NEVER FOR MONEY, ALWAYS FOR LOVE

A heartwarming celebration of the game was shown on BBC the other week, in the film 'More Than Just a Game'. It depicts the story of the Makana FA, a football league formed by the political prisoners of Robben island in South Africa, who harassed guards until they were allowed access to equipment and formed a full administrative body for the 2000 prisoners to play. 

The film and book will explain the significance of the league to the inmates much better than I can. Related to the previous post, our munificent leader took his chance to become apolitically involved around the 2010 World Cup, rightly celebrating the league by granting it FIFA status. Like a true politician, he basked in the glow of better men, trying to let the humanity and strength of their example reflect upon the current FIFA executive.

Without wishing to take a negative approach to a positive story (Criticism is positive!), it should be pointed out how shamelessly Blatter appropriates this as an example of all football, rather than a rare and wonderful example of what the game can do. The executive are still relaxed about racial abuse in many footballing countries across the world and indeed award them licensed tournaments, and are reluctant to comment on other nations involved in FIFA who treat people in the way the men on Robben Island were, and in some cases support them. These people have not become part of the political establishment yet, so are not worthy of Blatter's attention.

To a more optimistic point, one which Blatter and others chose not to highlight. The Makana FA helped give bursts of freedom to the imprisoned, and made their lives more bearable. What they also showed was the essence of the game. A league was significant and enjoyable for its members and spectators without corporate sponsorship, without workers dying to build stadiums, without exorbitant salaries and billionaire owners. It was made by the people for the people involved, it was self governed as the people wished to be on a national level. These men managed to get this from apartheid prison wardens, in the UK today people pay someone to make a profit off playing a 6 a side game. I'm sure there are some lessons to be learnt here for our football and political lives, though far be it from me to force my opinions on you as fact. 

THE BLATTER PARADOX

The excellent columnist Marina Hyde brought this to my attention. 

"Football has the power to build a better future,"- Sepp Blatter

 "We are not the ones that can actually change it,(the situation in Qatar)"- Sepp Blatter

Blatter would like to have it both ways. When he wants to convince a government to make the inherent sacrifices involved in hosting a national tournament, he will happily talk up the supposed political benefits. When one of said tournaments happens to be held in a nation where slavery is utilised to create the required stadiums, FIFA and football loose their entire agency in the political world, forced to stand and stare at the unchangeable material conditions foisted upon us like mere peasants. 

There is not a direct inconsistency in Blatter’s statements highlighted. Football can build a better future, and FIFA cannot prevent economic injustice in Qatar. The Blatter paradox (similar the Platini conjecture above) is in trying to hold the two propositions 1) Football has agency as a political economic force   2) Football exists in a separate sphere (or ball) to socioeconomic activity and has no relations (causal or otherwise) to it. 

Blatter can’t end exploitation, nor should he be trying to. If he was the man charged with such a task we would have gotten to a sorry state of affairs. “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but an away tie in Donetsk.” This does not mean he is justified in choosing which side of the paradox he fancies. He does so for convenience, FIFA will use whatever rhetoric they can to gloss over the reality of the costs imposed on World Cup hosts, without acknowledging the reality that for most countries it is a white elephant project which they will happily let some citizens loose out to create.  FIFA are happy to be politicians in this sense. When they are then charged with showing support for somewhat brutal regimes they draw up their very own veil of ignorance between the political world and the world of football. The mistake Blatter makes is a category one, he thinks that the two are not one in the same thing. If he genuinely believes this, and believes both statements, then he is a fool not suitable for his position. If he is being rhetorical as he probably is, then the truth of (2) is negated as he as the leader of the professional football world is actively engaging in political activity (unless he wishes to deny this form or rhetoric is political or that he is not part of the football world).

Beyond this philosophical analysis, there is a tragic darkness. Blatters obfuscation, deliberate or otherwise, between politics and football means that he ends up supporting regimes by proxy and creates a situation in 2022 when rich people will be sitting in purpose built stadia in the desert in a land lacking in a clear football culture supping the offerings of whichever multinational has won the lucrative and monopolistic contract at the cost of the lives of workers in Qatar. Football will have created this, and there is no reason why this should be the case. Football is (sometimes) a source of joy and aspiration for people all over the world, and FIFA’s direct political task is to make sure this is the case as much as possible and exclusively. If Blatter wants to separate politics from football, he should be supporting the magical property which he alludes to in the first quotation - the games ability to transcend the horrors of political and economic reality. Football can show what the best of what humans in unity can be. That is why it was created and why so many people are interested in it. It should be ahead of our normal material conditions, and this politician Blatter should not be allowed to get away with using our game to support those who do not share in its beauty. 

These are academic articles about FIFA and world cups which support some of the above!

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2013.01.pdf

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47113

ROCKIN ALL OVER THE WORLD / UEFA MEMBER STATES

Gibraltar played their first ever UEFA sanctioned game, becoming the newest and smallest member of the association. Amazingly, they played out a 0-0 with Slovakia with a man of the match performance from Danny Higginbotham! The sports news media took to this story like a macaque monkey to the rocky peninsular, comparing them to fellow 'minnows' San Marino, chirping on about how you could fit the whole of Gibraltar's population in a fleet of Mini Metros and drive them to Tbilisi and back for 2 hours of Gareth Bale's wage etc etc.

At some point after hearing this story though, were you asked (or did you ask) "Is Gibraltar a country? All the other people in UEFA are countries, isn't Gibraltar that bit of Spain at the end which we won't give back?"? What follows is a full answer, which you may wish to abridge for your friends (or just don't tell them, keep it bottled up and never let any one know, just accept Gibraltar as it is, its better that way...)

Gibraltar was ceded to Britain in the early 1700's after the Treaties of Utrecht, and despite a few attempts from Phillip V to Franco to regain control, the colony or British Overseas Territory has remained in the state of pseudo sovereignty others like it do. Those who live their are defiantly Gibraltan with a defiantly British language and identity. They have voted in a number of referendums to stay as such. Spain has disputed the validity of Britain's claim since the colony was established, and have recently revived their interest. The UK is keen to keep hold of the tax haven and international gambling center.

Alledgedly apolitical UEFA seem fine with granting the colony equal country status along with the rest of its members. Whilst I do not mind more teams joining in, even if they might struggle to compete, a body which is politically averse should perhaps not be bestowing nationhood on controversial lands, unless of course it is not averse and in fact just willfully ignorant of the political issues it chooses to acknowledge. Granted, it is unlikely to lead to armed conflict  though this story shows how political economic issues permeate even the simplest of football good luck stories.

Gibraltar have some form here too. Ever since 1993, they have been competing in the Island Games. Do not worry if you do not see what scandalous deceit this, they have had the wool over the organisers eyes for 2 decades. At last! They are exposed by this simple map!