The exchange could have occurred anywhere on our sports-addled globe,
on any day of our games-filled calendar. It fit a familiar pattern: Star athlete does something controversial. Journalist criticizes said athlete, maybe on social media. Athlete becomes angry with said journalist. Sometimes athlete and journalist talk it out, and usually the dance ends there. But what if this happened in a country where the ruling party paints journalists who challenge authority as enemies of the people? And what if that country has a culture of impunity around attacks on journalists? What then?
On June 12, Wales and Switzerland met in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the second game of the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020, and throughout the soccer tournament three more matches, including a quarterfinal, will take place in the gleaming Olympic Stadium of the Caucasus capital on the Caspian Sea.