July 1936. The Olympic Stadion. Berlin.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics was meant to have been a celebration of Nazism but by the time
Jesse Owens had won four golds (in the 100 and 200 metres, the long jump and the 4x100m relay) the myth of Aryan supremacy had been exposed right in front of
Hitler.
Owens's achievements also exposed racism at home in America. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go in the back door" Surely Jesse,
Muhammad Ali and others like him helped kick start the civil rights movement in America and the world with their achievements.
March 1997. Liverpool v SK Brann. European Cup Winner's Cup Quarter Final 
Robbie Fowler celebrates his goal by lifting up his jersey to show a t-shirt preaching solidarity with the Liverpool dockworkers. The dockers had been locked out of work for 18 months after striking over fears raised about safety in the workplace.
UEFA fine Robbie Fowler Ł900 and implement new rules meaning anyone lifting their shirt gets an instant booking.
January 2005. Lazio v Roma. Italian Serie A After scoring for
Lazio, his boyhood club, against
Roma, their arch rivals,
Paolo di Canio celebrates by giving what he called a "Roman salute". This was the salute that leaders of ancient Rome used but was also, more famously, the salute of
Mussolini, who himself was a Lazio supporter. Di Canio and Lazio were each fined the equivalent of Ł7,000.
UEFA and
FIFA, The
ICC, The
IOC, The
FIA, The
IRB and every other major sporting association have one thing in common; they all believe that sport and politics have nothing to do with each other. It's a nice idea: that we only care about the game in question and anything else is a mere footnote. But another thing these organisations have in common is their mass stupidity or naivety.
In Britain the idea of political football is rare. We mostly support our local club, who our dad supported or whoever everyone else supported in the playground (sadly this just means did you go to a Catholic or a non-denominational school?). The idea of supporting one club over another because you are socialist is a strange one. If you try handing out fascist leaflets at a football ground here you'll get a supreme kicking, whereas this happens all the time in Belgium and no-one bats an eyelid. Unfurling a flag of
Che Guevara or
Karl Marx in your team’s colours will be met with ridicule by the opposition fans, but if you go to watch
Atalanta or
St. Pauli it's just as important to chant their names as it is your players.
In Italy and Spain most clubs have a political leaning.
Rayo Vallecano of Madrid and St. Pauli of Hamburg have, perhaps, the strangest supports in Europe. Rayo Vallecano are home to students, punks, skins and distribute free tickets to trade unions in Madrid. It's well known that when you run out onto the field at Vallecas the smell of marijuana hangs heavy in the air. St. Pauli's chairman is a drag queen and they distribute free tickets to the local "working girls". Their ground is covered in anti-capitalist graffiti and for years students and the unemployed got into the ground on a "donation only" process.
Surely such things can only be good for the game? Imagine going to a
Morton game, getting high, listening to Motorhead and then going home with a prostitute? (which I can now pay for due to the donation only door policy). I probably wouldn't mind drawing with
Alloa after that.
Then there's Lazio.
Real Madrid.
Espanyol. For every left wing club there's a right wing club.
Siniša Mihajlović—formerly of
Red Star Belgrade—now plays in Italy for
Inter. In-between he—allegedly—recruited for
Arkan and—not allegedly—wore a black armband on his death. When Lazio played
Arsenal a few years back he spat on his hand before he shook hands with any of Arsenal's black players. Lazio fans love him. Real Madrid will forever be dogged with the tag of
Franco's team but the fans aren't helping any by greeting every black player they come across with a chorus of boos and fascist salutes.
Sportsmen and women have political beliefs. We all do. I'm a Morton fan but also vote SSP. No doubt there will be a BNP supporter standing somewhere in my vicinity when we take on
Raith in a few weeks time but, for those 90 minutes, I don't care and neither do they. This is how I view sport. As just sport. It shouldn't be political in any way. Sport is above politics. It is above everything. This is the view the governing bodies take but I, unlike the governing bodies, am not stupid.
The passion you have for a sporting club and the passion you have for a cause are similar. If you want the cause to be known then where better to show it than where everyone can see it?
At the first Basque derby following General Franco's death Jose Angel Iribar and Inaxio Kortabarria, the captains of
Athletic and neighbours
Real Sociedad, carried the banned Basque flag, the
Ikurrina, onto the pitch. No one, not even FIFA, could argue that this was not political. It was the first time the Basque flag was shown in public without fear of imprisonment in nearly 50 years.
In 1973
Billie Jean King beat
Bobby Riggs, an ex-Wimbledon champ, in straight sets. This famous match did more for women's lib than
Germaine Greer ever could.
Henry Olonga and
Andy Flower, two Zimbabwe cricketers, wore black armbands during the 2003 Cricket World Cup in South Africa, "mourning the death of democracy" in their country, terrorised by President
Robert Mugabe. Henry Olonga will never be able to return to Zimbabwe again. Andy Flower is still a national hero (and top of this year’s scoring charts in county cricket) but isn't stupid enough to try it.
"We are black and we are proud to be black in white America", declared
John Carlos and
Tommie Smith, famously, standing on the podium with their firsts in the air. This was not long after the assassination of
Martin Luther King, in the time of the "different but equal" rights movement in America. The IOC, in their wisdom, banned the pair.
There's no harm in Marvyn Andrews or Juan Sara praising God on a vest after every goal. There's no harm in Robbie Fowler letting the world know that he personally believes in trade unions and if Athletic Club want to continue into the 21st century only signing Basque players then good luck to them.
If England want to let their fans chant "I'd rather be a Paki than a Turk" there is very real harm being done by it. I'm not saying for a second that it should be one rule for them and another for us but surely the honchos could take their heads out of their arses and see a very big difference in Che Guevara in The Stadio Olimpico one week and Adolf in there the next?
