UEFA Got Very Proud As Soon As They Stopped Having to Appease an Anti-Gay Government
Wild how that works.
In case you’ve missed it, UEFA has spent the better part of the last month (Pride, by the way!) caping for an openly anti-gay, fairly fascist government in Hungary because they have next to no Covid restrictions and pack as many people as possible into their stadiums. Why? Because that means more money and better pictures they can use for their little advertisements, I imagine. Even if those pictures are largely of people in black shirts who like to do Nazi salutes in their spare time. And their non-spare time. Seems like they do the Nazi salutes most of the time, is what I’m saying.
Perhaps all of this is why I’m feeling cynical about UEFA’s announcement about them “respecting the rainbow,” which they released a day after news broke that UEFA and the UK government had come to an agreement to allow up to 60,000 people to attend the final matches of Euro 2020 at Wembley Stadium and avoid the quarantine period the government has mandated. This came after a period of UEFA lobbying the UK government and rumors, rumors which were leaked by someone, I imagine, that UEFA was considering a different host for the final. Who was that host? Budapest. Because of course it was.
I don’t like to be cynical as a rule, but I think connecting these dots is barely cynicism. It’s just staring at the wire connected to the projector and seeing it runs underneath the green curtain.
Similarly, UEFA’s entire “investigation” of Manuel Neuer’s rainbow armband as a political statement, something expressly forbidden in UEFA, is bullshit. You can tell it’s bullshit by the way that UEFA themselves spent the last month lobbying a national government to bend to their whims. You can tell it’s bullshit by the borderline dictator publicly thanking UEFA for forbidding Munich from lighting up the Allianz Arena rainbow for the Germany-Hungary match. It was, from the beginning, another political move made to appease a person they were keeping on retainer to possibly host a gigantic game, and they themselves were using as leverage in another separate game with another separate government.
You will also notice how UEFA, FIFA, and other sport governing bodies in the world continue to do this on the men’s side of the ball, hosting tournaments in places where gay people are actively discriminated against or where being gay is just straight-up illegal, and then are pleased to turn around and make plenty of money off of the women’s game, where a huge number of the athletes that participate are out, relative to their male counterparts. It’s funny how that continues to happen, you know? How you can host a men’s World Cup in Qatar or a Euro final in Hungary, but playing a women’s tournament in those places would actually threaten the lives and safety of several of the participants in the tournament? Maybe, if Football really is for All, you shouldn’t do that?
So here’s your reminder, in case you forgot: the organizations and the brands and the governing bodies do not care about the players and they do not care about you. And everyone’s existence will continue to be political as long as there is no equality. And you will have to fight for that equality if you ever want to see it for yourself, even if you’re not in a marginalized community.
It was public backlash that got UEFA to release any sort of statement about “respecting the rainbow” at all. It was the public support of many clubs and stadiums around Germany that made UEFA look terrible. But the tiny, hopeful inkling in all this is that on some level, the public pressure is effective. It does do something.
And maybe, if we continue fighting, more dominoes will continue to fall.
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Here’s the USWNT Olympic Roster
*indistinct grumbling*
*grumbling becomes more distinct*
Ok, but how are Midge Purce and Lynn Williams not in this roster, one which is currently being held together by cloth bandages and IcyHot? Someone explain this to me.
Goal of the Day
Sweet Father Christmas.
Brazil still won this game, because you know, they’re sort of inevitable in South America these days, but this is certainly the goal of the summer thus far. Just an unbelievably high degree of difficulty.
Butts.
YOU HEARD THE MAN. YAYA TOURE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A HUGE WAGON. THIS IS IMPORTANT READING.
A Look at What Alvaro Morata *Does* Do
You, like me, probably have spent some time making fun of Morata and his inability to score a goal for Spain. And you, like me, also probably wonder what the point of keeping him in the team is, at this point. Well, here’s an article on just that.
Treat Today Like Raul Ruidiaz Trying to Score This Goal
Never let the rules get in the way of trying to make things happen, you know?
You got this. Even if you have to volleyball spike that thing into the goal.
Anyone else notice that a significant number of the ads during the Netherlands-Czech game, in Budapest, had the pride flag behind the brand name and logo?