Dr René Wildangel is a historian, lecturer at the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki and author specialising in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. Among other things, he worked as a desk officer at the German Foreign Office and headed the Heinrich Böll Foundation's office in Ramallah from 2012 to 2015. In 2022, he published the book Das Rebellische Spiel (The Rebellious Game) with Jan Busse on the World Cup in Qatar and football in the Arab world.