A Saturday and a state killing: soccer as Minnesota is torn apart | Jeff Rueter

On the whims of Fifa’s Peace Prize winner, a life usually so focused on sports has found anything but peace

It’s Saturday morning, and news breaks shortly after the Premier League kickoff window; another member of your community has been brutally killed in the streets by ICE. There are already a few videos on social media, depicting multiple angles of the grotesque scene. This killing, like the one before, has felt inevitable – because of the actions of the federal government, and in spite of the diligence and peaceful pushback by you and your neighbors.

For more than a decade, watching soccer has been a staple of your Saturday routine, as it is for millions of others. Given that, it was hard not to think about a prize awarded by the sport’s most powerful organization just eight weeks prior, to the president overseeing and encouraging all of this. You know, the medal meant to reward “exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace.” Plenty of people have been joking about this “honor” online since the day it was announced. You were among them in December. Today, you find it hard to laugh. Continue reading...