Silence
Drive to Survive will be wild next season
Celtic Park was buzzing. As the twilight settled over Glasgow on August 17th, 2016, Scotland's Celtic FC were rampant against their Israeli opponents, Hapoel Be'er Sheva. The game ended 5-2, all but cementing their place in Europe's top football competition. The real story, however, unfolded in the stands. Amidst a sea of green and white flags, there was one pocket where fans hoisted banners expressing solidarity with Palestine.
UEFA, the iron fist of European football, swiftly slapped Celtic with disciplinary charges. By association, the club had breached a rule that deemed displays of "political, ideological, and provocative messages" unfit for a football stadium.
More recently, after watching the barbarism of Israel's latest assault, Dutch footballer Anwar El-Ghazi lent his voice to the Palestine cause. He shared a post on Instagram that had the words, "From the river to sea, Palestine will be free." His contract with German football team Mainz 05 was terminated immediately.
A bit rich coming from a sport where partnerships with dubious organisations are celebrated, where the last men's World Cup was played in a country with a sketchy human rights record, and the next will be played in one which guarantees a shooting incident every day.
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At this very moment, as you read this, someone is loading missiles onto IDF (Israel Defence Forces) drones, to be delivered, with love, to Gaza. Most of North Gaza has been pummelled into a wasteland of debris and dust. And it seems little more than a matter of time before the remaining scraps of the Gaza Strip are flattened too.
A report by the Gaza Media Office, issued in early March with grim prescience, laid out some horrible numbers: 45000 bombs had been dropped within the first three months of this merciless onslaught. That's 500 bombs a day.
Nearly 85% of Gaza's inhabitants were forced into a desperate exodus. About a million sought refuge in Rafah, a city designed for a quarter of that number. But even that shelter proved illusory. The bombs followed the trail of their footprints. On May 26th, Israel unleashed a salvo of seven 900 kg bombs upon a displacement camp - a grotesque demonstration of what they call “precision munitions.” This, two days after the International Court of Justice had issued an order to cease.
Late last year, Vox uploaded a video that opens with a chilling speech. The Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, his voice dripping with fierce aggression, lays bare the next stage of Israel's plan.
“We are putting a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no gas, no water. We are dealing with animals and we must act accordingly.”
A disturbing portrait not just of military strategy, but of a calculated attempt to extinguish the very spark of life from an entire population.
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Why am I bringing this into a sports newsletter? Because, as Rafael Nadal played in possibly his last French Open, as cricket's collective consciousness was in thrall of the IPL for the last two months, as we watched athletes finish their qualification process for the Paris Olympics, and as football went on as football does, did we hear a peep? A statement, a message, a word of solidarity?
Last night, Real Madrid played Borussia Dortmund in the biggest annual game of European club football - the Champions League final. Nearly 450 million people watched last year's final between Manchester City and Inter Milan. Around 3.05 billion people - yes, that's a b - followed the Tokyo Olympics coverage. That number is expected to grow this summer. The men's T20 World Cup has just started in the USA. The men's European Championships will start in two week's time.
Across the summer festivities, your chances of spotting as much as an A4-sized banner advocating for peace are slimmer than me landing a double backflip. And when some brave soul dares, they are handcuffed back to their cage.
At such times, a common and easy fallback is to suggest that sports and politics should stay in separate lanes. For starters, this is just a convenient smokescreen, a way to fawn over the pristine playing field while ignoring the mud caked on the boots. Of course, some forms of political incursion are unwelcome - like a cricket board helmed by a Home Minister's son, or a World Cup bought with millions of dollars of bribes.
But peace isn't a partisan issue. Neither is the indiscriminate killing of civilians, amongst them children who are too young to pronounce Palestine or Israel. The line between conflict and genocide is thick enough to be called a canyon.
Let me take you to Hamburg, Germany, and introduce you to FC St. Pauli, a football club unlike any other.
Unless you're a clued-in fan, St. Pauli might not ring a bell. They've only played in the top division in Germany once, a fleeting visit that ended as quickly as it began. But St. Pauli's story isn't about trophies and ticker tapes; it's about a defiance of the status quo. Their roots lie in the forgotten corners of Hamburg, planted by immigrants and displaced citizens. Their stadium, the Millerntor, became an amphitheatre where racism, fascism, and sexism were fought with equal vigour.
Then came the misstep. Their ascension to Germany’s elite league in 2010 led to a compulsory modernisation of their modest ground to meet Bundesliga standards. The upgrades included colossal screens, plush seating, and corporate boxes, one of which was promptly rented to a local strip club, Susi’s Show Bar. The club’s newly-minted official beverage was called Kalte Muschi—translate that for yourself. This partnership felt like a betrayal, a sullying of their principles.
The protests started immediately. Then, on January 15th, 2011, over a thousand fans marched across the district of St. Pauli, denouncing the club’s new overtures. The strip club contract vanished soon.1
FC St. Pauli will not topple Benjamin Netanyahu, nor can FIFA pronounce a magic spell for peace. But defiance starts small. A single banner, a message of solidarity broadcast to millions, has immense potential. One doesn’t need to move mountains to leverage the colossal platform of sports for something more profound than entertainment.
Remember 2020, when George Floyd’s life ended under a white police officer’s knee? The world went up in arms. A message against racism continues to be read out before every Premier League game, and rightly so. There is power in the image of a white British footballer standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a black opponent. It's a fight worth waging, every single day.
How about 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine? International sport reacted with lightning speed. Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from all competitions. The Champions’ League final was moved from St. Petersburg to Paris. The All England Club banned Russian and Belarusian players from participating at that summer’s Wimbledon. Amongst them were some of tennis’ brightest talents. Ukrainian flags became ubiquitous at stadiums, with commentators waxing poetic over the tearful resolve of Ukrainian footballers shown in HD close-ups.
So, where does the line between “political” and “acceptable” activism lie? Between Celtic fans hoisting a Palestinian flag and the now-common act of taking a knee?
Convenience, perhaps, is the answer. Would the FIFA president, who happily wears the robes of whichever community he wishes to please on a given evening, be able to name even a handful of Palestinian footballers?
In the last year, over 2,800 men played in the top five European football leagues. That list has zero Palestinians. Three Palestinian tennis players are registered across the ATP and WTA; none of them ranked. And you could fit the Palestine contingent to the Tokyo Olympics in one room.
A few days back, Deportivo Palestino, a Chilean football team, walked out to play with outstretched hands, palms empty, honouring the slain children of Gaza. Do you reckon anyone of consequence watched the clip? And had it reached enough social media timelines, would they share it over the new Lay's commercial starring David Beckham and Thierry Henry?
This is a silence chosen, not imposed, as the world of sports continues prancing in its merry rhythm amidst the gunshots of a neighbouring genocide.
Thank you for writing this! Here in Dharamkot, we are surrounded by Israelis and it’s been.. interesting. Your post makes me thing I should write mine too…
Powerful and evocative. Activism, if any, by governing bodies in sports just feels like virtue-signalling. Politics has no place in the sanitised world of modern elite sports. :\