole, per cui India, Turchia e in parte Cina compravano greggio russo a prezzi scontati proprio grazie alle sanzioni occidentali, lo lavoravano nei propri impianti e rivendevano all’Europa prodotti formalmente non russi, perché la nazionalità di un carburante, nel diritto commerciale, è quella del Paese in cui avviene la trasformazione, non quella del pozzo. Non era un traffico clandestino: era legale, pubblico e quantificato. Nel giugno 2025 l’Europa ha ricevuto 124mila barili al giorno di gasolio dall’India e 94mila dalla Turchia, pari rispettivamente al sette e al cinque per cento delle importazioni totali; secondo le stime di Kpler, che includono anche il carburante per aerei, l’India, fino a pochi anni prima inesistente come esportatore verso il nostro continente, ha coperto nel 2024 il sedici per cento dell’import europeo, in un anno in cui il greggio russo rappresentava il trentotto per cento degli acquisti indiani.12
Per tre anni, insomma, l’Europa ha continuato a bruciare molecole di origine russa passate per Jamnagar o per İzmir, dichiarando di non comprare più dalla Russia. Poi, nel luglio 2025, il diciottesimo pacchetto di sanzioni ha chiuso anche quella porta: dal 21 gennaio 2026 è vietato importare nell’Unione prodotti petroliferi ottenuti in Paesi terzi a partire da greggio di origine russa, con esenzione per alcuni partner e per i Paesi esportatori netti di greggio.13 La misura ha due caratteristiche che meritano di essere dette. La prima è che nessuna analisi di laboratorio può stabilire l’origine di una molecola dopo la raffinazione, tanto più che si lavorano miscele di greggi diversi: l’applicazione dipende quindi da autocertificazioni e da tracciamenti documentali, e già al momento dell’annuncio gli operatori prevedevano un carosello di trasbordi destinato a confondere le carte. La seconda è che quel divieto ha ristretto l’offerta disponibile nel bacino mediterraneo in un momento in cui l’Europa non aveva ricostruito un grammo della capacità di raffinazione che aveva dismesso.
Ora si guardi la sequenza per intero, perché è la cosa più istruttiva di tutta questa vicenda. Il 21 gennaio 2026 l’Unione europea restringe per via normativa il proprio accesso al gasolio. A febbraio la guerra tra Stati Uniti, Israele e Iran sbarra lo Stretto di Hormuz. Durante l’estate gli attacchi degli Houthi mettono fuori uso a intermittenza gli impianti sauditi sul Mar Rosso. Il 10 settembre saltano le stazioni di pompaggio dell’oleodotto Est-Ovest. E in quel bacino ristretto, dove l’Europa deve comprare per forza, entra come acquirente anche il maggiore produttore mondiale. Nessuno di questi eventi, preso da solo, era imprevedibile; il loro sovrapporsi era un rischio di sistema che qualcuno avrebbe dovuto valutare prima di firmare i provvedimenti e prima di autorizzare le conversioni di impianti. Il differenziale fra il prezzo del gasolio e quello del greggio, che è la misura esatta della scarsità di capacità di raffinazione, aveva già superato i ventisei dollari al barile nell’estate 2025, il massimo dal febbraio 2024. Era un segnale, ed era leggibile da chiunque.
Va detto con chiarezza quel che l’Unione ha deciso senza dotarsi degli strumenti per reggerne le conseguenze non lo pagano le cancellerie, bensì chi mette il gasolio nel furgone alle sei del mattino.
La deindustrializzazione ha un indirizzo
A questo punto la domanda giusta non è perché il gasolio costi tanto, ma perché l’Italia sia arrivata a questo appuntamento in queste condizioni. E la risposta ha una data d’inizio, una sequenza e dei documenti.
Fra il 2000 e il 2024 il Paese ha perso il 12,7 per cento della propria capacità di raffinazione.14 Non è stata un’emorragia improvvisa: è stata una successione di decisioni aziendali, ciascuna ragionevole dal punto di vista di chi la prendeva, che sommate hanno prodotto un risultato che nessuno ha mai deliberato in Parlamento.
La raffineria di Cremona della Tamoil ha chiuso nel 2011 ed è stata convertita in deposito: l’amministratore delegato della società lo raccontò ai deputati della Commissione Attività produttive, spiegando che un impianto nella pianura padana, senza sbocco al mare, non riusciva più a collocare l’eccesso di olio combustibile e di benzina.15 La Raffineria di Roma, a Pantano di Grano, comunicò nel giugno 2012 l’intenzione di trasformare, a decorrere dal 30 settembre di quell’anno, lo stabilimento di lavorazione e stoccaggio in mero deposito di oli minerali: la dismissione dell’attività di raffinazione è scritta negli atti autorizzativi.16 La IES di Mantova, comprata quattro anni prima dal gruppo ungherese MOL, annunciò nell’ottobre 2013 la trasformazione graduale in deposito a partire dal gennaio successivo, con 350 esuberi su 390 dipendenti. Nel frattempo Eni fermava per sei mesi Porto Marghera e metteva in cassa integrazione a zero ore cinquecento persone a Gela.
Il Parlamento lo sapeva. Nel 2012 la Camera svolse una indagine conoscitiva specifica sulla crisi della raffinazione, con audizioni di aziende e sindacati, e il documento conclusivo registrava il rischio di chiusura di almeno quattro o cinque siti e la necessità di interventi a tutela del settore.17 Gli interventi non sono arrivati. È arrivata, invece, una narrazione più comoda.
Perché la seconda ondata è stata raccontata in tutt’altro modo. Porto Marghera è diventata bioraffineria nel 2014, Gela nel 2019, Livorno è in conversione con completamento previsto fra la fine del 2026 e l’inizio del 2027. Ogni annuncio è stato presentato come transizione ecologica e sul piano delle emissioni ha una sua logica difendibile. Sul piano della sicurezza degli approvvigionamenti, però, i numeri raccontano un’altra storia, perché le scale non sono paragonabili: Livorno, che sta completando il passaggio alla bioraffinazione, trattava quattro milioni di tonnellate di greggio l’anno e nessun impianto a scarti e oli vegetali lavora volumi simili. Un litro di gasolio idrogenato da scarti alimentari non è un litro di gasolio fossile in meno da importare: è un’altra filiera, con materie prime diverse, volumi diversi e limiti propri. La colonna di distillazione che smetti di far girare non torna.
Pasolini aveva coniato, per descrivere l’Italia che si trasformava sotto i suoi occhi, la formula dello «sviluppo senza progresso»: un Paese che si modernizza nelle forme e si impoverisce nella sostanza, perché il criterio della trasformazione non è il bene comune ma la convenienza di chi la guida.18 Non è un’analogia forzata. La dismissione della raffinazione italiana è stata razionale per ogni singolo azionista e distruttiva per l’interesse nazionale e nessuno, in vent’anni, si è preso la responsabilità politica di dire che quelle due razionalità non coincidevano.
Oggi restano poco più di dieci impianti attivi, di cui tre convertiti o in conversione alla bioraffinazione. È il patrimonio con cui l’Italia si presenta al mercato in cui, da alcune settimane, compra anche Saudi Aramco.
Il cambio di bandiera
Gli impianti sopravvissuti hanno cambiato proprietario, e la geografia di quei passaggi dice più di qualsiasi dichiarazione programmatica.
La ISAB di Priolo Gargallo, il complesso di raffinazione più grande del Paese, è passata in dieci anni dalla genovese Erg alla russa Lukoil, da questa al fondo cipriota G.O.I. Energy nel 2023, sotto la pressione delle sanzioni e con accordi decennali di fornitura e di ritiro affidati alla società di intermediazione Trafigura, e infine, nella primavera del 2026, a un gruppo italiano. È la vicenda più istruttiva dell’intero dossier e merita un capitolo a sé.
Sarroch, in Sardegna, è la seconda gamba del sistema: trecentomila barili al giorno, oltre un quinto dei carburanti italiani, in gran parte gasolio, cioè esattamente il prodotto di cui l’Europa non è autosufficiente. Era la Saras della famiglia Moratti; dal 2024 è di Vitol, il maggiore operatore mondiale indipendente nel commercio di petrolio. Augusta, centosettantamila barili al giorno, è della algerina Sonatrach, che l’ha rilevata nel 2018 da Esso Italia. Milazzo è per metà kuwaitiana, joint venture paritaria fra Eni e Kuwait Petroleum. Già nel febbraio 2024, facendo i conti con l’ingresso di Vitol in Saras, Il Sole 24 Ore osservava che circa metà della capacità di raffinazione italiana passava sotto controllo straniero.19
Poi è arrivato il passaggio più grande, e quasi nessuno se n’è accorto. Nel settembre 2025 la famiglia Brachetti Peretti ha firmato l’accordo vincolante per cedere il 99,82 per cento di Italiana Petroli, il gruppo Api, alla SOCAR, la compagnia petrolifera di Stato dell’Azerbaigian. Nel pacchetto, valutato attorno ai tre miliardi di euro, ci sono la raffineria di Falconara Marittima, quella di Trecate e oltre quattromilacinquecento stazioni di servizio a marchio IP. Il perfezionamento è arrivato nella primavera del 2026, dopo le autorizzazioni in materia di concorrenza, sovvenzioni estere e poteri speciali dello Stato. Non è più solo la raffinazione: è la rete capillare attraverso cui gli italiani fanno il pieno.
Sia chiaro cosa si sta dicendo e cosa no. Non c’è nulla di illegittimo in queste operazioni e nulla da eccepire sui compratori: un trader olandese, un fondo cipriota, una compagnia di Stato algerina e una azera hanno fatto quello che è nel loro mandato, cioè comprare beni che rendono. Il punto è l’altro lato del tavolo. Una raffineria per un operatore di mercato è un margine fra il costo del greggio e il valore dei prodotti e se quel margine si assottiglia la si spegne; per uno Stato è la differenza tra avere il petrolio e il carburante. Sono due criteri diversi e l’Italia ha lasciato che prevalesse il primo senza mai dichiarare di averlo scelto. La normativa sui poteri speciali è stata applicata come procedura di controllo su singole operazioni, non come strumento di una politica industriale: ha accompagnato i passaggi di proprietà, non li ha orientati.
È un mutamento reale dei rapporti di potere travestito da ordinaria amministrazione. La cessione dell’apparato di raffinazione italiano ne è un caso quasi scolastico. Nessun voto parlamentare ha mai stabilito che il Paese rinunciasse al controllo della propria capacità di trasformazione. È accaduto in quindici anni, un atto societario alla volta, e ogni singolo atto era legittimo.
Priolo, quattro proprietari in dieci anni
Se si vuole capire che cosa accade a un’infrastruttura strategica quando la si affida integralmente al mercato dei capitali conviene guardare da vicino Priolo Gargallo, provincia di Siracusa: le due raffinerie riunite sotto la sigla ISAB valgono circa un quinto della capacità di raffinazione nazionale, coprono una quota consistente della domanda elettrica siciliana, occupano attorno a mille persone in via diretta e ne sostengono diverse migliaia nell’indotto. Non è uno stabilimento, è un pezzo dell’ossatura del Paese.
La sequenza dei proprietari, in poco più di dieci anni, è questa: il gruppo genovese Erg esce dalla raffinazione, l’impianto passa alla russa Lukoil attraverso la controllata Litasco e nel 2023, quando le sanzioni rendono impossibile sia importare greggio russo che ottenere credito bancario per comprarne altrove, viene ceduto al fondo cipriota G.O.I. Energy. La cessione, secondo il Financial Times, fu agevolata dal gruppo di intermediazione Trafigura e da un investitore privato, e fu approvata dal governo italiano con l’esercizio dei poteri speciali; i dettagli delle condizioni imposte non sono stati resi pubblici. Lo Stato, in altre parole, ha scelto e autorizzato il compratore, e lo ha fatto in forza di un decreto legge concepito proprio per proteggere l’impianto durante l’uscita dei russi.
L’assetto era questo: la proprietà al fondo, il capitale circolante a Trafigura, che avrebbe fornito il greggio e ritirato i prodotti raffinati per dieci anni. Poi è arrivato il conto. Nel gennaio 2025 la società apre una procedura di composizione negoziata della crisi per gestire tensioni finanziarie; secondo il Financial Times l’azionista di controllo indiretto avrebbe cercato di usare quella procedura per rinegoziare o risolvere il contratto decennale con il trader, giudicato penalizzante per l’impianto, e l’esistenza di quel vincolo avrebbe ostacolato le trattative con possibili acquirenti. Nell’autunno 2025 emerge in sede giudiziaria che il prezzo di acquisto non sarebbe stato integralmente saldato al venditore russo, con un debito indicato fra i 150 e i 190 milioni di euro, e il tribunale apre alla possibilità di pignoramento delle quote. Nel febbraio 2026 la procedura di crisi si chiude con esito positivo; nella primavera il fondo firma la cessione a un gruppo italiano, con un’operazione articolata in due fasi, la prima relativa al 51 per cento. Il via libera dell’Autorità garante della concorrenza è arrivato; il vaglio dei poteri speciali, mentre scriviamo, è ancora davanti al governo, e i sindacati territoriali chiedono di essere coinvolti in quel passaggio.
Bilancio di dieci anni: quattro assetti proprietari, due procedure straordinarie, un contenzioso internazionale, perdite per centinaia di milioni nel 2023 e nel 2024 e un ritorno all’utile nel 2025 grazie a condizioni di mercato favorevoli. I lavoratori hanno attraversato l’intero percorso senza mai sapere chi fosse davvero il loro datore di lavoro l’anno successivo, e il sindacato, al primo tavolo con la nuova proprietà, ha dovuto porre come condizioni non negoziabili cose che in un Paese con una politica industriale sarebbero ovvie: salvaguardia dei livelli occupazionali, tutela dell’indotto, un cronoprogramma certo d’investimenti a partire dalla manutenzione di un impianto che tratta idrocarburi in un sito di interesse nazionale per le bonifiche.
David Harvey ha chiamato accumulazione per spoliazione quel meccanismo per cui il capitale, quando il profitto ordinario si comprime, torna a guadagnare non producendo di più ma appropriandosi di beni già esistenti, spesso pubblici o socialmente costruiti, e rimettendoli in circolo come attività finanziarie. La vicenda di Priolo non è la sua illustrazione perfetta, e sarebbe scorretto presentarla come tale: qui il rischio industriale c’è stato davvero e le perdite pure. Ma il nucleo del ragionamento tiene. Un impianto che vale un quinto della capacità nazionale è stato trattato per un decennio come una partecipazione da acquistare, da rifinanziare e da rivendere, mentre la sua funzione, per il Paese, era un’altra: garantire che ci fosse carburante. Quando il criterio finanziario e quello della sicurezza divergono, non è il primo a cedere.
Il ritorno dell’impianto sotto controllo italiano è una buona notizia e va detto. Ma è avvenuto per iniziativa di un gruppo privato al termine di una crisi, non per effetto di una strategia nazionale ed è ancora una volta lo Stato a doversi limitare a dire sì o no a un’operazione decisa da altri. Il golden power è solo un semaforo: regola il traffico, non decide dove si va.
Il fornitore diventa concorrente
L’Italia è un Paese che produce gasolio. Secondo i dati del ministero dell’Ambiente e della Sicurezza energetica relativi al 2025, il fabbisogno nazionale di gasolio si aggira sui 23,3 milioni di tonnellate e la produzione delle raffinerie italiane sfiora i 25 milioni: siamo esportatori netti, con circa 7,9 milioni di tonnellate vendute all’estero contro 5,2 importate. Chi racconta un Paese incapace di raffinare dice una cosa falsa.
E allora perché il prezzo alla pompa tocca il massimo storico proprio mentre a migliaia di chilometri saltano le stazioni di pompaggio saudite? Perché l’esposizione italiana non è fisica, è di posizione. Due numeri lo spiegano meglio di un saggio. Il 60 per cento del gasolio che importiamo proviene dall’area del Golfo, e il 47 per cento arriva dalla sola Arabia Saudita. Il nostro primo fornitore di gasolio è esattamente il soggetto che da alcune settimane presenta offerte d’acquisto nella finestra mediterranea dove si forma il nostro prezzo industriale. Non ha smesso di venderci: ha cominciato a comprare dove compriamo noi. Il fornitore è diventato concorrente, e ci è arrivato nel giro di un trimestre, senza che nessuno decidesse nulla.
Immanuel Wallerstein descriveva l’economia mondiale come un sistema unico articolato in centro, periferia e semiperiferia, dove la posizione di ciascuno non dipende dalla ricchezza assoluta ma dal punto che occupa nella divisione del lavoro e nella catena del valore.20 L’Italia energetica sta esattamente lì, nel mezzo: trasforma molto, decide poco, non controlla né la risorsa a monte né le regole di formazione del prezzo a valle. È una posizione che funziona benissimo quando il sistema è stabile e diventa una trappola nel momento in cui qualcuno, in Yemen o in Iraq, scopre che una stazione di pompaggio si buca con un drone.
L’accisa come anestetico
Lo Stato italiano f l’unica cosa che gli è rimasta da fare, e la fa in entrambe le direzioni nello stesso anno.
Il primo movimento è strutturale. Il decreto legislativo 43 del 2025 avvia il riavvicinamento graduale fra l’accisa sulla benzina e quella sul gasolio, e il decreto ministeriale del 14 maggio 2025 lo mette in pratica: un centesimo e mezzo in meno al litro sulla benzina, un centesimo e mezzo in più sul gasolio.21 Poi la legge di bilancio per il 2026 accelera bruscamente: dal primo gennaio le due aliquote sono parificate a 672,90 euro per mille litri, il che significa 4,05 centesimi in meno sulla benzina e 4,05 in più sul gasolio, senza gradualità, con la motivazione esplicita di superare un sussidio ambientalmente dannoso censito nel catalogo del ministero dell’Ambiente.22 La logica ambientale è comprensibile. L’effetto sociale, in un Paese dove il gasolio muove l’autotrasporto, l’agricoltura e la quota maggioritaria del parco veicoli, è una tassa che colpisce chi lavora. E c’è un precedente che nessuno ha chiarito: dopo il riequilibrio del maggio 2025 il rincaro sul gasolio si è trasferito ai prezzi quasi integralmente, mentre lo sconto sulla benzina, almeno sulla rete autostradale, si è visto in misura ridicola, tanto che un’associazione di consumatori ha depositato un esposto all’Antitrust.23 La partita di giro, sulla carta a somma zero, è diventata un aumento netto per il cittadino.
Il secondo movimento è d’emergenza, e va nella direzione opposta. Da quando il prezzo internazionale del gasolio ha cominciato a correre, il governo taglia la stessa accisa che ha appena aumentato: l’aliquota viene ridotta in via temporanea a 532,90 euro per mille litri, cioè quattordici centesimi al litro, più tre centesimi di minore imposta sul valore aggiunto, per uno sconto complessivo di diciassette centesimi.24 E lo fa per periodi brevissimi, rinnovati di decreto in decreto: dal 28 luglio al 6 agosto, dal 27 agosto al 5 settembre, poi fino al 10, poi fino al 17 con una copertura di circa 85 milioni di euro, poi con uno sconto dimezzato e infine ridotto a poco più di sei centesimi. Sedici proroghe, circa due miliardi di euro in sette mesi, e un prezzo che nel frattempo ha toccato comunque il massimo storico.
Messi in fila, i due movimenti raccontano meglio di qualunque analisi lo stato della politica energetica italiana. A gennaio lo Stato alza l’accisa sul gasolio di quattro centesimi per ragioni ambientali; da luglio la taglia di quattordici per ragioni sociali; a settembre torna a ridurre lo sconto perché non ci sono più coperture. È l’unica leva rimasta a un Paese che ha perso il controllo di tutto il resto della catena, e viene azionata avanti e indietro come il volante di un’automobile che ha i freni altrove. Ogni proroga dura una settimana o dieci giorni, esattamente la durata dell’attenzione mediatica che la accompagna.
Due miliardi sono una cifra seria. Sono circa quanto il Paese avrebbe speso per costituire una riserva strategica di prodotti finiti di dimensioni significative, o per finanziare la quota pubblica di un piano di ammodernamento della capacità di raffinazione residua. Sono stati spesi, invece, per ridurre di qualche centesimo e per qualche giorno un prezzo che si forma in una finestra di contrattazione privata nel Mediterraneo, dove nel frattempo è entrata a comprare Saudi Aramco. Un Paese senza controllo sulla catena può soltanto anestetizzare il dolore, mai curarlo.
Riprendersi la catena: i tre anelli
Mattei non aveva pozzi. Aveva capito che il potere non stava nel giacimento ma nella catena che porta il greggio dal sottosuolo al serbatoio e che quella catena si poteva costruire anche partendo da un Paese sconfitto e privo di risorse. A Tunisi, il 10 giugno 1960, nel giorno in cui firmava con il governo tunisino l’intesa per costruire una raffineria, spiegò che quelle intese nulla avevano a che vedere con «il modello obsoleto del capitalismo coloniale del XIX secolo», perché prevedevano compartecipazione finanziaria e cogestione fra Paesi produttori e Paesi consumatori, in condizioni di eguaglianza.25 Negli appunti preparati per quel viaggio, rimasti inutilizzati e conservati nell’archivio storico dell’Eni, la formulazione era ancora più tagliente: la condizione coloniale, annotava, esiste quando il gioco della domanda e dell’offerta di una materia prima vitale è «alterato da una potenza egemonica: anche privata, di monopolio o di oligopolio», e nel settore petrolifero quella potenza aveva un nome, il cartello.26 Sessantasei anni dopo, l’incontro fra domanda e offerta del nostro gasolio si decide in una finestra di contrattazione privata che l’Autorità garante della concorrenza definisce esposta a rischi di opacità. La definizione di Mattei non è invecchiata: si è solo spostata di soggetto.
Che cosa vuol dire, in concreto, riprendersi la catena nel 2026? Tre anelli, e per ciascuno una cosa che si può firmare.
La raffinazione. Dichiarare gli impianti infrastrutture strategiche a tutti gli effetti, sottoporne ogni passaggio di proprietà e ogni riconversione a un vaglio che non sia solo di legittimità ma di merito, e vincolare le conversioni a bioraffineria a un piano nazionale che stabilisca prima quanta capacità fossile il Paese deve conservare e per quanti anni. Non si tratta di fermare la transizione: il punto è smettere di affidarne il calendario ai margini industriali di operatori privati esteri. Sul fronte delle scorte l’architettura esiste già e va usata: il decreto legislativo 249 del 2012, che recepisce la direttiva europea sull’obbligo di mantenere una riserva minima, ha istituito l’Organismo centrale di stoccaggio italiano, le cui funzioni sono affidate ad Acquirente Unico sotto vigilanza ministeriale, e ha stabilito che le scorte specifiche siano di proprietà pubblica e conservate sul territorio nazionale.27 Il punto è la composizione: in una crisi come quella di questo settembre a mancare non è il barile, è il litro raffinato. Servono scorte di prodotti finiti, in quantità dichiarate e verificabili.
La logistica. Abbiamo i rigassificatori, il terminale di Trieste con l’oleodotto transalpino che rifornisce anche Austria, Germania e Repubblica Ceca, il gasdotto adriatico che porta in Puglia il gas del Caspio, le condutture dall’Algeria e dalla Libia. Quello che manca non è l’infrastruttura, è la regia: un soggetto pubblico che tratti direttamente con i produttori, come faceva l’Eni delle origini, invece di comprare da intermediari che lucrano sulla differenza. Il Piano Mattei del governo ha preso il nome; il metodo era un altro, e consisteva in contratti diretti, condizioni migliori per il Paese produttore e controllo italiano dell’infrastruttura di trasporto.
La rotta. Il 17 settembre, al forum Risorsa Mare della Spezia, il ministro della Difesa ha annunciato di avere deciso con il capo di Stato maggiore di attivare la Marina per garantire il transito delle navi di interesse nazionale attraverso Bab el-Mandeb, aggiungendo di non voler aspettare che sia la missione europea Aspides a stabilire se le navi possano passare. L’Italia è il primo contributore navale di quella missione, e questo rende la frase più interessante di quanto sembri: non è un atto di forza verso lo Yemen, è la constatazione che la cornice europea non decide. Una scorta, però, è una toppa. Una rotta si tiene aperta prima di tutto con la diplomazia: con l’Egitto, che vive di Suez ed è il primo interessato alla riapertura del traffico, con i Paesi rivieraschi del Mar Rosso e del Golfo, e con chi controlla militarmente la costa yemenita, perché la storia dei passaggi obbligati insegna che si negoziano prima di essere scortati. È la lezione mediterranea di Moro, che cercò nel dialogo con il mondo arabo una posizione autonoma per l’Italia, e di Craxi, che a Sigonella dimostrò che rivendicare la giurisdizione nazionale di fronte all’alleato non significa uscire dall’alleanza.
Chi esegue e chi decide
I fatti di questi giorni, non le opinioni, dicono dove siamo. Dal 31 luglio 2026 l’Italia guida la missione di sorveglianza aerea della NATO nei cieli baltici, con quattro Eurofighter e un centinaio di uomini a Šiauliai: primo decollo su allarme il 3 agosto, drone non identificato abbattuto il 15 settembre dopo essere entrato dalla Bielorussia. Il 17 settembre la Marina viene attivata per Bab el-Mandeb. Sul fronte finanziario, il Paese ha chiesto accesso ai prestiti europei del programma per l’industria della difesa, con una dotazione indicativa di 14,9 miliardi notificata dalla Commissione, da restituire in quarantacinque anni. Alla pompa, il gasolio sta a 2,25 euro al litro.
È un profilo riconoscibile: un Paese che presidia i cieli di altri, scorta le proprie navi in un mare che non controlla, s’indebita per armamenti decisi altrove e resta fuori dai tavoli dove si tratta di ciò che paga. Ma questo profilo non è un destino, è una serie di scelte, e chi lo definisce inevitabile sta spacciando per realismo una scelta. L’Italia una politica estera l’ha avuta, quando ha deciso di averla, e non l’ha mai avuta contro l’America: l’ha avuta accanto all’America, con la schiena dritta.
Un governo che volesse cominciare a riprendersi la catena non avrebbe bisogno di una legge di bilancio. Avrebbe bisogno di tre firme. Un provvedimento che dichiari le raffinerie infrastrutture strategiche e subordini conversioni e cessioni a un piano nazionale della raffinazione. Una richiesta formale, a Bruxelles e a Washington, perché l’Italia sieda al tavolo in cui si discute dell’energia che arriva nelle case degli italiani. Una convocazione dei Paesi rivieraschi del Mediterraneo e del Mar Rosso, con l’Egitto in testa, per una rotta negoziata invece che soltanto pattugliata.
Nessuna delle tre costa un euro. Costano una cosa sola, ed è la sola che in questi anni è mancata: decidere di essere un Paese.
Perché la fila in cui si è messa Aramco dice esattamente questo. Chi controlla la trasformazione e il trasporto detta le condizioni a chi possiede la materia prima, e non il contrario. Il regno che ha il più grande giacimento del mondo lo ha imparato in una settimana, con tre stazioni di pompaggio in fiamme. Noi abbiamo avuto quindici anni per impararlo e abbiamo usato quel tempo per vendere gli impianti, chiamare transizione le chiusure e ridurre le accise di sei centesimi.
La guerra è il prodotto. Il caos è la materia prima. E la sovranità, quando non la si difende, è la merce.

 

L'articolo Raffinerie, l’Italia decida di essere un Paese proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

Received — 17 September 2026 ⏭

10 Historical Epics That Never Reached the Screen

✇Listverse
By: Listverse Publisher
16 September 2026 at 08:00

Hollywood has never lacked ambition when it comes to raiding the history books. Given enough money, a studio can rebuild ancient cities, marshal armies of extras, and persuade audiences that an actor standing before a green screen is actually addressing the Roman Senate. Yet historical epics are also among the riskiest movies to produce. Their […]

The post 10 Historical Epics That Never Reached the Screen appeared first on Listverse.

Received — 16 September 2026 ⏭

A True-Crime Producer Posed as an Heiress — Then Allegedly Stole $30 Million

✇Longreads
By: Brendan Fitzgerald
16 September 2026 at 18:08

The FBI isn’t the only interested party searching for Mary Carole McDonnell, the 74-year-old producer behind TV series like I Married a Murderer. There are the former employees who allege millions in unpaid wages, and the two sons who claim their mother forged their signatures on bank documents. There’s an entrepreneur in the United Arab Emirates who accuses her of “mind games,” and the former bank vice-president turned true-crime podcaster who’d like to make a documentary about McDonnell. Cheyenne Roundtree goes deep on the woman who, nearly a decade ago, walked into a California bank with a pecan pie and left with a $15 million loan before vanishing.

The story has all the makings of a viral documentary replete with breathless details, similar to the ones McDonnell’s company produced. Her backstory is littered with half-truths and deceptions, including a lie that her mentally disabled younger sister was murdered after being kidnapped. Questions remain on how she was able to pull off such a brazen heist. And it has sparked an ongoing hunt among the FBI, banking institutions, a true-crime podcaster, and television producers to see who can unravel McDonnell’s tangled history, track her down in a foreign land, recoup the financial losses she caused, and perhaps bring the unbelievable tale to screens.  

10 Fictional Heroes Who Committed Horrible Crimes and Escaped Justice

✇Listverse
By: Listverse Publisher
10 September 2026 at 08:00

If you commit a crime, then you must pay for it. That’s the way the law should work in every situation, so many storytellers hammer it home in their work. Books, movies, TV shows, and video games often craft a suitable comeuppance for each character’s mistakes. Not only does this choice provide satisfying closure for […]

The post 10 Fictional Heroes Who Committed Horrible Crimes and Escaped Justice appeared first on Listverse.

Received — 24 August 2026 ⏭

10 Movie Sequels That Took Decades to Arrive

✇Listverse
By: Listverse Publisher
24 August 2026 at 08:01

Movie sequels usually arrive within a few years of the original, allowing filmmakers to continue popular stories while audiences are still familiar with the characters. But some follow-ups take decades to reach the screen. Production problems, changing creative plans, unavailable actors, financial concerns, rights complications, or uncertainty about whether a sequel is even necessary can […]

The post 10 Movie Sequels That Took Decades to Arrive appeared first on Listverse.

Received — 5 August 2026 ⏭

🔴DRONI SI SCORTE NO | TG 05.08.26

✇Casa del Sole TV
By: Jeff Hoffman
5 August 2026 at 20:58

– Kiev sotto le bombe, Europa senza scorte di Jeff Hoffman
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– Karbala prega New York tiene la cassa di Margherita Furlan
– Israele compra il racconto, Parscale lo scrive di Jeff Hoffman
– Board of Peace: la resa a Netanyahu di Jeff Hoffman
– Ceuta: scontro Madrid Roma di Jeff Hoffman
– Interfacce neurali, Pechino sorpassa Musk di Margherita Furlan
– Buon giro intorno al Sole

A cura di Margherita Furlan
Con la collaborazione di Jeff Hoffman
Editing di Davide Marletta e di Simone Orletti

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L'articolo 🔴DRONI SI SCORTE NO | TG 05.08.26 proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

Received — 4 August 2026 ⏭

10 Things You Might Not Know About the Addams Family

✇Listverse
By: Jamie Frater
3 August 2026 at 08:00

The Addams family is one of the most beloved fictional families ever, right alongside the Simpsons and the Bradys. The creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky clan has appeared in countless forms over the decades. It shows no signs of loosening its macabre grip on popular culture, with Netflix’s Wednesday introducing the characters to an entirely […]

The post 10 Things You Might Not Know About the Addams Family appeared first on Listverse.

Received — 1 August 2026 ⏭

Loving sports in an age of authoritarians: A conversation with Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff

✇The Real News Network
By: Maximillian Alvarez · Dave Zirin · and Jules Boykoff
22 July 2026 at 20:26
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and U.S. President Donald Trump in conversation after the award ceremony during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final match between Spain and Argentina at New York New Jersey Stadium on July 19, 2026 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Photo by Alex Pantling - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

For many around the US and around the world, the World Cup was a welcome distraction from the dismal state of the world and the daily overwhelm of relentless war, corruption, fascism, and disaster. But the games were also an uncomfortable reminder that, no matter how much we love sports and want them to be an escape from politics and the pain of living in a broken society, there is no way to truly escape those things, and the manufactured illusion that sports are an escape from political reality is just that: an illusion.

At a live event hosted on July 16, 2026, at Chilo’s bar in New York City, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke with legendary sportswriters Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff about what it means to love sports in an age of authoritarians.

Additional links/info:

Credits:

  • Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Welcome back to the Real News Network. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. The 2026 World Cup is now officially over after Spain defeated Argentina in the final match on Sunday. And for many of us around the US and around the world, the World Cup was a very welcome distraction from the ambient awfulness and doom and the daily delugion overwhelm of relentless war, corruption, fascism and disaster. But the games were also an uncomfortable reminder that no matter how much we love sports and the global spectacle of the World Cup, no matter how much we want them to be an escape from politics and the pain of living in a broken society, there’s just no way to truly escape those things. And the manufactured illusion that sports are somehow an escape from political reality is just that, an illusion. So what do we do with that? How do we square our love for sports and all the beautiful things and experiences that we get from sports with all these gross, exploitative and societally destructive facets of sports today?

Hat does it mean to love sports in a disenchanted age of authoritarians, war and climate catastrophe? These are the kinds of questions that I got to dig into with legendary sports writers, book authors and real news contributors, Dave Zyron and Jules Boykoff at a live event that we hosted at Chilo’s Bar in Brooklyn, New York, just days before the World Cup final. And what you’re about to listen to is the audio recording of our discussion for that live event.

The name of this event is Loving Sports in an Age of Authoritarians. And we’ll get to the authoritarians by way of this first question, but it’s so much bigger than just any one authoritarian. How do we continue to love sports and the other things that we love when everything that we know is burning around us literally? We had to move this event inside because the fires in Ontario that literally wiped a First Nation off the map are making the air toxic to breathe. So how do we continue loving sports in a time like that? Dave Zirin, softball to you.

Dave Zirin:

Well, first of all, I wasn’t told there would be science at this event. Second, very quick joke my grandfather once told me that tries to answer that very heavy question. Guy goes to visit a buddy. Buddy opens the door. His buddy is naked wearing a top hat. And he said, “Dude, why are you naked?” And he said, “Nobody visits me. ” And then he says, “Then why are you wearing a top hat?” And he said, “Someone might visit.” And that’s how I feel about sports and the environment.

Let me make that leap for a second. It’s because we are in trouble. Dude is naked. Everything is out in the open. We can’t breathe outside for goodness sakes. And yet sports presents this face like everything’s okay. Look at these incredibly fit young people running around the field, loving the fresh air on the greenfield and then off the field you have environmental catastrophe. And we need to be able to reckon with that because honestly, we’re not going to have outdoor sports. We’re not going to have winter sports unless we do something about this environment. And frankly, I think that’s a way to reach sports fans is to say to them, if you really care about sports, then you’re going to care about climate change. If you really care about sports, then you should care about fossil fuels. You should care about the World Cup and the kind of footprint it puts down on our world just by the wealthiest of the wealthy flying their private planes into these different cities.

So I think it’s really important that we have one eye in the environment of all time and not just to save humanity, but actually let’s talk to sports fans and say, if you really want to save sports, you’re going to be on this side of the question too. And so that’s the top hat, that’s the naked guy. I don’t think I made the connection, but we try.

Jules Boykoff:

Love it, love it, love it. So on the topic of climate change and this World Cup, a couple quick facts. This is the most polluting World Cup in the history of men’s World Cups or women’s World Cups. And that’s because FIFA decided to hold it in three countries and include 48 teams, which is more than ever up from 32. And also because one of the countries, the United States, just doesn’t have a good train system to get people around. So everybody, if you want to get from Kansas City to your next game in San Francisco, you basically have to fly. So the lower end estimates are like nine million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and that’s a low estimate. Meanwhile, we got Giannian Fontino out here on his private jet crisscrossing North America. Yeah, thank you. Big boo for Giannian Fontino. And he even went to Qatar for a funeral the other day and then zipped back.

So the leadership is very much not coming from the top. But to build off what Dave was saying, I’m really interested in this idea that we can be more politically effective sometimes by being less explicitly political. And we’re living in a moment where we sort of have two models of that happening simultaneously. In New York City, since we’re here, I’ll mention Zoran Mamdani. Where was he watching a football match, soccer match yesterday or the other day in a local prison? And opening up conversations about kind of what that means, what’s the life of an incarcerated person? How can we bring sports into their lives as a positive? Then you have on the other side, one of the big topics of my book, which is Donald Trump and how he is the president in the United States that has used sports to his political advantage more than any in the modern era.

So we have two models of using sports toward political aims while not necessarily being explicitly political. And the last thing I’ll just say on this question is I’m wearing a Bosnia shirt. I was in Bosnia recently. I spent more than a month in Sarajevo and it was an exciting time to be there because the team had just qualified for the World Cup for the first time in a long time. The energy was really good in the city. And when I was there, I went to the Genocide Museum. And what struck me about the place was that there were so many exhibits at the museum that talked about the importance of soccer. There was one that literally was titled Soccer Saved My Life. There was another that talked about people in Shrebanitza that were huddling around a black and white television during the 1994 World Cup watching Roberto Baggio and getting this glimmer of joy in an increasingly difficult time for them.

So if they can do it in Bosnia and stick with sports and figure out how to use sports to their political advantage, and they’re definitely doing that in Bosnia, we can surely come together to attack the issue of climate change through sport with everyday people and talk about how it affects their everyday lives.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh yeah. Two quick thoughts or a thought and a question. Thought because I couldn’t agree with you more, Jules, about we can be more politically effective by being less obsessed with politics. And I really identify with what you said there because this is a question I get all the time as someone who goes around interviewing just regular working people across the political spectrum around this country every week. And people come up to me, they’re like, “How do you do it? How do you talk to people? ” I’m going to answer that question for all of you right now. Just be a person. Just don’t be weird. Just be chill. Just be interested in other people. I don’t know how to explain that. It’s just like you don’t got to beat people over the head with politics. Just talk to them as human beings, connect on what you connect on and go from there.

And for a lot of us, that is sports. I have some of the deepest political conversations with my buddies that I grew up with back home who live very different lives than I do or like the guys I worked in the warehouses and factories and restaurants with than I’ve had in academia. Because you start with sports and then you get into some real heavy shit real quick. So I couldn’t endorse that more. And to get spicy for a second, because again, this is a live bar debate. I want to push you both on the question of sports and climate because everything you said really resonated with me. But sports is also one of the most important cultural dream manufacturing or false dream manufacturing mechanisms that we have in society. And sports is where people are being trained to see that you can just build a dome and play in freezing weather or blazing heat.

So what do you say to someone who says, “Hey, we could have a World Cup in Qatar. It doesn’t matter how many brown people die to make it happen, but why don’t we just do that? “

Dave Zirin:

That’s a great question. I would say to the person, first of all, you think we’re having a sports conversation? We’re actually having a politics conversation Because you’re talking about a set of political priorities that are not in the best interest of the people in Qatar or on the world if you think that that’s the way sports is going to be sustainable. I would say to them that what you are promoting is an incredibly elitist view of sports where the only people who really get to play are the super professionals who are in this climate controlled atmosphere because they can produce profit while the rest of us just become watchers. And honestly, we have too much of that in this country right now.This is the statistic I hate the most. 60% of kids who play youth sports quit by the age of 12. And when they’re asked why they quit at the age of 12, it’s always because they’re told that they’re not good enough to keep playing when they’re 13, 14, 15.

And so then they become either the watchers or they become alienated from things like exercise, community, frankly, some of the things that make life worth living. And so sports should never be the province of experts. It should never be the province of the super skilled. Sports should be for everyone as a baseline for what we’re arguing for in this country. Sports for all. And so people who make the climate controlled argument are actually arguing sports for few. So I would be calling them out. You’re actually making a political argument that is actually not only dooming humanity, but it’s dooming our kids to a life of actually being alienated from what makes life worth living.

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah. Absolutely. So I think that the sports world needs to grapple with this idea of the mega. We’re now living in the era – Not the mega.

And that too, actually. Okay. But the mega, M-E-G-A. What I mean is we’re living in this moment of the VVIP, this new thing, the very, very important person. We’re also living in the era of the mega, mega sporting event. And the truth of the matter is this is not at all. It’s like an oxymoron to call it mega event sustainable. It’s just never going to be that. And so we need to have conversations about how do you reduce the size? Gianni and Fontino talked about making the next World Cup 64 teams instead of 48 teams, which will just make worse what we’re talking about right now. And they’ll come back at us when we say, “Oh, well, how about just going back to 32 or at least just keeping it at 48?” They’ll say, “Oh, but we’re trying to include more teams.” And of course that’s true, but right behind it is bubbling their cauldron of money and that’s all to their benefit to have more teams, more games, more $30 million per game went into FIFA coffers at each one of these games just from tickets alone.

So the truth of the matter is that they’re kind of actually giving an argument that’s both weak and somewhat trying to seem like they’re not racist, but actually are racist. And here’s what I mean. They’ll point to teams like Kate Vaird who was wonderful. If you didn’t watch the World Cup, they were one of the most exciting stories. And they’re like, “Oh, do you want to not include Cape Vaird at the World Cup now after these wonderful stories of all their triumphs?” Cape Vaird finished first in their group. They were coming to the tournament, whether there was 32 teams, maybe even 24 teams. So don’t tell me Cape Verde wasn’t qualifying. They’re a legit team. A lot of soccer people weren’t at all surprised. So thinking about how do we both make it more of a public good sports, but also shrinking it and moving some of the money from the shrinkage to what you’re talking about, addressing the fact that so many kids drop outs too early because that’s a tragedy.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, let’s stick on that for a second. I love the sports for all in sports is a public good. So sticking with the bar debate theme, in the socialist utopia, what is the world of professional sports going to look like? Are sports teams going to be publicly owned utilities? What is the better version of this shit look like that can still retain the things that we love, but isn’t draped in all this awful shitty stuff that makes us hate the things we love?

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. I mean, for sports in a socialist utopia. I mean, first I’d be so happy in the socialist utopia. I’d be like, “Oh yeah, there’s sports on. Cool.” Which would be sort of like the opposite of my current life, which is, “Oh, there’s sports on. Good. The world is burning. Ah, sports is on. ” So I think it would take that and sort of stand it on its head, which would be nice, I must say. But I think more than anything, I mean, there are things that are wrong with the sports world now that I could say in even a democratic, socialist, capitalist country, we’re going to do away with the public funding of stadiums and saying like, “Look, you’re a billionaire, James Dolan. You want refurbishing a Madison Square Garden? Find the money between the cushions of your couch and take care of it.

Don’t ask the taxpayers to do it for you. ” So real demands like that. Second of all, if even $1 of public money goes into a sports team or a stadium, guess what? That team becomes $1 public. So it’s like the more public money that goes in, the more we own the teams. And if they want all the money for their stadiums, guess what? Your team has just become the most effective public utility in the city of New York. Congratulations, you’re making the city billions. Our schools are now funded. All is good. And I’m so sorry, James Dolan, you only get one yacht, but somehow I think you’ll survive. James Dolan’s son, by the way, 32 years old, is now in charge of the New York Rangers. I think that makes him the first grand Nepo baby in doing that. So horrible people. Just the worst.

And one other thing I would say is I think this idea of sports for all, we can be very specific for people right now of what that means. It’s not just about ability. It’s an anti-racist argument. It’s an anti-sexist argument. It’s an anti-anti-poor people argument who are denied sports, denied physical education in so many public schools. We would have full funding for physical education throughout the country. And I think this is very vital. We would never in any sort of just society tell our transgender family that they have no place on the playing field, which is the official position, by the way, of this government and the International Olympic Committee. So there’s so much we can do. And this could be the sort of thing where we have on a whiteboard behind me with a pen, with a dry erase, be like, “What actually do you hate about sports?

Hat makes it hard for you to love sports? And what about the corporate control do you hate? What about the bigotry do you hate? Native American mascotry, let us know. ” And those are actually the things we can begin to check off and say, “Let’s have a better sports world, sports for all, sports in the name of justice and sports in the name of fun.”

Absolutely.

Jules Boykoff:

Absolutely. And now is a perfectly opportune time to try some of these things where you have owners of football clubs, soccer clubs in places like Vancouver, Canada that it’s rare that you see an owner advertising their own lack of skills saying, “I can’t possibly run this club unless I get a huge infusion of public money.” At a time when you’ve got people like Avi Lewis in Canada, political leader talking about re-nationalizing some industries, this is a perfect moment for doing that with a football club. Why not experiment? We tried to do this in Portland, Oregon where I usually live. When the owners of the team, a guy named Henry Paulson, former treasury secretary under George W. Bush and his son, Dave loves this, his name is Merritt Paulson.

Dave Zirin:

He’s like, “That’s made up. Come on. Son of a billionaire is named Merritt. Come on now.” Yeah,

Jules Boykoff:

It’s –

Maximillian Alvarez:

Just like meritocracy’s made up.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, that’s a great point.

Jules Boykoff:

So many years ago when Portland got a major league soccer team, they were asking for $85 million in public money to refurbish the stadium. $85 million. That was going to come out of the budget where we fill our potholes. Some of it was going to schools, homeless services, you name it. And a lot of people fought back. Actually, Dave Zyron came to town and fought back next to us. And we didn’t totally win the struggle. They didn’t get $85 million. Instead, they got $12.9 million from a special tax from the Portland Trailblazers. So it was like sport to sport. But we did have a good conversation about what a publicly owned team could look like. And I just cannot wait to get fully behind the city that decides to go for it. I think Vancouver’s a possibility, but anywhere that happens, I want to be there trying to do what we can to help.

Hell

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. Hell yeah. I love this. And we’re doing good on time so far, but I did want to give everyone their mandatory. FIFA is requiring that I let you know that this is your hydration break. So please go to the bar, stay hydrated, stay safe.

We’re going to get to and zero in on the World Cup, the authoritarians and the stink of Trump on the Knicks NBA finals victory. But by way of getting there, I want to focus in on again, another aspect of the sports for all discussion that really doesn’t get talked enough about, especially in leftist spaces, but I don’t think at all. Because the only time we’re talking about youth sports these days is when a bunch of weirdos obsess over the genitals of some of our children who are playing them. And that’s not what youth sports was to me. It was my life. It was like the place where I found my motivation, where I learned to work on a team where my dad coached my brothers and then he coached me. It was like youth sports so much a part of me and will always be a part of me.

And the older I’ve gotten and especially after I blew out my knee playing basketball and I lost basketball, the thing that I had played three to four times a week every week for my whole life, like countless hours in the driveway with my dad and my brothers was gone. And I’ve realized since that a huge chunk of my life was gone after that. Where else in my life do I walk up to strangers and say, “Hey, you got next? Can I play with you? ” And then you play with people that you don’t know. You have to learn in a finite space with rules quickly what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are accomplishing a shared goal or not. It’s such a rarefied space and experience that I think so many of us need, whether it’s in organized sports or just more play. And so I wanted to throw this to you guys because I don’t think I get to hear you talk enough about the human good of sport beyond just the professional sports world and capitalist shit show that most people see on their TVs.

Dave Zirin:

Oh man. So what I love about sports, I mean, oh man, I had to give a toast for my dad on his 80th birthday. And I was trying to think of what do I possibly say about this 80-year-old guy who’s had such an impact on my life? And the first thing that came to my head is like, when did my dad ever mean the most to me in my entire life? And it was like, when was this moment? Because my parents were divorced. I saw my dad like four days a month growing up. So it’s like where was that real spot for us? And it was game six, 1986 World Series, Mookie Wilson, Ground Ball, Bill Buckner’s legs. You’d say to a baseball fan, game six, that’s all you have to say. And they know what you’re talking about. My dad took me there and I still have the ticket stub.

It says $15 to go to the best World Series game. And he got that ticket not by getting on his phone because back then phones were these mammoth contraptions attached to walls, but he got it by waiting online at Shea Stadium. And we got to go to this game and then we got the game of all games. And when that ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs, I went from being happier than I could ever remember being to being terrified because that stadium got so loud and grownups got so crazy. And that was before they stopped selling beer after the seventh inning. And we’re in extra innings at this point. And my dad just put his arm around me and held me close. And it was a moment where I never felt both more imperiled and then more safe in a moment. And I feel like there’s something about…

And that kind of hooked me for life on sports. Playing basketball for the New York City fighting Quakers in high school is also an experience unto itself. You didn’t want to mess with the fight in Quakers. And me being a five foot 10 inch center for that team.

Maximillian Alvarez:

They called you white chocolate thunder?

Dave Zirin:

They called me, why the hell is he here? The one story I’ll tell is I was playing one game against a freshman for Rice named Felipe Lopez who went on to become the number one recruited player in the country. He was in ninth grade. I was in 11th grade. That was their JV. They were playing our varsity. And I shot the ball and Felipe blocked it to half court, literally to half court. And the whole crowd goes. And I hung my head. I was so embarrassed. And he put his arm around me and walked me to half court and was just like, “It’s okay, man. I do that to everybody. Do not take it personal.”

And I met him as a sports writer. I met him 20 years later and I said, “Yo man, you blocked my shot to half court and then you put your arm around me. It’s a memory I’ll never forget.” And he looked at me and he said, “Yeah, I don’t remember that at all. ” And I was like, “Oh.” And he said, “You got to understand, I just blocked a lot of people. ” That was kind of my move. And I was like, “Okay, all good still.” So that’s why I love sports. I chose to show rather than tell. I love it. I love it. But you give me a good moment in a rocky relationship with my dad or a great moment and you give me Felipe Lopez blocking my shot, couldn’t be happier. That’s amazing.

Jules Boykoff:

So I’m really interested in when creative people who don’t necessarily consider themselves athletes engage the space of sports, bringing their creativity to it. And one of my favorite places for this is roller derby in Portland, Oregon where I live, where from the names that people adopt that are freighted with beautiful politics and fight back in them to the very format of the event and to the very nature of its inclusion, because trans folks are always included on the skating rink in Portland, Oregon. It’s a really big part of the culture. Not only that, it’s also a great chance for fundraising for those kind of causes at the local level. So I’m always about how can we use creative people’s minds to come up with new ways of doing things? How can we have the soccer fields open in New York City all night long, which has been happening recently during the World Cup?

Maybe the World Cup is just an entry into having that be something that we do more often. We’ve heard about midnight basketball. I love this idea of midnight soccer as well. So I just think that to build off what you’re saying, this is a really fruitful area where we can all come together and think collectively and make some really magical things happen for sure.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. Jules, how do you not say that you played pro soccer? I was

Maximillian Alvarez:

Going to say you’re bearing the lead, bro.

Dave Zirin:

Just give everybody your resume. I said I played basketball for the fight in Quakers. I’m not saying you can total that, but you should try.

Jules Boykoff:

No, it’s true. I did play soccer for a big part of my life. And honestly, that is one of the many reasons why I think it’s worth fighting for. I had a nice professional soccer career and I also played for the US under 23 men’s national soccer team. Although before you get too excited about that, the last international match that I played for the US national soccer team at the U23 level was literally against the Soviet Union. But yeah, I mean, I’m not proud necessarily of who I was back then because I was an absolute maniac in ways that weren’t always good for me and the people around me, but it is definitely part of my life.

Dave Zirin:

But you stuck it to Khrushchev. And for that, America, thanks you, sir.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Thank you for your service. Well, I really appreciate you guys going with me and sharing that because I thought that was so powerful and again, made me feel closer to you in a way that our discussions about politics haven’t. And I think that’s kind of the point of why we’re all here. But I think it’s also really important to share with others out there, even those in our lives who don’t get why we love sports. And it’s not because we just are okay with ignoring all of the military jets flying over or Donald Trump’s bulletproof bullshit, a booth at the Knicks game. It’s that this thing we’ve loved for so long and have carried into our love for watching it and others do it. We’re holding onto that while it’s getting shrouded in so much crap. And that just makes it complicated for I think a lot of us.

But let’s sort of take that into the vibe and time that we’re in now where a lot of us are struggling with that, be it this great city during a game that was so special to it that Donald Trump put his stink on or folks around the world who loved the World Cup and have now know what that stink smells like and so much else. So let’s talk about the big title of the event here.First, how do we carry that love into sports today, especially the World Cup in a time like the one that we’re living in now?

Dave Zirin:

Wow. It’s a great question. I mean, the number one thing I say is like, look, the Knicks were ours long before they were the property of the Dawn family. That’s our team, not theirs. At best, they are renting it. It’s our team, not the team of somebody who got married at Mar-a-Lago, whose kid got married at Mar-a-Lago, who’s trying to change the name of Penn Station to Trump Penn Station and who’s given Trump millions of dollars throughout his political career. And even the worst indictment of all counts Donald Trump as a close personal friend. So these are all reasons to say, wait a minute, you’re not part of what we just want. And something you didn’t really get on TV during the parade, which I was at, I mean for the Knicks, by the way, Knicks in five, just throwing that out there, is that it was so raucous.

People were so incredibly pumped and enthused. And Mayor Mamdani, he gets up there and he does a sports speech that rivals like the Al Pacino speech in any given Sunday where he’s like, “Your claw for that inch.” The Pacino, your fingers plead for that inch. And here’s Mamdani up there. He’s saying like, “They gave us a 0.4% chance of winning when we were down 29. That’s what the statistician said. Well, guess what? You tell New Yorkers they have a 0.4% 10% chance they say, “Why are you giving me a head start?” I mean, I’m hearing this and I’m like, “Yeah, let me bash my head through the TV screen right now.” And then James Dolan gets up there and it was the only time of the whole day they cut this at people booed when he got up there. Here’s the Knicks winning the championship and people booed the owner.

And he gets up there and he says something completely snarky about Mamdani and it just didn’t fly. But that’s just to say it shows his alienation from the vibe and mood of the city. And if he wasn’t alienated from how this city was really feeling, he would never have invited Donald Trump to be there at game three when we finally had a home game in a finals at MSG in 27 years. That’s when you invite Donald Trump so it can be all about him and not the people themselves. Give me a break. And of course that’s the one game they lose in the last three rounds of the playoffs. But what’s so amazing about it is that people sort of get that. And then when he doubled up with the US Men’s World Cup team and tried to rig things for them, it’s that stink that he brings to the table.

My buddy calls what Trump does, he calls it athletic fracking environment. He doesn’t like sports at all. He wants to drill into it, destroy it, destroy everything around it if he can just get a drop of political benefit. So athletic fracking would not exist in a socialist utopia of a society. And frankly, in any sort of utopia, whatever you want to brand it, Donald Trump and the Trump family wouldn’t exist either. Or at the very least they’d be, shall we say, put in their place. But just one thing before I pass this to Jules, I got to tell a story about a very quick conversation I had with Lev in the back in the orange shirt, just to give you an idea about what sports could mean. If I could, he’s in the orang shirt.

And I’ll be real quick. I’ve been having a difficult year, if you will, or a decade, whatever you want to call it. And I was sitting with Lev the other day and I said to Lev, I said, “The last couple of months have actually been a lot better. I’m feeling really good. I don’t know why that is, but I’m just really doing better.” And Lev’s silent for a second and he just looks at me and he says, “The Knicks.” And I realized he was fucking right that having this run had this animating effect on so many other things in my life. And that’s, I guess in some ways that makes me just a weirdo, a diehard fan, somebody off the beam, whatever you want to call it. But I think it also kind of made me feel human for a second because it’s like I felt connected with the city in a way that I hadn’t, honestly, since nine eleven, but instead of it being this moment of abject tragedy, it was a moment of joy.

Jules Boykoff:

Wow. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And Jules, if I may, just to throw a little extra bit of sauce before you hop in, it’s not just Trump, right? It’s Kash Patel jumping around like an idiot with the men’s hockey team. As someone who you wore that jersey, does that piss you off? I mean, we don’t ever get to hear from your side of that.

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah. We often don’t get to hear from the athlete side of things despite the fact that they’ve got social media at their fingertips. There’s often a hesitancy to push back at things like ash Patel. And I think you make a good point, although the Trump curse is very real. I mean, talk to Harry Kane about it. He went golfing 18 months ago.

Dave Zirin:

And people were blaming Trump for them

Jules Boykoff:

Losing. Well, then he didn’t score after it was about the golf. I’m saying the Trump curse has many, many forms there. But yes –

Maximillian Alvarez:

Dave calls it the reverse Midas Touch. Absolutely. And that it is.

Dave Zirin:

I tried calling it the Trump Taint, but for a lot of reasons, not just… My editor at the nation was like, “No. We’re not doing that. “

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah. Very good call. Very good call. By the way. But you do make the really important point that it’s not just Trump himself and the Trump curse. It’s the Trump administration that is really doing this sort of athletic fracking that you’re talking about. The Cash Patel’s a really good example from the recent Olympics and the hockey team and sort of attaching themselves like a barnacle on the side of the ship that won that gold medal. But I mean, you’ve even seen during this World Cup a number of instances that maybe aren’t as high profile. Everyone knows about the Fuller and Balagun red card that President Trump made some phone calls to his BFF over at FIFA, Gianni and Fontino. And lo and behold, the thing gets overturned first time during a World Cup since 1962. The predecessor using that rule was Christiano Ronaldo a few months ago so that he could play in the World Cup because they wanted him even though he has credible allegations of rape in the United States against him.

So it was a horrible thing there all around. But what I’m trying to say is that it’s not just Trump, it’s also the administration. Think about the Department of Homeland Security during this very event. After the United States beat Australia, they went on Twitter, DHS did, and they posted two really interesting and terrifying tweets. One of them had three of the players on the tweet, a picture of them. And then behind them it said one homeland. It was basically short of just saying blood and soil. And it was like total pure fascism. And experts in fascism jumped up and said, “Wow, that sounds like a lot like a phrase that Nazis would’ve said.” And then they actually traced it out and it was very similar to a phrase used during World War II by Nazis. And I think it’s really interesting for a number of reasons and obviously disturbing for a number of reasons.

But if you’re going to talk about sportswashing, and I do talk about sportswashing in the book and more widely, and so maybe I should just define my term really quickly before I go into it for a sec. But sportswashing for me is when political leaders use sports to try to deflect attention from chronic social problems and human rights woes at home, to try to look important or legitimate on the world stage and to set themselves up for political, economic, sometimes diplomatic advancement. And a lot of people don’t like the term because of the way it’s been used in the past, which quite frankly has been done in an ethnocentric, if not xenophobic fashion where they say it’s those countries over there, Russia, China, Qatar that engages in sportswashing, but we are a democracy so it couldn’t possibly happen here. So part of the argument in the book is that even places that consider themselves democracies can very much engage in sportswashing.

But what is Trump doing here in terms of is he trying to… Does sportswashing work? When people talk about does sportswashing work, a lot of times they mean does it work on an international audience? And the truth is Trump has very little interest in having sportswashing work on an international audience. He makes it clear with his actions. He doesn’t care what Europe thinks, Africa thinks, Asia, Latin America. He doesn’t care what they all think. But that sometimes misses the key audience of people in this country who I think are the prime audience for Trumpian sportswashing and for the DHS tweets. And when Trump keeps the Somali referee, Omar Abdul-Kadir Artan out of the country, he doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks and they very much didn’t like it. But he likes the fact that the MAGA base sees a guy sticking it to a Somali person who, as you’ll know, he talked as trash and garbage in the past.

So when all these things are happening, if you look at it through the lens of Trump trying to cater to people here in this country ahead of a key election, everything starts to make a lot more sense through the lens of sportswashing. And so I think it also gives us this incredible opportunity to see things with clarity and to also kind of figure out how we’re going to push back against these things.

Dave Zirin:

Very nicely said.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. Beautifully, powerfully put. And as we sort of make the final turn here, I want to end with looking ahead to Sunday. But by way of getting there, let’s look back on the path to this Sunday with the World Cup finals. There’s been a whole lot of… Again, the theme of the night is how do you hold onto the thing that you love when the stink is all around you and everything is corrupting it? The whole world has been asking itself that question over the past month as they’ve been dealing with the Ronaldo stuff, the bracket like stuff, and the very fact that the two teams in the finals now were like sort of, it was impossible for them to face each other until now. And that feels in retrospect like kind of shady, the Egypt game.

Jules Boykoff:

There’s

Maximillian Alvarez:

So much that people have had to sort of work through with that stink, including the Donald Trump, the infamous Donald Trump call. So let’s take a look back at that really quick. And I wanted to ask you guys your hottest takes on the hottest controversies of this World Cup that have sort of brought that stink that we’re dealing with here in the US to a full-blown international scale.

Dave Zirin:

The hottest World Cuptake that I’ll have, first of all, is rooting for Argentina because of Diego Maridona, which was 40 years ago. It’s like, come on. That can’t be your reason for rooting for Argentina, is Diego Maridona. I think I want Argentina to lose. There are rumors that Jewels is pro Argentina.

Maximillian Alvarez:

You got to save it. That’s the

Dave Zirin:

Final

Maximillian Alvarez:

Question. That’s

Dave Zirin:

The final statement. I won’t go there. Then I won’t go there. I’m just going to say I love doing that to you. I’ve known Jewels a long time. But my number one hottest take from this World Cup is anybody who says that if the US’s best athletes just played soccer, like if LeBron James played goalie, then the US would win every World Cup I think is incredibly insulting to people who actually play soccer. The reason why the US doesn’t do better straight up is that the pipeline is a country club and it costs so much money to play youth sports. In this country does it different than every other country? The reason why a country of 300 million people that has a large imigrant population that is sports obsessed can’t field a halfway decent World Cup team. It’s because the way we do it in this country is pay to play.

You want to be trained at the top clubs? You better have minimum 10 grand on the table for your kid. And Lord knows how much under the table to make sure your kid gets those positions. As long as that’s the case, this country will always suck at soccer. So the next time someone says to you, “Why doesn’t the US do better at soccer?” Y’all would just look at him and be like, “Because of the way this country practices capitalism.” And if you’re not practicing soccer as a democratic socialist exercise, your team is going to suck. And that’s why the US sucks.

Jules Boykoff:

Do you want to argue for Argentina or for Spain though? Do you want to give your argument? No, go.

Maximillian Alvarez:

No,

Jules Boykoff:

That’s

Maximillian Alvarez:

The last

Jules Boykoff:

Question. Oh, that’s the last question. So I recently had the good fortune of interviewing this man named Timu Furulhom. Timu Furlholm played for the Finnish national men’s soccer team. And the thing that’s interesting about him is that after his career, he’s now become a member of the National Parliament in Finland as a leftist. He’s part of the Left Alliance. Now you’ll know that soccer has a pretty notorious history of soccer players turned politicians that are right wingers, including your buddy Romario from Brazil who started as a socialist on the left and kind of eked his way over and finally endorsed Bolsonaro at one point.

Dave Zirin:

My dear friend.

Jules Boykoff:

Your dear friend Romario. And so I was talking to him and we were talking about sort of the system in Finland and how the soccer system there was so different and how it was bricked into society in a way that’s not the country club soccer circuit that Dave so nicely described. And I was asking him about Finland is the happiest country in the world year after year. And instantly I could tell it was a bad question. He’s like, “Oh God, I’m so sick of hearing about that. ” And he said, he goes, “The thing about Finland is that we don’t try to take the moon from the skies. We want everybody to be able to play sports at whatever level they want. We want people to be able to go to music concerts and experience culture for free and easily.” And he also added, “We also want people to be able to take a one week trip to the Canary Islands every year,” which I thought, “Okay.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

Throw that in

Jules Boykoff:

There. That’s fine. Yeah. But I’m just saying there are models out there. I mean, Finland is not at the other end of the universe. And I do think that they provide some ideas for how we could move forward and how we could just have a whole different way of thinking about life and how soccer and culture and soccer’s a big part of culture, how it all kind of fits into one bigger hole. And by the way, before I have to defend Argentina, I just want to say I’ve been backed into a corner, but I’m going to do my damnedest here in a second. Thank

Maximillian Alvarez:

You. Jewels drew the short straw because we were like, “We got to debate. You can’t both root for the same team. So yeah, give it up to Jules for defending the Argentina side of our final celebrity death match here. But we’ve all been watching the World Cup. We got the final coming up on Sunday. None of us are all that excited. It’s Spain versus Argentina. Okay, but let’s make the most of it. So in our final round, which is going to be a genuine debate and the crowd is going to decide who won.

Dave Zirin:

Oh my God.

Maximillian Alvarez:

But again, we’re recognizing that Dave’s got a 0.4 second head start. So as principled leftists or people of conscience, who is the right team to root for this Sunday?

Dave Zirin:

Well, Nixon five, of course. That’s what you say in New York. Get a good response. Look, here’s the thing. I get asked sometimes, why are you always trying to make sports political? This is our escape. This is our fun. Why are you trying to make sports political? And the answer is you can say you don’t believe in gravity when you fall out of an airplane. It doesn’t really matter whether you believe in gravity or not. You’re falling out of an airplane. Whether I say sports are political or not does not change the fact that they are political. It’s just whether we’re going to be quiet about it or not. It’s just if you’re pointing at a building and saying it’s on fire, that doesn’t make you an arsonist. And so to take it to this particular thing, and Jules is going to win this debate because this is soccer.

I’m a visitor on his field here. But to take it this, it’s like the World Cup is political whether we want it to be or not, not just because it’s like nation against nation or whatnot, but this is the last thing that we have that the whole world watches. And that gives it a tremendous amount of power if that can be steered in one direction politically or another. And every single World Cup, at least since the 34 World Cup hosted by Mussolini in Italy, has attempted to use this particular event to steer people politically in one direction or the next. And we have a particularly fraught political battle coming this Sunday because think about it like this, whether Spain wins or whether Argentina wins, the leader of that country will get a boost in the rarest commodity in all of politics in 2026. And that’s hope.

People feel better in a very difficult time. People feel hopeful in a difficult time. Ask Mamdani what it meant to him to have the Knicks win. It actually does make a difference if you have that collective sense of we’re really doing something here. The direction we’re going really matters. So if you agree with me up to that point, then let’s take a quick look at what we’re dealing with. In Spain, the leader is a guy by the name of, I believe, Pedro Sanchez. Pedro Sanchez is a social Democrat. He’s the leader of an organization called the Socialist Workers Party there. They believe in a much progressive stance on immigration. They believe in mass social spending and having a social safety net. And most importantly, they have earned the undying hatred of Donald Trump because they refuse to let their bases be used in the war on Iran.

And the leader of that country, Pedro Sanchez, has called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza and he has refused aid and fuel and military aid that were preexisting contracts to Israel. He pulled because of what was happening in Gaza. So you have to think… Oh, and also he’s in a very polarizing situation where the country loves him, the country hates him. There’s all this going on there. And so you think, okay, what will it mean to this individual if Spain wins? Then you go to Argentina who’s running that place. Good Lord. Good Lord. Someone who genuinely looks like a Muppet named… And I love the Muppet. So that’s the nicest thing I’m going to say about him. Named Javier Miley and Omilei here. If you don’t know him, he’s a good friend of Trump, billionaire. And Israel loves him so much that when Benjamin Netanyahu was asked who he was rooting for in the World Cup, he said Argentina.

And they asked him because of Messi. And he said, not because of Messi, Milei. He’s the superstar. And he is also somebody who’s in a huge corruption scandal. His popularity is plummeting. The country is very polarized. And so then you think what it would mean to Miley if Argentina wins the World Cup. If nothing else, I think if Argentina wins, you’re going to see Miley on the field with Donald Trump holding up the trophy. If Spain wins, Donald Trump will find him. It’ll be probably swimming at the bottom of that algae belching reflecting people in Washington. Have a better time there than at the World Cup if Spain wins. So I say root for Spain because I want to see a world as far away from the vision that Javier Milay has for this world as humanly possible.

Jules Boykoff:

That’s good. That’s good. Really good. Really, really convincing argument. But it could be even more convincing because I have a few other things I want to add to that. No,

Dave Zirin:

You can’t. Get him.

Jules Boykoff:

Well, for starters, there’s a guy on Spain by the name of Lamin Yamal. Magical left foot, beautiful player, and by all appearances a beautiful human being. 19 years

Dave Zirin:

Old.

Jules Boykoff:

19 years old. And his dad’s family’s from Morocco. His mom’s family’s from Equatorial Guinea. And he’s sure to represent every part of his heritage and background in creative and beautiful ways. He also recently, he’s on Barcelona Football Club as well, which recently won La Liga. And at the celebration afterwards on the team bus, he was on the top and he was waving a Palestinian flag. He’s a Muslim man who’s been very outspoken for Palestinian rights. So how do you not like Lamit Yamal? He’s just a lovely human being. On the flip side, over on the Argentina side, there’s a guy named Enzo Fernandez. You might remember him most recently for scoring the first goal against England to equalize 1-1 off an assist from Leonel Messi. That was about the best thing he’s probably done in his life. He’s done some terrible things after the Copa America Tournament recently after they beat Columbia for the title.

He was caught on the bus singing racist songs and singing anti-trans songs right there on the bus.

Dave Zirin:

This is the best debate I’ve ever had. I’m

Jules Boykoff:

Killing it right now. Sorry, go ahead. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. I’m just trying to help you. I’m just trying to help you. Keep cooking. Keep cooking. Because you need a lot of help over there. Keep cooking. Keep coking. So there are so many reasons if you start going down the roster, but there is one reason why you might want to slow down or two reasons why you might want to slow down and have a little bit of sympathy for Argentina. One is the one that Dave just preemptively nixed going after the Meridana factor. I don’t think we can just skim over the surface of that that easy. I mean, this is one of the all time legends of athlete activism in the history of football. Dave, you yourself have written wonderful work, columns about this man. So I don’t think we should just get rid of him into history.

I actually like, unlike some people, I like having history present in a contemporary moment. Diego Meridana. And the other thing is I do have some sympathy for Leo Messi. 39 years old. He’s going to set a record for the most steps walked on the field in a World Cup. He does not run that much. They do not make this man play any defense whatsoever. It’s fun to watch in a sense because he’s just like kind of walking. Then they feed him the ball. It’s not a very complex offensive structure that Argentina’s working with here, especially for a World Cup final. But he’s 39 years old and in some ways an inspiration in that regard. I know he took a bunch of Saudi Arabia money for their tourism. I’ve wrote about that plenty. But I got put in this difficult position of trying to make Argentina look good and I just can’t do it.

Okay? Fine. Those things.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Let’s give it up for Jules Boycott and Dave Zauer and everybody.

Dave Zirin:

Yo, give it up for Max Alvarez and the Real News Network. Kayla Rivera

Maximillian Alvarez:

Too. Where’s Kayla? I don’t even see her. And last, give it up for Chelos Bar again for hosting us. Thank you so much Chelos for having us. Hell yeah. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Real News Network Podcast. Thank you to everyone who came out in person for this incredible event. Thank you to the good folks at Chilos Bar for hosting us. And thank you to Dave Zyran and Jules Boycot for this incredible and incredibly fun and meaningful conversation. We are absolutely going to be doing more in – person events like this in Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and more. So make sure that you are following us on social media and that you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you don’t miss the next one. And if you want to hear and be part of more important conversations just like this, then we need you to become a supporter of The Real News now.

Share this podcast with people in your circles, your friends, your family, your coworkers, and go to therenews.com/donate and become a supporter today. I promise you guys, it makes all the difference. For The Real News Network, this is Maximillian Alvarez signing off from Baltimore. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.

Received — 31 July 2026 ⏭

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