England manager Gareth Southgate insists that he and his players will not be swayed by Fifa’s order to stick to football and ignore the controversial ideological and political issues that have been a prominent feature of the build-up to the Qatar World Cup.
In a letter, signed by Fifa president Gianni Infantino and secretary general Fatma Samoura, recently sent to each of the 32 nations competing in the World Cup, the governing body urged them to “focus on the football!” and “not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists”.
Much of the criticism of Fifa’s decision to award hosting rights to Qatar has been around the treatment of the LGBT+ community in the country and the abuse of migrant workers building the tournament infrastructure.
“Frankly, I’ll choose if I’m going to speak or not and I’m pretty sure the players will as well. So I don’t think we’re necessarily going to be swayed by that communication,” Southgate said, as he revealed his 26-man squad which will fly to Qatar on Tuesday.
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“We’ve also got to focus on the football, we’ve got to get the team right, we’ve got to make sure our energies are towards the football,” he said. “But we will speak when asked, we will answer the questions, and rightly so.
“I’m really conscious of how much we can affect. I think we’ve made the requests that the FA has been asked to make by the human rights organisations, I think we’ve pushed that and I’m not sure there’s a lot more we can say that’s going to be new on those topics if I’m frank.
“But we are in a position where we do have some influence and we have tried to use that influence and a number of the players have across some really good causes in the recent past.
“So we won’t stop doing that but there are moments also where we’ve got to get out make sure our focus is where it has to be as well.”
In that regard, the players will hold talks when they join up with the camp after this weekend’s Premier League fixtures and decided whether they will take a knee during the tournament. Southgate said he had his own view on that but that it was up to the players, and he did not want to influence them.
On the theme of football, the shock decision for Southgate was handing a place in the squad to Leicester City’s James Maddison, who is arguably the most in-form English attacking midfielder in the country yet has played only once for Southgate, three years ago.
Southgate explained that Maddison had been close on a number of occasions but that he had considered Phil Foden and Mason Mount to be stronger in his position.
“We think he is right in the mix now,” Southgate said, adding that he would not hesitate to start Maddison in the opening game against Iran. “He is playing well. I like the fact that he finds space well, he turns and plays forward. His work without the ball has improved a lot over the last couple of years as well. In the highest level games you have to have that as well. I’ve always said the door is open and that is how it has been. We have been on what we have seen.”
He added: “I was with him in an Under-21s tournament and he is a bit of a football student, James. I think there are some misconceptions, perhaps, about him. My experiences with him when he was in the Under 21s and when he was with us were that he wanted to talk about the game, he wanted to talk about what was expected.
“I’ve always said it was football reasons for not selecting him and in the main the capabilities of others in the group and that’s the case. I’ve got no concerns about how he will be with the group. He knows most of the lads, he has been in the junior teams with a lot of them so that isn’t a concern at all.”
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