As the World Cup came to a close, Europe’s far-right party leaders had gone unusually quiet about the fate of their own national teams. What should have been easy political fuel — flags, chants and a simple appeal to national pride — became harder to use as those teams looked more and more like the mixed societies these parties rail against.
That silence mattered because the World Cup is exactly the kind of broad, socially acceptable patriotism that can flatter nationalist politics. For France’s National Rally, the Alternative for Germany, England’s Reform UK and the Netherlands’ far-right Freedom Party, the tournament created a problem they could not talk around: the players wearing national colors often came from immigrant or multicultural backgrounds. In that setting, cheering for the team was simple. Claiming the team as proof of a pure national identity was not.
Geert Wilders showed how awkward that balance had become. In the early stages of the World Cup, he posted an image of himself in a bright-orange suit to cheer on the Dutch team. A day earlier, he had reposted a picture of members of the Moroccan squad praying on the field with an anti-Islam insult as the caption. That pairing captured the split screen that ran through the tournament for the far right: support the national side when it is useful, attack the same atmosphere when it can be turned against Muslims and Moroccans.
The contradiction was even sharper because several players of Dutch-Moroccan origin chose Morocco rather than the Netherlands this year. After the Netherlands lost to Morocco in a penalty shootout late last month, and post-game celebrations led to clashes with police in The Hague, Wilders called for the deportation of all Moroccans involved in the clashes. The response was not just angry. It fit a pattern in which the Netherlands’ far right could celebrate the team only so long as the team did not complicate its own message about belonging. A similar line ran through the remarks that brought former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy under fire after he said ahead of Spain’s semi-final match against France that the French national team was without Frenchmen.
Analysts say that is why the quiet from party leaders was itself revealing. One scholar said that for the right, where national identification has always mattered more than for the center or left, soccer fandom offered a natural way to express passion and commitment. But, he added, that had become more difficult as players increasingly came from multicultural backgrounds the right sees as inferior. Another analyst said it would not help far-right parties’ electoral strength to be openly critical of their own teams, and that even a lukewarm tone says something. The World Cup gave those parties a stage, but it also forced them to decide whether the flag mattered more than the story they prefer to tell about the nation behind it.
