Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

I wrote a longer post, which disappeared, I'll try this first and come back with my comment

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Ahead of every EC, WC and especially Olympics, or in the midst of it, there's at least one who does this, speaks of how sports is so way above in spirit, moral and godlike fine, than politics are.

If you take a bit of earth, define it with some borders, hang a flag in the centre of it, how much more and ultimately political can it be? It's all a bunch of wank-talk to me, when they say sports is not politics, on international level. It doesn't mean I love it or even like it, but by god, when you have eleven players stood in a row, dressed up in the colours of their nations flag, singing their national anthem. If that's not politics, what on earth is?

I think we can all agree that what some Russian fans did when they played Poland, when the big banner was unfolded "This is Russia", it's not exactly what we would want to see, but that's part of it. The book football against Enemy was as much about football, as it was about politics. When Merkel is stood there in the stand jumping up and down like a muppet, we don't like it, but that's not something we can complain about, unless we start from the core, complain about national sides playing one against another, at all.

Especially now, when football has grown to such a gigantic industry, where your chance to promote yourself as a country is exceptional. And especially now when UEFA, FIFA, the Olympic committee members, between them it's ALL politics.

I almost puke every time I see the Olympics and think of the contradictory statements made by big shots from the governing body, that this is all sports. What an ultimate piece of bullshit. They, athletes, march out under a flag, they compete for a country, they praise their country when they win. What upsets, even if it isn't my main beef in life, is not the bullshit from the sportigarchs, it's that the common man buys into it, that they think sport between nations is not politics. It was very much so in the ancient Olympic games, it is now, it will always be.

Football on an international level is politics. What else is it?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

I'm sure this is not news to any of you.
Just wanted to get it of my chest.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

People really should strive to seperate sport from politics imo. Sports/football is athletic endeavour and the achievements of the individual athletes are theirs. They don't belong to a country or a society or a political system rather to the athlete, his coaches and his family and support network.

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day. Or when Linford Christie won Olympic Gold in 92 he didn't win because he was British or because of the government or the average man in the street. He won because he was the fastest man in the world who trained as hard or harder than any of his competitors and because he ran a great race on the day.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

If your strive is that, then stop competing under the flag of a nation. Don't you see the contradiction?

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote: If your strive is that, then stop competing under the flag of a nation. Don't you see the contradiction?

The nation state is just a handy way of distinguishing one set of players from another. Just because a team represents a community doesn't mean it has to be inherently political. Village v village or country v country, its the same difference in my eyes.

It only becomes political when people attach political significance to it. Personally I don't.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Elano Tele Romeu Ramires wrote:

If your strive is that, then stop competing under the flag of a nation. Don't you see the contradiction?

The nation state is just a handy way of distinguishing one set of players from another. Just because a team represents a community doesn't mean it has to be inherently political. Village v village or country v country, its the same difference in my eyes.

It only becomes political when people attach political significance to it. Personally I don't.

But does it matter what your personal opinion is?
11 players under one flag and one anthem. Is it political or not? By definition?

[Cal Alamein]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Elano Tele Romeu Ramires wrote:

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day.

Yes, and it was even cooler as the US squad entirely consisted of college and post-college players against a Soviet side who could have all easily starred in the NHL. Some dimwitted non-hockey fans could get worked up about yankees beating the commies, but athletically it was a major freaking upset.

The World Cup has always been the idea of the BEST of football and therefore professional players. The current Olympics is fine for the athletes, but I haven't given a shit or watched any of it for many, many years. I might check out the results in a newspaper or online, but after the ludicrous Nike debacle w/ the 'dream team' in 1992, you might as well screw politics and just lump the athletes as NIKE, REEBOK, ADIDAS, PUMA and whatever massive kit corporation dominates the situation.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Cal Zapiekanki Bialystok wrote:

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day.

Yes, and it was even cooler as the US squad entirely consisted of college and post-college players against a Soviet side who could have all easily starred in the NHL. Some dimwitted non-hockey fans could get worked up about yankees beating the commies, but athletically it was a major freaking upset.

The World Cup has always been the idea of the BEST of football and therefore professional players. The current Olympics is fine for the athletes, but I haven't given a shit or watched any of it for many, many years. I might check out the results in a newspaper or online, but after the ludicrous Nike debacle w/ the 'dream team' in 1992, you might as well screw politics and just lump the athletes as NIKE, REEBOK, ADIDAS, PUMA and whatever massive kit corporation dominates the situation.

So how do you feel about club football? Is Chelsea defined by the owner, first and foremost, or is it defined by where in England its home ground is?

[EIM]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

You can't separate sports and politics. And nor should you seek to.

[Cal Alamein]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Good query PPV. In the case of Chelsea, in 1975 I would have thought of Stamford Bridge, Blue jerseys and shorts, Ron Harris, Peter Bonetti , CFC badge, no idea who was the manager or especially who the hell owned the team.

2012 - Russian oligarch owns team - Mourinho, or some other highly-paid international manager - adidas - SAMSUNG - Euro champions, usually a goofy away kit - the ground is connected to the Fulham Broadway tube station. Club is defined by owner and all-star players - most not from GB.

Were I to live in Europe I would definitely follow a lower division side.

[Defensive minded]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Good initial post by PPV

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Erics Inner Monologue wrote: You can't separate sports and politics. And nor should you seek to.

Well, EIM, the point I'm trying to make here is exactly this, but I was stuck in my thoughts with national teams. You can't separate football and politics.

Now, that some Croatian morons will do the Heil sign and chant shite towards Balotelli as they throw a banana on the pitch, that's the worst end of it. To give one example.
But as soon as you allow a team to play in political colours, which a nations outfit is, what the fuck else is it but politics.
Who do they play for?
Their country, their nation, their ancestors, their blood line? Call it whatever you want but it's politics.

And you know when this discission becomes interesting? It's when you look at how the national teams have now become teams for the diaspora as much as for the "WW II era pure" sides.

Take the German side, for instance. Not all of them blonde, tall "proper Germans which Hitler would be proud of", if you excuse my over the top last one there within quotation marks remark.
Loads of immigrants today, first or second immigrants in that side. And if you make your way to German suburbs where an overwhelming part of an area are Turkish Gastarbeiter, they will support Turkey first, maybe not Germany even second a decade ago, but today without doubt they do. Why?
One reason. Özil.
And other young lads of Turkish heritage making it into the national side, be it the first, U21, or U15.
Isn't that politics?

Football between two national sides is politics, it's probably the main reason why games between two national sides was even done, not to test our two sports teams, but to measure which country had the longest co**.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Cal Zapiekanki Bialystok wrote: Good query PPV. In the case of Chelsea, in 1975 I would have thought of Stamford Bridge, Blue jerseys and shorts, Ron Harris, Peter Bonetti , CFC badge, no idea who was the manager or especially who the hell owned the team.

2012 - Russian oligarch owns team - Mourinho, or some other highly-paid international manager - adidas - SAMSUNG - Euro champions, usually a goofy away kit - the ground is connected to the Fulham Broadway tube station. Club is defined by owner and all-star players - most not from GB.

Were I to live in Europe I would definitely follow a lower division side.

I'll probably seem a pushy prick trying to corner you where I can jump at you and tell you "I told you so"
It's not really it.
This with football and politics not going hand in hand, it's a loose thought I decided wasn't so loose anymore.

So, when you think 1975, you have good thoughts, you "feel" Chelsea, like you wished it would be?

When you think Chelsea today, it's "too much business"?

Is it because you feel Chelsea of today has lost some of it's identity, like Chelsea might as well be moved to NBA and become a basketball team, when you want it to be a geographical area you can identify with?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.
No, let me rephrase, honestly, I'm not really trying to go anywhere with it. At least not in the sense that I'm trying to force you to agree with me.

But isn't it usually that you start to follow a club, because it's from an area you grew up in, and isn't that also a political reason? Not demographical. Political? Not left or right or whatever in ideology, but us vs. them?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Elano Tele Romeu Ramires wrote: People really should strive to seperate sport from politics imo. Sports/football is athletic endeavour and the achievements of the individual athletes are theirs. They don't belong to a country or a society or a political system rather to the athlete, his coaches and his family and support network.

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day.

This is really interesting.
I've always thought that it was exactly that, that a bunch of "kids" from college beat not one of the greatest teams ever, but the big red machine, the "mean Soviets".
I've seen the film, the one with Kurt Russel, Miracle, where he plays the coach Herb Brooks and it's a really good one. The script is almost all about how some young blokes won a most unexpected victory. But I remember the times, I remember how it was not only about USA winning a gold back then, it was USA beating the Soviet Union. I was up that night watching it. Had USA won against Sweden it would not have been the same.
USA when they won in Lake Placid 1980 was The great American dream, America where everything is possible, where everyone is free, against the imprisoned robots of the Soviet, the machine team locked up 350 days a year for practice and perfection.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:

If your strive is that, then stop competing under the flag of a nation. Don't you see the contradiction?

The nation state is just a handy way of distinguishing one set of players from another. Just because a team represents a community doesn't mean it has to be inherently political. Village v village or country v country, its the same difference in my eyes.

It only becomes political when people attach political significance to it. Personally I don't.

But does it matter what your personal opinion is?
11 players under one flag and one anthem. Is it political or not? By definition?

I'm not arguing that my opinion is more valid than anyone else's just that in my view the idea that sport is political is based entirely on perceptions. Or in other words what sport means to people is the significance that they CHOOSE to attribute to it. For me its not political, its one set of athletes pitting their collective skills and wits against another.

The flag, the anthem is all pretty much irrelevant.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:

People really should strive to seperate sport from politics imo. Sports/football is athletic endeavour and the achievements of the individual athletes are theirs. They don't belong to a country or a society or a political system rather to the athlete, his coaches and his family and support network.

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day.

This is really interesting.
I've always thought that it was exactly that, that a bunch of "kids" from college beat not one of the greatest teams ever, but the big red machine, the "mean Soviets".
I've seen the film, the one with Kurt Russel, Miracle, where he plays the coach Herb Brooks and it's a really good one. The script is almost all about how some young blokes won a most unexpected victory. But I remember the times, I remember how it was not only about USA winning a gold back then, it was USA beating the Soviet Union. I was up that night watching it. Had USA won against Sweden it would not have been the same.
USA when they won in Lake Placid 1980 was The great American dream, America where everything is possible, where everyone is free, against the imprisoned robots of the Soviet, the machine team locked up 350 days a year for practice and perfection.

The David v Goliath narrative is recurrent in sports and is one that I can subscribe to. Inferior team A beats superior team B, against all the odds. After all, thats why we watch.

The political aspect is just nonsense though.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Elano Tele Romeu Ramires wrote:

People really should strive to seperate sport from politics imo. Sports/football is athletic endeavour and the achievements of the individual athletes are theirs. They don't belong to a country or a society or a political system rather to the athlete, his coaches and his family and support network.

Thus (for example) when the US defeated the USSR in Ice Hockey at the Olympics all those years ago (1980?) I reject the notion that it was a defeat for Communism or whatever propaganda the bandwagon jumping politicians were trying to sell. It was simply that the Americans were better than the Soviets on the day.

This is really interesting.
I've always thought that it was exactly that, that a bunch of "kids" from college beat not one of the greatest teams ever, but the big red machine, the "mean Soviets".
I've seen the film, the one with Kurt Russel, Miracle, where he plays the coach Herb Brooks and it's a really good one. The script is almost all about how some young blokes won a most unexpected victory. But I remember the times, I remember how it was not only about USA winning a gold back then, it was USA beating the Soviet Union. I was up that night watching it. Had USA won against Sweden it would not have been the same.
USA when they won in Lake Placid 1980 was The great American dream, America where everything is possible, where everyone is free, against the imprisoned robots of the Soviet, the machine team locked up 350 days a year for practice and perfection.

The David v Goliath narrative is recurrent in sports and is one that I can subscribe to. Inferior team A beats superior team B, against all the odds. After all, thats why we watch.

The political aspect is just nonsense though.

Nonsense?
You do know that the Olympic Summer Games in Moscow 1980, there was a boycott led by USA, where USA, West Germany, Norway and a long list of other nations didn't participate.

In 1984, Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany and a long list of other nations didn't participate.

You truly believe that the Big Red Machine vs. a bunch of College kids, in Lake Placid didn't have any political undertones?

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

The "Miracle on Ice" wasn't political, it was a good old fashioned sporting upset. No different to America's defeat of England in the 1950 World Cup really.

As for the boycott, it didn't achieve anything other than depriving first class athletes from competing at the Olympic games. It would be a good example of why political agendas should not be allowed to intrude into the realm of sport.

[Cal Alamein]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:

So, when you think 1975, you have good thoughts, you "feel" Chelsea, like you wished it would be?

When you think Chelsea today, it's "too much business"?

Damn PPV, do you ever sleep?

OK -- yes, Chelsea 1975 - a LONDON team comprised of GB players. You likely did not have too many fans in Singapore and South Korea wearing Chelsea replica shirts. I don't have good feelings about Chelsea per se, but the localism of football back then was sufficient.

Today, IMO, all big-time football is hurt by the 'business' end of it. I understand ridiculous salaries are to be paid, but I refuse to cough up bucks to be a part of it.

But isn't it usually that you start to follow a club, because it's from an area you grew up in, and isn't that also a political reason? Not demographical. Political? Not left or right or whatever in ideology, but us vs. them?

I'm not seeing that say, a Chelsea fan who was born and grew up in Parsons Green has a political bent vs. say, supporting Arsenal. Geography can be separate from politics.

Now, support for Lazio or Roma, or Rangers or Celtic might border more on 'political.'

[Cal Alamein]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:

This is really interesting.
I've always thought that it was exactly that, that a bunch of "kids" from college beat not one of the greatest teams ever, but the big red machine, the "mean Soviets".
I've seen the film, the one with Kurt Russel, Miracle, where he plays the coach Herb Brooks and it's a really good one. The script is almost all about how some young blokes won a most unexpected victory. But I remember the times, I remember how it was not only about USA winning a gold back then, it was USA beating the Soviet Union. I was up that night watching it. Had USA won against Sweden it would not have been the same.
USA when they won in Lake Placid 1980 was The great American dream, America where everything is possible, where everyone is free, against the imprisoned robots of the Soviet, the machine team locked up 350 days a year for practice and perfection.

The US media, politicians, and other non-hockey fans certainly exploited the cold war propaganda, but I guarantee you Herb Brooks was FIRSTLY pumped and psyched that he beat the USSR, the best team in the tournament. For Brooks, the cold war was a distantly minor feeling. It was not war - at the end of the game the players congratulated each other and obviously the US team had serious respect for the USSR team.

Speaking of Sweden, in their first game of the Olympics, the US tied them on a last-second goal and that was treated as a miracle as Sweden was a very strong squad. They were on a serious roll and remember the gold medal game was a victory over Finland after the USSR game.

There ain't no way you could separate politics from a sporting event between the USA and USSR. I'm just saying that on the ice and to true hockey fans it was an exciting upset of a heavily favored team by young over acheivers that was free of politics.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

Cal Zapiekanki Bialystok wrote: Club is defined by owner and all-star players - most not from GB.

OK -- yes, Chelsea 1975 - a LONDON team comprised of GB players

The cosmopolitan makeup of the Chelsea team is one of the best things about the club in my opinion, so many legendary players from so many different countries. Even going back to the 70's the Yugoslavian Peter Borota was a crowd favourite throwing snowballs at the Shed, doing cartwheels and handstands in his goalmouth, dribbling the ball out of his area. A real character and entertainer. Then you've got say, Zola and Drogba who are every bit as legendary as Englishmen like Dennis Wise or Kerry Dixon.

[dryroasted]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

I'm afraid politics and football go hand in hand, particularly at International level. There are national flags, anthems, heads of state and government at games. The players on the pitch are there through nationality and the passport they hold. National sides are often disliked due to historical conflict or political acts that are nothing to do with football. It won't change anytime soon.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

dryroasted wrote: National sides are often disliked due to historical conflict or political acts that are nothing to do with football.

You could dislike a team due to political reasons but it would be pretty daft and hateful. The players themselves have very little to no influence over stuff like that so why hold it against them?

You may as well say you should hate Iker Casillas because of Franco or likewise Messi due to Galtieri.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Politics & football should not mix - the bullshit

I'm with Eric's and PPV, you'll not be surprised to hear.

I'd go further, of course, and say that for me, trying to separate "politics" from anything we do is (a) futile and (b) political.