Which Politics Are Allowed in Football?

football and politics shouldn't mix an argument that we hear a lot some of us have even made videos about it but in reality no one actually believes it what they actually mean to say is that your politics and football shouldn't mix my politics and football mixing well that is absolutely fine my favorite example of this blatant hypocrisy is Nigel farage of course it is who during the Euros last year made an entire YouTube video entitled keep politics out of football which he then shared on Twitter and then the very next day he was tweeting congratulating Sports Minister Oliver Dowden a literal politician for intervening in the case of cricketer Ollie Robinson getting suspended by the ECB for historic racist and sexist tweets it would seem at least in the eyes of Nigel farage the whilst football and politics shouldn't mix crickets and politics are natural bad fellows and should be intimately tied oh and and presumably farage's name printed on the back of a Grimsby Town Football Club shirt is entirely consistent with his world view that we should keep politics firmly out of football when you pull anyone up on this obvious double standard the response tends to be well that's because that isn't politics in reference to something like showing solidarity with the people of Ukraine whereas showing solidarity with almost any other amiserated or displaced people in any other war-torn part of the world well you naive thing that is a bit more complicated and is almost always deeply political the same goes for honoring the death of a head of state a role which by its very nature regardless of supposed ceremonial function cannot be apolitical or commemorating the contribution of all British and Commonwealth servicemen and women since World War one because famously all four forms of conflict involving Britain cease to be political in 1914. to be clear before anyone bites my head off in the comments I'm not saying that the football community in this country and elsewhere shouldn't show solidarity with countries enduring grave hardship on a deceased politicians or commemorate military personnel my point is that you cannot Define politics simply as things that I don't like whilst declaring that everything that you do like that for is a political drawing a big clear Line in the Sand between the two so that is what I wanted to talk about in today's video what politics has allowed in football and what isn't who gets to determine suitable and unsuitable politics and whether there could ever be a fair or reasonable way of determining that fact the starkest comparison between tolerable and supposedly intolerable forms of political expression in football or at least the juxtaposition that comes most vividly to my mind hence why I used it in the thumbnail comes in the form of the display of certain Flags most notably in recent years the Ukraine and Palestine Flags displays of solidarity with the people of Palestine have been a semi-regular occurrence within European football for a number of years in Scotland where Celtic fans have often displayed the Palestine flag before European games in France where PSG Ultras sought to do likewise ahead of the game against Israeli opposition Makar behava in Ireland where Ireland fans staged a protest with the Palestine flag taking Center Stage for an under-21 game against Israel and indeed in England where Dale Vince the chairman and owner of League one side forest green Rovers flew the Palestinian flag at one of the club's home matches by far the most high-profile displays of the Palestine flag at least in English football came just three days apart though in May 2021. it started with the FA Cup Final in which Wesley fafana and Hamza Chowdhury celebrated with a Palestine flag after Leicester City beat Chelsea wandel to win the cup and just three days later later in Manchester United's final home game of the season Paul Pogba and Amad Diallo jointly held up a Palestine flag as they did their lap of Honor around Old Trafford the timing of both incidents and this one was not coincidental occurring during two weeks of extremely heightened violence in the region which began with Israeli police storming the Al-Aqsa Moss compound in Jerusalem on May 7th and ended with a ceasefire on May 21st by which stage 13 Israelis and 256 Palestinians had already been killed in addition to the thousands of people who were injured and the tens of thousands of Palestinians who were forcibly displaced the media response to for fauna choudhary Pogba and diallo's displays of support for Palestine were both Swift and intense with calls from some quarters for the players to be fined disciplined and even banned or hounded out as as Lawrence Fox tweeted hmm yeah the vociferousness of those responses was in some ways inevitable given that this wasn't just a pocket of supporters at an obscure under-21 match or a flag at a league one game this was the FA Cup Final the biggest knockout game and historically the biggest match in English football full stop and then two players from Manchester United the biggest Club in English if not all of world football including Paul Pogba now lass one of the most famous footballers on the planet the backlash was also not without precedence Celtic have been fined previously by UEFA for their display of the Palestinian flag in the Champions League and the club themselves have previously taken down flags that have been displayed by supporters PSG banned the flags of countries not represented by PSG from being displayed at the part of Prince after they caught wind of their Ultras plans to fly the Palestine flag against Israeli opposition and events the forest green Rovers owner even received an open letter from an organization called UK lawyers for Israel claiming that the club had quote breached the rules of football now contrast that with the response within both the media and from football's authorities to the display of the Ukrainian flag which became fairly widespread following Russia's Invasion earlier this year it wasn't and indeed isn't just the case that there was Zero backlash at least within mainstream media unless you count RT as being mainstream media and let's be honest no one does so fans and players displaying the Ukrainian flag football's authorities also formally decided to show very prominent displays of solidarity with Ukraine the Premier League issued a statement which said the Premier League and our clubs wholeheartedly reject Russia's actions and will be shown support for the people of Ukraine at all matches this weekend end quote with pubsy and icing behind a banner which read football stands together with the Ukraine flag on display in the crowd on the big screen and even in specially released Captain zambans to reiterate the point that I made earlier on I am not passing judgment on the rights or wrongs of chastising the displaying of the Palestinian flag or of welcoming and incorporating the Ukrainian flag into your company branding albeit admittedly there is certainly something jarring about a show of solidarity in partnership with a cryptocurrency gambling and casino company nor in fact am I even attempting to draw a direct parallel between the situations and circumstances in Palestine and in Ukraine that would take much too long it would totally derail the video and it would entirely miss the point which is that clearly as far as a lot of people are concerned including those with the loudest voices within the media and those who call the shots in football one is good perfectly permissible and is actually to be actively encouraged whilst the other is deeply political controversial and risks bringing the game into disrepute what's more these things clearly are not Universal displaying the Ukraine flag is not deemed to be controversial in the United Kingdom where there is a very clear consensus among both the general public and the government as to the aggressor and who the victim is in that conflict the response to that same gesture would most likely be very different in Belarus for example where polling suggests that a majority of people either support Russia's actions or adopt a position of complete neutrality there is one solution that a number of columnists suggested in light of Pogba and cow's brandishing of the Palestinian flag and that is to ban all political protests in football Oliver Brown authored a column in the telegraph in which he argued that the fa and presumably football's other governing bodies as well therefore must either ban all political protests or not at all except Oliver that isn't quite the killer solution or silver bullet that it might initially seem for a start how do you define a political protest and this isn't mere semantics surely there is a legitimate's argument to be had that simply holding up a national flag at the end of a football match is not a political protest it is not uncommon for example for footballers playing in a foreign League to display the flag of their Homeland when doing a lap of honor at the end of a season or after winning a couple Title Here is a photograph of David Beckham doing just that Jordan is time at Real Madrid is that a political protest and if not then why not this was in 2007 at a time when the United Kingdom had invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq alongside the United States as part of the so-called war on terror invasions which were if nothing else certainly both very controversial and extremely political yet we wouldn't assume that Beckham was making a statement about that or anything else in particular for that matter and if you were to impose that blanket ban it is hard to see whatever the extent of your solidarity with the people of Ukraine or the domestic consensus on that particular issue how anyone could reasonably suggest that that didn't also constitutes a political protest it would also necessitate I think fairly obviously removing the imagery of the poppy the minute's silence and everything else that goes around Remembrance Day observing a minute silence or Applause for anyone who had ever held a political role which would also include recent memorials to Queen Elizabeth II and it's fairly tough to see how even national anthems could survive you could try to argue that all of those things are positive affirmations rather than protests and therefore the fact that they are political would be inconsequential so that's holograph and other suggested blanket ban but again who is to say that displaying a Palestinian yemeni Ukrainian or Syrian flag in solidarity with the people of Palestine Yemen Ukraine or Syria isn't also a positive affirmation and expression of support for those people and not necessarily a protest or condemnation of anyone else you could try to make the case that they're all fine but when it comes to flag bearing you can only display the flag of your own nationality Like Beckham did a little bit like also that restriction that PSG introduced which would therefore ban non-palestinian footballers from displaying the Palestine flag and therefore non-ukrainians from displaying the Ukraine flag that would seem to be very shaky ground to me and would still obviously necessitate the Banning of almost all of the Ukraine flags that we have seen around football over the past nine months or whatever it is and I'm not even going to get into the potential quandary three that might throw up for players of dual nationality do they get to have two flags sometimes three maybe even four in the case of someone like Alfonso Davies of course not all Flags even represent countries would the telegraph's blanket ban include a ban on displaying the rainbow flag for instance that would seem to be rather aggressive although I suppose that is quite a big plus as far as the telegraph might be concerned it's important to acknowledge that this goes both ways much like the b in LGBT LGBT issues which I would personally consider to be just fundamental human rights cannot be extricated from the political sphere where loathsome as it is they are so often used as a political football themselves when LGBT people still face legal challenges that are not experienced by non-lgbt people and most countries still have a significant contingent of of anti-lgbt politicians the UK included it is impossible to argue that there isn't a political aspect to either Pro or anti-lgbt imagery and messaging this is one of the dilemmas that I had when the Black lives matter movement spread across much of the world and was widely adopted by football with BLM imagery plastered prominently throughout the game and many players and teams choosing to take the knee a majority of English football fans supported players taking the knee polling illustrates that fact but there was a significant minority of fans who took exception to it stoked largely by Insidious sections of the media I think a lot of people were led to believe that in taking the knee and declaring that black lives matter footballers were adopting the policy prescription or supposed aims of one specific sect of the black lives matter organization with some rather spurious claims made about even what their aims were this led to some people believing genuinely that footballers who were taking the knee were not merely engaging in a gesture of anti-racism given the prevalence of racism that still exists within the game let alone outside of the sport but that they were in fact engaging inactive support and advocating support for Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto abolishing the police and destroying the model of western family structures as you might be able to tell from my tone I don't happen to believe that John Stones was hell-bent on destroying western family structures nor do I suspect given how busy he's probably been with all of his football and stuff that Jack grealish has even read The Communist Manifesto let alone dipped into Das Capital which I can tell you is not a particularly quick or easy read nonetheless there are taught including by Gareth Southgate and the England players themselves that declaring that black lives matter and taking the knee was a gesture solely of anti-racism on that part and was entirely apolitical whilst I do have no doubt that that was their intention well that doesn't really stack up either as much as I wish that it weren't the case race is very clearly a politicized issue in the United Kingdom and elsewhere there are several politicians in the United Kingdom who could fairly be described as being racists or racialists if by that term we mean someone who says explicitly racist things Anthony Brown for example the conservative party MP for South Cambridgeshire once described Mass migration to the United Kingdom as quote letting in too many germs claiming falsely of course that curbing immigration from Africa would be a better deterrent against the spread of HIV and AIDS than wearing condoms an accused Muslim britons of having divided loyalties to their this isn't just rhetoric that we're talking about either the hostile environment a phrase which was first used by labor immigration Minister Liam Byrne and was adopted as official policy under the conservative liberal Democrat Coalition governments under homes secretary and future Prime Minister Theresa May in 2012 resulted in the Windrush Scandal which saw 83 black and brown people wrongly deported from the United Kingdom 24 of whom died before the Scandal was exposed meaning that they never returned to the UK and 14 of whom were wrongly deported to the Caribbean and still haven't yet been traced hundreds of others were detained threatened with deportation and were left traumatized as a result of the racist policy implemented by the home office the Scandal was only exposed in 2018 yet just five percent of those impacted are reported to have been compensated four years on it would be foolish therefore for anti-racists in the UK K or anywhere else to pretend that the campaign for racial Justice can be de-politicized even if it isn't political in the same sense that anti-anti-racists make out and what being an anti-anti-racist makes you well I'll let you all make up your own minds on that one there is no alternative then but to embrace the fact that it is political but whilst making the points at the same time that the politics of racial Division stigmatization and Injustice are Insidious and that football which is innately cross-borders and in this country at least is very multi-racial and Multicultural is therefore very well placed to make just those arguments it is no coincidence that football which is one of the very few Industries where those at the top who earn enormous Fame and Fortune come predominantly from working class backgrounds and a large number about a third in the Premier League come from black Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds it's no surprise then that footballers are more vocal than say rugby players newspaper columnists and indeed even politicians who tend to come from much more privileged and less diverse backgrounds when it comes to issues of poverty social justice racism and a vast array of other issues you cannot de-politicize football it is both practically and indeed quite literally impossible given that political decisions dictate so much of what happens in the game from safe standing and regulation around ownership it's a council and Grassroots funding both of the major political parties in the United Kingdom talks at length and made a series of pledges around football in their most recent manifestos of the 2019 general election Lee Anderson the conservative party MP for Asheville in Nottinghamshire former labor councilor and proponents of far-right conspiracy theories announced during last Summer's Euros that he wouldn't be supporting England or even watching any of their games because they were taking the knee in support of and I quote undermining our way of life when you have become such a staunch Nationalist and Patriot that you find yourself no longer supporting literally your own national team it might be worth assessing whether you took a wrong Step at some stage not that Lee is particularly renowned for being the most intellectually rigorous that is certainly something in all fairness which he could never be accused of the reality of course is that there is nothing that politicians like Lee wouldn't politicize through the very specific lens of culture War politics so if banning anything political from football is impossible and I think we can safely say that we have established that fact that leaves us with Oliver's other suggestion in the Telegraph and the suggestion of many others which is that we just give the green light to everything instead so Ukraine Flags knock yourself out Palestine Flags go right ahead poppies great protests against China's treatment of uyghur Muslims the UK's Rwanda plan and ecological and climate breakdown yes yes yes yes to all that will mean some politicization that you like and some that you don't like but at least we'll all be clear on the rules there aren't Sunny anything goes it is a very tempting solution until someone gets out an Isis flag or a massive swastika and suddenly your laissez-faire Silver Bullet one would imagine would become rather controversial would you then also allow presumably for fans to Zeke Hale or for players to perform a Nazi salute as a goal celebration just as georgioskotides did at AK Athens in 2013. good see this was banned from representing Grace for life at the time he ended up getting released by AK Athens at the end of that season and now he plays in the third tier of great football at the age of 29. there is an argument I suppose that this stuff would be self-policed clubs probably wouldn't once openly Neo-Nazi footballers or Isis supporting head coaches representing them probably wouldn't be the best for sponsorships just for a start and therefore you would not require any intervention from authorities to curb the worst excesses of extremist or hateful ideology spilling over into the game they're given that we do already see this kind of stuff happening admittedly infrequently but still every now and then with rules in place prohibiting them it seems probable at least that they would get worse if no such rules existed the reality is therefore that the dividing line when it comes to politics in football will always be contentious and imperfect unless you want to take an extremely Hardline approach prohibiting or allowing any and all forms of political expression in football the former being literally impossible and the latter being a deeply problematic and unsustainable man filled Laden with controversy and Scandals we have to accept that there is going to be a big gray area and it is unavoidable the rebate will have to take place within that space that is not to say that the status quo is either right or permanent just because the current complexities and debates are inevitable when it comes to politics in football just as with politics in general the goal posts are constantly shifting as recently as 1998 within my lifetime and doubtless many of yours 39 of people in Britain believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex was always wrong and a majority of 61 felt that it was either always mostly or sometimes wrong with just 23 percent holding the view that it was not wrong at all at that time therefore a campaign even as inoffensive and symbolic as rainbow laces would have been considered overtly political and intolerable in football whilst homophobia certainly still exists in the United Kingdom those attitudes have shifted enormously in a very short period of time in the most recent polling in 2018 just 10 percent of respondents said that they felt gay in lesbian relationships were always wrong compared to a large majority of 66 percent who said that they were not wrong at all that is just one example of the goal post shifting all the time and it is no doubt possible that the most egregious inconsistencies and double standards that exist when it comes to the types of political interventions an activism that is deemed to be legitimate or at the very least tolerable in football can shift a great deal of course they can also shift both ways as politics becomes more Progressive or aggressive conservative or radical the politics of football is likely to become become more Progressive regressive conservative or radical as well since football and politics exist in a symbiotic relationship just as political fluctuations and the consensus within the public sphere can shape football so too can the activities of footballers and football fans permeate The Wider political sphere we see this state of flux is an almost constant motion FIFA and UEFA used to take a very hard line on almost anything that could be deemed political hence why FIFA long uphelda ban on home nation National teams having a poppy printed on their shirts for international matches are in Remembrance Day now those rules have started just to soften whereas Argentina's fa were fined twenty thousand pounds after their players posed pre-match in front of a banner extolling the country's claim to the Falkland Islands or eyeless maldinas as they are known in Argentina no action was taken against Norway or Germany for their pre-match protests against human rights abuses in Qatar no doubt in part at least because FIFA were fearful of escalating the situation and risking a potential Snowball Effect resulting even in possible boycotts and also because the Streisand Effect is pretty well documented by this stage and any attempts by FIFA to silence criticism and scrutiny of Qatar ahead of the World Cup is likely to have the precise opposite effect FIFA and UEFA have also literally banned Russia and Russian teams from competing in their competitions taking what they claim to be a principled stance even when in reality again it was just an attempt to avoid the headaches caused by teams refusing to fulfill fixtures against Russian opposition the hypocrisy and double standards remain then however egregious Russia is by no means the only Nations who have carried out an illegal invasion in recent years but the softening on overall policy has been made inevitable by their their own albeit inconsistent position so yeah football is political that is a fact of life and what politics is allowed in football well that will be dictated by establishment forces like the media and politicians who have long been waging a war on what types of activism dissent and political expression are considered acceptable but also by football fans and the public in general who will get nowhere without acknowledging that war has been waged and their arguments that some of us wish were settled or non-negotiable are in fact deeply political that is it for today's video but thank you all very much as ever for watching hit the like button if you enjoyed it I hope that that was the case let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and feel free to subscribe and turn on notifications of course for hitc sentence you can also find me on Twitter or Instagram via the username at hitc Sims on both should you feel so inclined

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 115,814

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Politics, Which, Allowed, Ukraine, Footballers, Russia, Premier League, World Cup, FIFA, UEFA, Champions League, Manchester United, Manchester City, Man Utd, Man City

Id: AjVRHpTyizU

Length: 27min 25sec (1645 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022