[bobthepanda]

There was definitely a lot of fuss around China and Xinjiang. The US did not send a delegation to the Olympics. https://www.csis.org/analysis/biden-boycott-2022-beijing-win...

The Qatari debacle is more focused though, because the controversy is directly affecting the players and the spectators (in particular the schedule shift and the alcohol row)

[kelthuzad]

There is definitely much more fuss about this across MSM esp. in Europe.

Being more upset at lacking alcohol at a sports event over being upset at the existence of concentration camps in China is quite something. There is some palpable hypocrisy that's apparent if one holistically compares the coverage.

[jemmyw]

Probably the personal revolution of finding out that the game you love watching is actually quite boring unless you're pissed.

[bobthepanda]

Also, the lack of appropriate alternate venues.

Developed countries do not want to host the Olympics anymore. By the time the 2022 selection was over, the only other candidate was Almaty, which isn’t less problematic and had a protest violently suppressed by Russian forces in January right before the 2022 Olympics.

The World Cup had Australia, South Korea, Japan and the US bidding to host 2022.