By Tony Attwood
In one sense it is all rather droll. On the one hand Arsenal’s current form is enough to take them to third in the league by the end of the season, and on the other hand the Guardian reports that, “Fifa has decided that Russia can continue their bid to qualify for this winter’s World Cup, despite their opponents refusing to play against them.”
Put that together and if you want a domestic story about Arsenal there is a really positive one but the media won’t touch it, while if you want to venture into the depths that Fifa has descended into you have that too and this time, for the first time, the media are getting behind it.
So what does the Daily Mirror say in their headline?
“Arsenal sent another painful Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang reminder amid Barcelona upturn”
But the real question is which country will be the first to leave Fifa, and form a new organisation that is more relevant to the modern world?
For clearly a situation in which Russia is told it can continue to play qualifying matches, while the rest of the world refuses to play against them can only mean that Russia wins their group and goes forward to the final, while everyone else is disqualified.
Earlier this weekend, each of Russia’s possible play-off opponents confirmed that they would refuse to fulfil the fixture. Poland and Sweden were joined on Sunday by the Czech Republic who said both officials and staff had agreed they would not play. “It’s not possible to play against the Russian national team in the current situation, not even on the neutral venue”, the Czech FA said. France have indicated that they too will not play Russia.
So what happens? Fifa will probably change its stance, but it will always be behind the game, and so with a bit of luck this will come too late, and Fifa will be a thing of the past.
The war against Ukraine will continue to be a terrible appalling act of mindless aggression, and football will remain trivial ini the face of this, but at least Fifa will fall.
Really amazing my fellow goober.
After all recent white washing in football, with Arab dictators and instigators of war against Yemen, THIS would be the last nail in the coffin of football, to make FIFA openly political.
Then who’ll be the moral highground decider?
Who is to decide which country is or which one isn’t, politically bad and corruot?
BTW, how many aren’t?!
You mention a company run by a former CIA agent, then I sincerely hope that you recognise that the current Ukranian government was put into power by a CIA backed coup in 2014. Where is the outrage of the atrocities being committed in Gaza for decades, Yemen, Somalia and Syria? Is it because they’re not Caucasian? Muslim, perhaps? The hypocrisy is overwhelming!
Totally right Emilio, so sad to see football, after so much whitewash like Newcastle United, us now becoming a political bandwagon to jump on.
The below is actually from the BBC, complaining that this time these are blonde people with blue eyes being killed! For Real!
https://mobile.twitter.com/rtyson82/status/1497702994590187530
It’s got nothing to do with hypocrisy mate.
Born after 1945 we’ve had war after war every day of our lives. We’ve had to deal with atrocities, crimes of war, genocide, we’ve had to learn to deal with the Holocaust and Gaza, we’ve had to try and fashion a society that is anti-racist, against war, against imperialism, against the mass murder of civilians and children. Now we have to deal with an invasion run by fascists for the benefit of fascists.
In the long chronology of horror from 1945 – 60 million dead then from 1939 to 1945 – add Putin 2022 to the list and keep that list and stare at it to remind yourself what life has been about.
Zedsaunt-Just as long as you include all the crimes committed by all the perpetrators. You didn’t answer my question: where is/was the outrage about Gaza or Yemen? We sold weapons to the Saudis did we not?
Emilio
You didn’t answer any of the points I made.
We came out of a war, 60 million dead. What do you think you can do? Overturn injustice overnight? The struggle existed long before you were born, it goes on long after you.
As for selling weapons to the Saudis – if you could tell the world how to engage with the global armaments industry and win, then please tell us how to do it.
The precise reason why Ukraine shocks and stuns and gets the outrage is precisely because two generations are seeing, for the first time in their lives, that to fight fascism you have to be prepared to fight back, even if it means you die.
Zedsaunt- You want me to be Secretary General of the United Nations? Mind you another corrupt organisation and I should know, having seen my father’s land invaded and partitioned by the aforementioned.
“The struggle”- It’s a very broad subject about not just wars, but humanity and the way we behave and treat all living creatures. Solution? Love, peace and harmony. Unfortunately, the human race is littered with a tiny evil minority who control everything. People shouldn’t comply and should form their own community controlled states. Reach out with the hand of friendship to all neighbours locally and globally. We have all been conditioned and that maintains the status quo. no divisions on race, colour, genders or religion. Created to divide us all.
I worked for Haringey Council for 29 years and had a fantastic job which gave me access to all the peoples of the world. Haringey is one of the most diverse boroughs you can find. I interviewed all the nationalities you could imagine, hundreds of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from everywhere. I asked them all about their views and experiences from where they were from. With so much detailed information, I was privileged to accumulate so many accounts over the years, I began to piece the jigsaw so to speak and see a clearer picture. Certainly, not the one we are repeatedly told on our mainstream media outlets. Of which, my brother(full-time) and I(briefly) worked for the BBC. A lot has changed there. Not for the good.
Kosovo, Cyprus, Montenegro, Sicily, the old Soviet Union, Germany are some places I have visited. Wonderful conversations and arguments I enjoyed, but I learned a lot. Some of which scared me.
If you RELY on selling armaments to the world, then you are dangerous and we’ve seen that for decades, with the US. Do you know Britain finally paid off its World War II War Debt to the USA in 2006! Think about that! Turn up late in 2 World Wars and this is a ‘special relationship?’
Fight Fascism? Sure. Don’t comply, no violence, no division. It’s in the hands of the people…..if we can break out of our trance.
Usmanov has just been sanctioned.
I am not a great Kroenke fan but I was happy that Usmanov left our scene.
There is complete inconsistency in the outrage present in this article. Russia has invaded Ukraine because Western-backed neo-Nazis armed with armaments from the EU and US were committing massacres and pogroms against Russian-speaking UKRAINIANS, killing well over 10,000 people, bombing schools, hospitals, homes and other civilian infrastructure. Why is Ukraine allowed to participate if they have neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, Right Sector and Jew-hating Svoboda thugs committing atrocities and crimes against humanity on a massive scale.
Then you have the US. A country which seems to illegally invade and bomb a new country every year, causing well over a million deaths since 2001, possibly up to 2 million deaths. These wars of choice are all considered the “Supreme Crime” under international law – the saw crime we charged Nazi Germans at the end of WWII. If Russia can’t participate because it is defending its own people from neo-Nazis, why can the US and Ukraine still participate? It just seems like killing millions of people does not matter if their skin isn’t white, and the only people we punish are those we are told to fear, while the war criminals in our own governments are free to murder on epic scales. I certainly don’t support Putin’s invasion, it’s against international law too, but the law has to apply equally to all, otherwise we just have Might Makes Right – which is the system the USA obviously prefers and which has caused this whole situation to evolve into potential nuclear war in the first place. If you want to ban Russia from world cup, fine! But then apply that standard equally and ban the hosts, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the EU, Ukraine and the US as well. You can’t just say only Russia’s middling crimes matter and the massive crimes perpetrated by the West simply don’t matter. That’s like saying all white people are allowed to commit murder because they’ve declared themselves the “good guys,” so long as the people they murder aren’t white. Nobody in their right minds would say that makes sense. Wars of aggression, illegal bombings, these are all wrong no matter who does them. End of story.
One of the easiest ways to see if a comment is based on a conspiracy theory is a lot of words but a lack of evidence
Hey Stephan Luc Larose or whatever Russian troll farm you really are,
As owner and operator of this site, Tony Attwood has the integrity to publish this post.
But as a long time reader of UA I have the right to post a few words for you and your propaganda:
GO AWAY! STOP! IGNORANCE NOT SPOKEN HERE!
Tony won’t block you, but no one will read your drivel.
Gents,
The great thing about what we all share as a passion, regardless of anyone’ political views, is football.
My entire point about the horrible aspects of politics creeping in football.
Just look at the signs here already, all likely Arsenal fans, but a lot of anger and even hostility surely that can’t be!
To the author, we’ll done for keeping all comments sir, but I do hope there is a lesson to be learned here against not bringing political view, and even that without fair and objective all-sides perspective, into one beautiful thing valled football.
Think how the akways wise and objective Arsene would think?😊
Much as I would love to agree with you Sal, it can’t be done here. Wrong place, wrong time.
Politiken, the Danish main morning newspaper through decades, is running an article today on how many high-ranking officials in the administrations of world sports have been cultivated by Putin.
You see the emergence of Abramovitch in London shortly after Putin takes over as Russian President.
Abramovitch takes over at Chelsea, the football club of the richest area of London. He has a dazzling fortune. Within three years a Russian political enemy dies from radioactive poisoning in London.
Nothing happens to Putin. Nothing happens to Abramovich. Russians come in with their dirty money. We go down on their knees to them.
People who lived in the old Soviet states, who live in the countries in central Europe, will tell you, Putin is doing nothing new. He goes into sport because sport is an extension of the Russian state, and he runs the Russian state.
We had lovely decades where sport could be loved for its beauty. That might come back. More people are recognising WW3 has been going for years, from when Putin took over as Russian President, Abramovich taking over at Chelsea one of the first salvos in this war. Sport was a facilitator for Putin on the world stage as a killer.
Sorry, obviously it should read
”Russians come in with their dirty money. We go down on our knees to them.”
@ Stephan Luc Larose
1 March 2022 at 6:52 AM
You are sadly missed from the UN and Euro Parliament. Please pay them a visit with some novichouk cakes. It is how you guys work. Murderous attack on a neighbour that has higher morality is not excusable.
Well said Stephan! He basically said that everyone behaved in the same way, but it’s ok not to punish some. Hypocrisy and Double Standards. May I recommend the article by @Jonathan_K_Cook where he states that the western media should be held to account “for its mindless jingoism, exaggerations and deceptions.” There are plenty with alternative views to the mainstream media and more power to them.
Mind you if you are comfortable with the same people who have been lying about our Great Club for 100 years or so, whom some supported Adolf Hitler(Daily Fail), lied about Iraq and even hacked a dead girl’s phone, without suitable punishment, then by all means, carry on.
By the way they’re still hacking phones.