Conspiracy theories are made for losers, in the literal sense of the word. Those who have lost money, influence, freedom, an idea, a conviction, a leader, a loved person, even those who have lost a Ballon d’Or, all look for something or someone to explain that loss. And the culprits could be from the CIA, a cabal of lizards, to the Illuminati, to UEFA. No matter, creating a narrative with scapegoats to blame for a loss helps soothe existential angst, like a Lexatin without the side effects.
Writer Naomi Klein says that conspiracies are a practical solution to a sense of injustice. “Conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong, but they often get the feelings right,” the author writes in her book. Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World. That feeling he describes is “the feeling that all human misery is someone else’s benefit.” When someone loses, someone else usually wins.
See the case of José Mourinho, a true specialist in squeezing out the feeling of injustice in his players to unite them around it. He does this by always selling them an unbeatable story: it is us against the world. Against everything, against the referees (his favorite option; let’s remember the list of the 13 errors he made in the press conference after the game against Sevilla in 2010), against the calendar, against the press, against the grass, against the rivals , against international organizations. Xavi also has a degree in conspiracism covered in excuses. In reality, all of us affected by football have at some point blamed higher entities for our misfortunes. Normally, we blame the refereeing establishment, which is the easiest, and usually the most correct. We almost imagine secret meetings between torches led by a hooded Medina Cantalejo, with loyalty tests and a list of banned teams.
That’s what part of Real Madrid fans are doing these days, theorizing about how an action orchestrated by UEFA, Ceferín, the entire journalistic union, France Football or even some force of nature, has robbed Vinicius of his well-deserved golden award. Maybe they are right, maybe they punished Vinicius to mortify Real Madrid. Football is hostage to hidden interests, of course. Or it could simply be that the professionals who voted for the Ballon d’Or liked Rodri more, whom some have left at the level of a regional Sixth Division footballer for supporting Vinicius. Be that as it may, Real Madrid likes to see itself not only as a team or a commercial giant, but as a kind of aristocratic football institution, and the absence of any representative at the gala was a childish tantrum inappropriate for that category. I like to think that no one went to the ceremony as a social effort, to avoid a public tantrum from Vinicius, like when you grab a drunk friend’s cell phone so she can avoid writing to her ex.
Conspiracy theories are powerful for two reasons: the first is that denying them is almost counterproductive because it only makes the conspirators more convinced of their cause. What I said before: The world against us! And, secondly, because unless they affect something related to health, like the anti-vaccine movement, they tend to be so ridiculous that they even seem harmless (although they are not). Talking about an orchestrated campaign to prevent Vinicius from winning the Ballon d’Or doesn’t hurt anyone, at most it produces some discussion in the comments section of an opinion column. Who doesn’t like a good fable, even if it doesn’t have much moral.
