The England Team is in a mess because it has been told that they can’t wear shirts, during Saturday`s friendly match with Spain, with the remembrance day poppy embroidered on it. How did the FA get into such a position?
The FA has already asked FIFA twice to be able to display the remembrance poppies, and has been told, in no uncertain terms, that this cannot happen. So strong is the FIFA rejection that FIFA has told the referee to call off the England game should players wear poppies.
One wonders why on earth the Sports Minister is bothering to write to FIFA to appeal the decision. Surely you have to know when you are beaten and that it is not worth taking the argument further. Nevertheless, the Sports Minister is writing to FIFA trying to explain that the poppies are not a political or religious symbol. This is in response to FIFA`s rejection that the poppy would ‘pen the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football. Therefore, we confirm herewith that the suggested embroidery on the match shirt cannot be authorised`. That neutrality decrees that shirts should not carry political or religious messages.
The hapless minister, Hugh Robertson, will fail. He will fail firstly because it is the nature of FIFA not to change its mind, especially when that mind has been made not once but twice. He will fail because it is FIFA who makes up the rules and who applies them. We all might not like the fact that FIFA is a very autocratic and untransparent organisation, but it is the organisation that organises world football, and (try as we might) we can`t change that. The best we can all do is to learn to live with its rules, even if we don`t like them. Those rules have been made clear by the strength of the rejection: giving the referee the power to call off the match leaves us with no doubt that FIFA are serious and are not going to be swayed.
It`s a rule of politics (and life) to pick your battles carefully, and to walk away from those that you will lose. The FA will lose this battle, and then what? Will the FA pull out of the friendly, or (as has been suggested) to try to smuggle the poppy in somehow (the scoreboard, the special kit the players will wear during the national anthem?
In any case, sorry, but Mr Robertson is wrong, and FIFA are only applying their own guidelines. You might not like the idea, but the poppy is a political symbol. That does not make it any less potent or valid, but it is a political one, expressing a political ideal that is not shared by other countries. In fact, it is all the more powerful because it is a political symbol.
In addition, since we are involved in a polemic that someone else has started we have to ask some questions as to the meaning of the poppy. Respect for those who gave their lives for our country is not marked by a poppy on a football shirt, just as not showing that poppy does not constitute a ‘lack of respect`. If we were serious about showing our respect, surely something as trivial as a football match is not the right way; I could have appreciated it had the FA simply decided that, given the potency of the symbols, it was better not to organise a football match. But that game takes place on Saturday, whereas the precise date of the Armistice, November 11th, is a Friday. Remembrance Sunday is the day after the game.
Of course, you could argue that a football match is precisely the way to show your remembrance, given the story of the British and German troops breaking off hostility, one Christmas during World War I, and emerging from their trenches to play a game of football. In that case, why is the respect conditioned by wearing a poppy embroidered on a football shirt?
As a nation, we are indulging in a collective hysteria as demonstrated in the unhealthy breast-beating on display when Diana died (and reflected as farce in the national wailing that followed the televised death of Jade Goody). We should remember, and respect, the sacrifice made on our behalf by so many almost a century ago. But we now have an atmosphere whereby everybody in the country HAS TO wear the poppy. No-one can appear on the television without it. There are diverging views as to how long that should be the case, with many poppies going on display before even the Christmas decoration. It seems already unnecessary that special football shirts are being prepared for club games. In Chelsea`s case, this was for a match (against Arsenal) that took place a full two weeks before Remembrance Sunday. Forgive me if I consider that we are overstepping the boundaries of genuine respect and remembrance and getting into a herd mentality and token gesturing.
It is up to everyone to decide how that respect should be marked. It is not in the nature of the respect that everyone should be press-ganged into a tokenistic gesture and that we should feel afraid of the consequences when you don`t do something. That is where we are now. Of course, the symbols of the state should mark their remembrance, appreciation and gratitude of the sacrifice of our troops. Neither Chelsea FC nor the England team are symbols of our state, and to make (for instance) Fabio Capello wear a poppy seems ridiculous.
If anything, you are showing a lack of respect for the sacrifice by forcing it upon everyone. We should not lose sight that the sacrifices made by our soldiers over the past century were to preserve freedoms and the British way of life. That freedom must and should include the right of people to opt out of collective displays of emotion and to decide how to show respect. It is the opposite of the freedom that our soldiers died to defend if people are press-ganged into a single way of doing things, even that remembrance. Our representatives should bear this in mind rather than blathering on about ‘respect` or the lack thereof.
And in this particular case, the people governing our national game need to get a grip on themselves. It is, after all, only a football match. We might all consider that it is tremendously important, but we, as football fans, also know that football is not, cannot and should not be important. If we want to be respectful for the sacrifices of our armed forces, we should simply separate what is important (that sacrifice) from what isn`t (football), rather than trying to link the two. It is demeaning to that sacrifice to associate it with the likes of Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and John Terry. On Saturday night, the Glasgow NEC will host a concert of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, arguably the world`s least significant band. Should the RHCP cancel the gig out of respect? Maybe Keidis, Flea and the other members of the band should sport special poppy-embroidered socks covering their manhoods. No, either proposition is absurd and yet we are having a similar debate about the England National Team which contains people of similar, if not lower, moral standing.
In reacting in such a hysterical way, the representatives of our national game are simply reflecting a national mood. That reflection is correct (it`s what people expect). However, it is also wrong, both because this is a fight that the FA is never going to win (so they shouldn`t have entered into it) and because I expect of our leaders that they lead rather than they follow.
I will be happy to tune into the football match on Saturday night, hopefully free of any poppies and even of any minute of silence. Then on Sunday I will pay my own respects for the sacrifices that people made on my behalf. The FA and any members of the England national team can also do so, should they want to. However, out of respect, nothing that goes on at Wembley on Saturday should have anything to do with anything that happens at the Cenotaph on Sunday. To mix up the two is crass, so please don`t.
Share this article
