In my Spectator column this week I’ve taken aim at the likes of Gareth Southgate and Gary Neville who are off to Qatar for the World Cup – where the stadiums have been built by poorly treated migrant workers and homosexuality is still illegal – in spite of spending the last five years virtue-signalling about various woke causes.
My objection to England’s involvement in the World Cup isn’t based on Qatar’s human rights record. It would be bizarre if we suddenly developed a conscience about taking part in sporting contests hosted by unsavoury regimes. Why should football be held to a higher standard than other sports? Rather, it’s the hypocrisy of people like England manager Gareth Southgate, who loses no opportunity to advertise his woke political credentials.
Last year, he and the FA defended the players’ decision to take the knee in the Euros “as a show of solidarity with the black community”. If they’re so concerned about discrimination against people of colour, why are they turning a blind eye to the exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar? The FA also supported Pride month in June and has a statement on its website opposing “all forms of homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic language and behaviour”. Hard to take that seriously when its most senior officials will be flying out to Qatar to enjoy the hospitality of a regime that still imprisons homosexuals.
Wouldn’t it be more sensible if the England manager, the FA and ex-players like Gary Neville got down off their soapboxes and stopped talking about their ‘values’? If they don’t adhere to them, why should we?
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“ If they’re so concerned about discrimination against people of colour, why are they turning a blind eye to the exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar? “
Because that’s coloured on coloured discrimination.
That’s unimportant/non existent in the wokeiverse.
The only discrimination that matters/exists is when it involves white people
25 million whites enslaved by Muslims, millions by Arab Muslims. Yawn. No knees.
The Viking onslaught was in part to sell white slaves to the Caliphate in Cordoba, tens of thousands sold. Yawn. No knees.
Black and Muslim slave traders sold roughly 5 million Black Slaves to White Slavers, 400.000 ended up in the US. Yawn. No knees.
At the same time 1.2 million Whites could be found enslaved in North Africa by Arab Muslims. Yawn. No knees.
Blacks and Muslims own circa 5 million Black Slaves in East Africa. Yawn. No knees.
Qataris and Gulf Arabs own thousands of Buddhist and Hindu slaves right now, tens of thousands in the past 20 years. Yawn. No knees.
No, just knees for ‘Blacks’. Would those include the 5.000 Black Christians, murdered yearly, by Black Muslims in Nigeria. Or, are those Black Christians not really Black bruv? You ain’t Black cornpop sorry. That Jesus thing.
So many knees should be bending. It is really fracking confusing.
As I’ve commented before, my ancestor Sir Cloudesley Shovell was involved with the slave trade, helping with the redemption of English slaves in Algiers in the year of Our Lord 1675. Of course, I have no problem with England’s connections to the slave trade being taught or discussed, so long as incidents such as this are included.
That needs publishing
I’d like to think that there’s a sports journalist brave enough to ask Southgate “This time, if there’s a penalty shoot out, will you select the penalty takers on the basis of ability rather than skin colour?”.
But I know there isn’t.
Moreover, will the woke Southgate be brave enough to consider employing the heroic Matt Le Tissier to coach penalty taking (he only ever missed one)? Lest we forget, Le Tissier spoke out over the “vaccines”.
Professional football particularly has been scraping the barrel for many years now. This world cup will be its nadir.
Good riddance.
This is just one of the many arguments that the elite use to set us against each other, while they steal everything worth having, and make our societies irrevocably poorer and under central control. Not one of these claims stands-up to scrutiny, but they are easy for the social justice minded to repeat ad nauseum without a moments thought.
I see the next level of stupid is that ‘illegal immigrants’ are now ‘climate refugees’, although I do wonder what the Africans and Arabs arriving think of our good old British weather when the days get short. Hope we bought you some warm coats and hats fella’s
I have been pointing this out all year. It was an excellent opportunity to deny countries like this the world cup till they cleaned up their act but brown envelopes as usual were the louder voice. But the main issue was the hypocrisy of taking the knee all year and all the other social justice pontificating and then getting on a plane to this place.
I think we all know the answer – they don’t actually believe the bull that they promote. They are just some of the many, many peer-approval obsessed, morally bankrupt, t*ats that parade themselves as superior. Complete Jeremy Hunts the lot of them.
..I’m starting to sound like a broken record..but these people don’t hold ANY deeply held beliefs…..they are woke, virtue signalling box tickers. Their morals and beliefs change with the wind..and the payments……utter charlatans…
Just to be clear, I intend to avoid the imminent Qatar international association football tournament solely because of the “vaccine” mandate. And I fail to see why the right to various alternative lifestyles (as opposed to a genuine human right such as the right to marriage between one man and one woman) should apparently be treated by some as more of an issue than a mandate to have injected into one’s body a dangerous experimental medication, which in common with other bodily violations is a serious human rights abuse.
On a related note, the G20 is apparently planning for seamless international travel only for those who agree to be violated “in future pandemics” (Mark Steyn, GB News). Time for a revolution?
The problem for woke people such as Southgate is that the laws in Qatar regarding homosexuality are based firmly on Islam and the contents of the Quran. Their treatment of migrant workers may also be partly down the Quranic teaching that Muslims are superior to infidels and therefore have the right to enslave them.
Hence it’s hard to criticise Qatar without implicitly criticising Islam, and as any woke person knows, Islamophobia is as bad as homophobia. From their point of view it’s much better to turn a blind eye to Islamic homophobia (plus Islamic antisemitism, racism etc.) rather than confront it, thereby admitting that western values (at least in some respects) are actually superior to Islamic values. This just shows the hypocrisy of the woke set.
As a 60 season plus supporter of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. I’m disgusted that they still “take the knee” to a career criminal and grudgingly allow a single moment of silence for millions of war dead fighting for freedom. My grandfather fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 aged 16 yrs old but he remains 2nd to Saint George Floyd. West Bromwich Albion are a virtue signalling embarrassment.
The combination of everything about this world cup leads me to not want to watch any of it.
My view on the world Cup – CGAF.