INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION is under threat from the rise of ethno-nationalism(族裔民族主义), and global institutions are losing credibility. The World Cup’s status as the biggest entertainment event on Earth has created what may be an illusion: that this is one of only a few cosmopolitan enterprises(国际化事业) that can rise above the forces of parochialisation(地方化；狭隘主义). But the cracks in that façade(外表；假象) seem to be growing, which makes us wonder: could this be the last World Cup?
国际合作正受到民族主义崛起的威胁，全球机构正在失去公信力。世界杯作为地球上最大的娱乐活动，创造了一种可能是幻觉的印象：即它是少数能够超越地方化力量的国际化事业之一。但这一表象的裂缝似乎正在扩大，这让我们怀疑：这会是最后一届世界杯吗？
It might sound preposterous(荒谬的；可笑的), but bear with us(耐心听我们说). The tournament at first thrived, at least in part, because it represented an outstanding vehicle(载体；工具) for the political agenda of national governments. Mussolini’s 1934 World Cup(① 1934年世界杯由意大利法西斯独裁者...) and the one hosted by the Argentine junta in 1978 are among the more notorious cases. Even benign examples such as France in 1998 or Germany in 2006 were successes largely because they aligned with national agendas: in France’s case, promoting multiculturalism; in Germany’s, unification and a new, cuddlier patriotism. FIFA itself has long advanced its own political agenda, whether by strong-arming Japan and South Korea to co-host in 2002 or engineering the first African World Cup in 2010.
这听起来可能很荒谬，但请耐心听我们说。这项赛事最初之所以繁荣，至少部分原因在于它代表了国家政府政治议程的绝佳载体。墨索里尼的1934年世界杯和1978年阿根廷军政府主办的世界杯是比较臭名昭著的例子。即使是像1998年法国或2006年德国这样良性的例子，成功也很大程度上因为它们符合国家议程：法国是促进多元文化主义，德国是统一和一种新的、更招人喜欢的爱国主义。国际足联本身也长期推进自己的政治议程，无论是通过强迫日本和韩国联合主办2002年世界杯，还是策划2010年首届非洲世界杯。
But over the past decade the world has entered a new, more troubling phase. We are now heading into a third successive(连续的) World Cup engulfed by(被…吞没；陷入) calls for a boycott(抵制的呼吁) owing to a host nation’s human-rights or foreign-policy record.
但在过去十年中，世界进入了一个更令人不安的新阶段。我们现在正迎来连续第三届被抵制呼声包围的世界杯，原因是东道国的人权或外交政策记录。