DOHA — Football doesn’t need any discouragement to look the other way from the issues that really matter.
When England and several other nations were told that wearing the OneLove armband would result in a sporting punishment for the captain of each team that was enough to stop all of them taking a stand against discrimination in a country where it is illegal to be gay.
David Beckham is a Unicef ambassador but is the face of a World Cup in a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world, while the best player on the planet, Lionel Messi, is paid millions to promote tourism in Saudi Arabia, who executed 81 men in one day earlier this year.
Hypocrisy is rife in football, so what the sport doesn’t need is its world governing body actively discouraging people not to speak out. Unfortunately, not for the first time, Fifa has shown its true colours, adhering to its core principle: stick to football and ignore everything else.
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“When you go to a World Cup, you can’t lose the first game,” Arsene Wenger, Fifa’s head of global football development, said. “The teams who have the experience to perform in tournaments like France and England played well in the first game.
“The teams who were mentally ready, with a mindset to focus on competition, and not the political demonstrations.”
Wenger was not even asked about teams taking a stand, Germany’s players with their hands over their mouths in the pre-match photograph ahead of their shock loss to Japan was not discussed. He was speaking at a technical study group briefing in Doha, a relaxed event to analyse the World Cup group stages.
It was full of interesting evaluations, including the enhanced role wingers are having at this tournament and why cultivating possession is not necessarily the most effective tactic.
The fact he still wanted to get the message across about sweeping wider issues under the carpet in response to a simple question about the importance of getting off to a good start at a major tournament, tells you all you need to know about Fifa’s moral compass.
The thing is, Wenger could not be more wrong. Several coaches and players, including Eden Hazard and Wales’ Robert Page, stated that, in hindsight, Germany should not have put their hands over their mouths to highlight that they felt they were being silenced, as it acted as a distraction from matters on the pitch.
To think that Germany lost because they spent the next 90 minutes thinking about their message is preposterous. As soon as the match kicked off, any footballer would only have one thing on their mind.
Focusing on only football and not standing by their initial pledges to speak out did not get Belgium and Wales very far. After Hazard and Page made their stance clear, neither of their respective teams won another point, or even scored another goal.
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In fact, the team that sent the strongest message to Qatar and its human rights record was Australia with their pre-tournament video, and they enjoyed an unexpected run to the last 16, where they nearly produced a huge shock against Argentina, having come into the World Cup not expecting to win a single game.
Wearing an armband does not weigh a player down. Nor does putting a hand over the mouth to make a point. Football and taking a stand can mix, with one not having a detrimental effect on the other.
Wenger, since taking the role at Fifa, has done plenty to anger football purists with his rule change ideas and desire to have a biennial World Cup. His latest venture into the world of politics is just as misguided.
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