The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be overshadowed by discussions about human rights in the desert state. Many people want to boycott the sporting event. On November 20, a German Twitch streamer organized a soccer tournament herself to offer an alternative to the World Cup.
What kind of event was that? The German Twitch streamer freiraumreh deals primarily with current political issues and offers discussion and talk formats with her guests.
On September 30th, freiraumreh announced that they wanted to organize an alternative to the soccer World Cup in Qatar. Football fans should be able to enjoy the sport on the opening day of the World Cup without supporting the controversial event.
After weeks of preparation, the time had finally come on November 20th: Just in time for the start of the World Cup in Qatar, 28 personalities from Twitch and YouTube competed against each other in 4 teams.
Thousands see an alternative to the World Cup
Who was there? freiraumreh was able to win influencers and streamers from very different areas for their event. Among others, the YouTuber Oliver “AlphaKevin” Guthe, the former caretaker of Eintracht Spandau, Daniel “Broeki” Broekmann and the author Jennifer “Liza Grimm” Jäger were at the start.
This is how the event went: The stream started on Sunday at 1:40 p.m., but the kick-off was at 3:00 p.m. Over the next few hours, the 4 influencer teams competed against each other until Team Crocos emerged victorious. The event ended at 7:30 p.m.
In these almost 6 hours, an average of 13,610 viewers were there, the maximum value was even 17,648 simultaneous viewers. So the event was a complete success for freiraumreh, which usually has an average of 1,380 spectators (via sullygnome).
The enthusiasm of the viewers is also reflected in the reactions on Twitter: viewers thanked them for being able to watch football without a guilty conscience.
By the way, freiraumreh also collected €13,873 in donations. The streamer emphasized that she was primarily concerned with a fun event, she only briefly pointed out the donations in between. The money will go to organizations like the International Justice Mission that work for human rights (via betterplace).
Organizer defends itself against criticism
Was there any criticism? On November 21, the day after the event, freiraumreh commented on various points of criticism via Twitter. Some people would have liked to have followed the tournament, but didn’t have the opportunity to do so on Sunday and then found out that the VoDs are only accessible to subscribers to freiraumreh.
However, the streamer gave the all-clear: This is by no means a kind of “paywall”, a video of the event is to be uploaded to YouTube during the day and made accessible to everyone there.
freiraumreh asked not to always assume the worst, but also vented their anger: The event lasted 7 hours, a lot of work went into it and nobody made any money from it. She finds it “disgusting” that there are complaints because you can’t watch it for free.
The streamer also firmly rejected allegations that she only organized the event for reach, saying that it was about human rights (via Twitter).
Overall, however, the football tournament was well received. Nevertheless, it will probably remain a one-off event. Offering an alternative for every single match day does not keep up with the fitness of the influencers, according to freiraumreh (via twitter).
The World Cup in Qatar isn’t just a concern for freiraumreh. Some influencers had announced that they wanted to boycott the event. Apparently, the German streamer OrangeMorange didn’t really get it in October: He proudly announced that he wanted to travel to Qatar for the World Cup.
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