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By Tony Attwood
…. but really football shouldn’t be like this. I mean I know Arsenal fans have a deep dislike of Tottenham Hotspur and its fans, and I know that I regularly make negative observations about Tottenham, finishing 17th in the league and all that sort of thing, but we still manage to play two games againsts them each season without them war breaking out.
Indeed we may think that the behaviour of Argentina’s players after the match was shocking and disrespectful; we may agree that they have broken the specific rules of the competition by bringing a political banner onto the pitch in the aftermath of the game… And yes, if we do feel such things, and if we feel they are important, then so is a lot of other stuff that goes on. Did we really expect England v Argentina to be a nice polite game with no recriminations? If we really think they are all so awful, why participate in the competitions? Why not say, “If Argentina is in the game, we’re not.”
So are we just treating Argentina fans in the same way that Arsenal fans treat Tottenham fans? A lot of shouting and abuse, and then go home and carry on as if we are normal, decent, law-abiding people?
It’s a topic I think I can engage with since I am, of course and obviously, an Arsenal fan, and I was brought up in London in my childhood, while in the flat below lived a family of Tottenham fans. We didn’t refuse to speak to them, or shout abuse at them. In fact, my family and their family shared the task of taking us to and from school, as there was no pubic transport, and it was considered a bit too far under 8s to walk (including, as it did, crossing the Great Cambridge Road – although it wasn’t quite as busy as it is now).
No, my point here is not that when there is rivalry, then everything else stops. For there is rivalry, and then there is something that goes beyond that; something that goes far beyond rivalry, and that is what seems to be the hatred of Argentina, something which seems to have gone some way beyond what is acceptable in peacetime. In fact, given the way some of their fans were reacting, I was left wondering if we had actually declared war against them, and somehow I’d missed that while I was asleep…
But really, surely the question is now, what does England do now if FIFA refuses to throw a really heavy charge of disrepute at the Argentine team and its matchday organisers for the display of political banners by the players after the match? If they don’t, then presumably that is all ok, and everyone can do it. Come on guys, bring all your political flags. After all, people will have looked at a map and seen the Falklands and thought – well, they are close to the mainland, aren’t they?
In fact, Paris is closer to London than Argentina is to the Falklands, and we don’t claim Paris as our own. And as far as I know, Argentina has never actually had control of the Falklands, so it starts to get a bit difficult to understand their case. Now let me be clear and point out I am not saying there is no case – I’ve never been to either country and I don’t know any politicians from the region. All I am saying is first, that the existence of the islands further from Argentina than England is from Paris, is not enough to say that the Falklands are Argentinian, and second, the rules of the World Cup are that political banners and demonstrations are not allowed.
So now the matter is over to Fifa. Certainly a warning won’t be enough, because by the next time we play them, which will probably be in four or eight years time, everything from this event will have been forgotten, and they might do it all again.
But maybe, just like the notion of having quarter-time breaks, rules can be changed as we go along to suit the situation. If so, maybe England can opt out of Fifa, and invite some other countries to do the same, on the basis that the association is unable to maintain its own rules in competitions. (We might throw in some other rule changes and breaches as well, like Trump deciding who gets a red card and what it means).
In fact, perhaps we ought to say that this is pretty much the end of the road for England and Fifa, not just England and Argentina. Maybe we should be part of a new football organisation which has this basic constitution…
- New Fifa has clear rules that everyone obeys, like no political messaging, no breaking of the rules etc
- Any country that does break the rules is thrown out of the competition. Break two. rules and the country is out of the competition this time and next time… At least that would be a start.
