Let us admit that we are at a civilizational and global moment in which sources of happiness are strikingly scarce. Yet against this heavy feeling, sport (and football above all) remains capable of generating happiness and strengthening people’s sense of belonging, even if only fleetingly.
It could be said that football's capacity to create happiness, however momentary, has multiplied many times over; investment in sport has undergone a quantitative and qualitative leap, and many countries now speak of the sports economy and its contribution to national output.
Today, as we follow the 2026 World Cup, a set of lessons worth internalizing and recording appears before us. The first of these is that if Arabs truly want to, they can have a striking presence at international sporting events such as the World Cup.
By some estimates, the tournament is followed by between five and six billion people- a golden opportunity for us to make ourselves seen, for the world to watch us and see with its own eyes that we possess sporting elites and creative talents of world-class caliber.
Such occasions are beautiful because no one stands between you and the billions of viewers: if we are skilled, no party can conceal that truth. Football is played on the pitch, not behind the scenes, and that is the source of its strength and confidence.
The essence of this first idea is that the joy that swept our Arab and Islamic nations as they watched the wonderful performances of the Egyptian and Moroccan national teams (regardless of the results) shows that the Arab world was in the world's mirror.
It allowed us to experience moments of joy, happiness, confidence, and a measure of pride and hope that we can be at the heart of the world rather than forever on its margins. Stranger still, this sentiment was not limited to those who love sport and football; even those who had never watched a match in their lives were overjoyed when the Moroccan team defeated the Netherlands and Canada.
More beautiful still, Arab nations did not only follow their own national teams, nor did they turn their backs on the World Cup once their side was knocked out. The banner was Arab, the pride was Arab, and the bet was Arab.
Raising the Palestinian flag at the moment of Egypt's victory over Australia (with stadiums filled to 99.8 percent capacity and six billion people following that landmark moment) became a moment that transcended football to become a Middle Eastern political moment par excellence.
Even victory in this context, important as it is, is not the whole secret. The real secret lies in displaying dedication, skill, intelligence, and beauty of play, which was achieved thanks to the Moroccan and Egyptian teams. As for the perceived injustice against the Egyptian team, that too was very positive, because it happened before billions around the world and because of the support that came from big names in international sport.
The third idea is that Arab national sentiment had accumulated so many wounds that we came to believe the true homeland was no longer the homeland in which we grew up, and that our identity had lost its appeal amid a failure to invest in shared foundations.
These feelings (like the meanings of patriotism and nationalism, which we thought had shrunk to the light of a single candle in a pitch-black night) are now being addressed by sports. With the magical incentive it represents, sports generates happiness and pride.
It is capable of healing nations and restoring their pulse. From this standpoint, we need investment in sport: funding sporting elites and spending on them without austerity, in order to produce champions capable of dazzling the world and improving the Arabs' place in a global image that admits only goal-scorers with entertaining performances.
The world has understood the game well. All the data show, in hard numbers, the enormous leap in sports budgets across several major countries, while in our Arab countries — with some exceptions — spending has remained limited. We have not yet properly grasped that sport is an investment with multiple fruits: victory, the making of world champions, and the strengthening of belonging to the homeland and to the Arab nation.
Every country can make itself visible in the world through its elite athletes. Despite the delay in understanding the new stakes of sport in general and football in particular, the opportunity remains open to invest in sport and in Arab children and youth. Indeed, the Arab world has a large youth population, unlike advanced countries suffering from demographic aging.
In other words, the future is very promising if we understand football's current and future stakes, and if we give our young people sporting horizons for visibility and development. That requires improving sports infrastructure and providing what is needed to meet the requirements for organizing major sporting events, especially after the success of Qatar's experience and Morocco co-organizing the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal.
We have four years ahead of us to become stronger and more beautiful in sporting terms, whereby no referee, however biased, could take victory from us.
