A chronic lack of conversation
Written by Ruairidh Barlow
‘Spineless’ was perhaps the most frequent denigration of England’s football team, when news emerged that they would not be wearing the ‘One Love’ armband in order to raise awareness about the lack of rights for the LGBTQI+ community in Qatar. The Three Lions, mewing in the face of FIFA punishment, decided that any potential sanction was not worth the act of protest itself, along with Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Wales and Switzerland. England looked corporate, this being an England side that has gone out of its way to look racism in the eyes more than most in recent years.
It turned what was a minor gesture, a token nod of acknowledgement, into a pathetic farce. An acceptance that the governing bodies of those seven nations, doubtless featuring a dearth of the LGBTQI+ community themselves, didn’t even need to be coerced into leaving their values at the customs desk. Waltzing through the nothing to declare door, they could be fobbed off with an empty threat.
The Germany team made a minor allusion to this at least by posing with their hands over their mouths for their team photo. ‘It’s a start’, said Roy Keane, before dumping disdain on the whole thing anyway. Rightly, they faced a deluge of criticism. It’s almost as bad as not having the conversation at all. Almost.
For Spain’s national team has barely had to face questions about this. In Spain, there is a total void where that conversation should be. Instead, a gust trundles across the airwaves, tumbleweed in tow. The press have yet to even facilitate chambers for various viewpoints to echo in, instead the lights are turned off and the rooms are silent.
Save for fleeting references to Luis Enrique and Luis Rubiales (President of the Spanish Football Federation) about violations of human rights being enshrined into law, there has been little in the way of scrutiny. Rubiales gave his stock answer that he wheels out for hosting the Spanish Supercup in Saudi Arabia, that Spain can either turn their back or collaborate and engage with a country to improve things. Curiously, it is the same answer former Valencia manager Gary Neville has used to justify working for Qatari channel BeIN Sports. What exactly they are engaging in, has been left to the imagination. There has been no evidence of what they claim to be doing, and the armband? A waste of a question apparently.
It makes you wonder how it can be, that a country can claim Pedro Almodóvar as its most prominent filmmaker, but at the same time would presumably have had little issue with him being arrested, should he have decided to head to Doha and support his team.
Back home, racism goes unchecked. The lamentable scenes outside of the Cívitas Metropolitano, where Vinícius Junior suffered a hate crime en masse, have still resulted in just three fans having their membership suspended so far. Not taken away, nor banned permanently, let alone arrested.
The footballers have tried in the past. Iñaki Williams has spoken often and eloquently on the matter. The black footballing community came out in support of Vinícius loudly, but after a few weeks, it quietened down. The discussion around the Brazilian’s antics – for he is the protagonist in much of the treatment he receives from opposition players – is still admixed with an uncomfortable tone. Meanwhile Borja Iglesias received plenty of praise for painting his nails to raise awareness of racism and homophobia within football, but where have LaLiga taken that conversation since? It seems unlikely to be a key issue, when the President of the league openly supports a party that “runs on racism”, as The Economist put it.
For clarity, it should not be on the players to tackle human rights abuses. Yet any child in Spain would be receiving the message loud and clear: discrimination is absolutely permissible in Spanish football, at home and abroad. When the armband controversy is reported in the Spanish press, none of the major outlets wondered why Spain was not the eighth nation dealing with disgrace. Rubiales, for once, has been deafeningly silent. That surely doesn’t absolve the media or the RFEF of all the shame though?