Would you rather City get promotion or England win Euros? Now with poll

Exactly.

 

Fair enough, well I wasn't meaning to offend you. Sometimes I reply in threads and couldn't tell you who I had replied to, so it's nothing personal.

 

It really isn’t, and its churlish to be dismissive of a different point of view, without actually debating that point of view. The laziness, as you put it, is in throwing cheap shots at the ‘intellect’ behind the view, rather than challenge the point itself.

And the point here is: whether politics and social agendas have a role in sport, is debatable. Either the game should be about itself and that’s it, or you can argue that its a massive platform to highlight bigger and broader issues. Players clearly believe in the latter, but when they’re in a unique position of making a much bigger stand against a much more profound injustice which is directly related to their own careers and wealth, will they have the bottle to actually make that stand? It’s not a case of ‘whataboutery’ - if they care about ‘social justice’, then agreeing to play games in stadiums where thousands of lives have been lost, and thousands more are miserably toiling under a level of forced labour that’s tantamount to slavery, then their moral high ground starts to erode very quickly. It’s not a case of saying ‘why protest about X when Y is an even bigger issue’, its a case of saying that ‘Y’ is directly attributed to the game you’re in that gives you the platform to make your statements in the first place. if you’re complicit in going to play football games in a country whose built stadia in a manner that thousands have been killed to produce, you’re no longer equipped to use the platform you have to make a stand against ‘inequality’. It’s a point that’s clearly lost on you.

 

What does this argument do APART from erode the confidence surrounding the issue of taking the knee?

If you can answer that, then you could argue it's not simply 'whataboutery' - but for me, there's no comparison required between taking the knee for BLM and going to Qatar and playing in the World Cup.

They're totally separate, they aren't related, they don't need to be compared and contrasted, and all that's happening is people are trying to demerit taking the knee and making a very poor and irrelevant case.

Against taking the knee? Fair enough.
Against playing in Qatar? Fair enough.

Against taking the knee because players might play in Qatar? Stupid.

It's not me that tried to link them, it happened earlier in the thread. And no matter how you dress it up, it's stupid.

 

I’m not a fan of taking the knee, and that has nothing to do with the World Cup being played in Qatar. So in that sense, they’re very much separate. I also don’t believe political or social narratives have any place in football. But there clearly is a link, because football has chosen to advocate for change across a number of fronts - race, gender, sexuality, all on the basis of equality and people being freed from oppression. Nothing wrong at all with that message. And yet, when the game itself is driving thousands of deaths in order to stage its flagship competition, in a country that has an appalling human rights record on the very issues that football is claiming to want to see change in, no one seems to be saying or doing anything. It reeks of hypocrisy, because when there’s a genuine opportunity to make a stand against profound issues of inequality, including the deaths that are occurring entirely because of the game, the game will do nothing. As I say - easy to talk about your principles than live by them, and when a huge stand against a horrific injustice requires a level of action, risk and sacrifice, nothing will happen. Empty gestures, they’re fine with.

I’d reverse the point in your opening comment. If football wants to drive real change, it has a chance. Boycotting the World Cup would only strengthen the messages that football wants to push. It’d put a bit of iron in the glove on everything it claims to care about - but clearly doesn’t.

 

England.

Once in a lifetime feat.

City can earn promotion any season.

 

Good grief, back on thread

 

Football can and must do better. I'd consider that a fact.

But the reason these ham fisted attempts at pointing out supposed hypocrisy are stupid, and the reason it's obviously nothing but whataboutery and therefore totally redundant and a point worth laughing at, is because it's not coherent, nor does it doesn't apply to the real world.

For those that say 'it's hypocritical' to take the knee yet go to Qatar, given that there is ZERO link between those events, I could 'whatabout' all day long and extend it to virtually anything else that's not at all related.

Heineken is a sponsor; alcohol is a blight on this nation and yet football heavily promotes beer, killing way more people than Qatar has ever killed. WHATABOUTTHAT. Total hypocrisy. Betting adverts, WHATABOUTTHAT, ruining lives every day. Coca Cola isn't a drink and shouldn't be drunk by anyone ever, it is a contributor to diabetes, WHATABOUTTHAT, have we run background checks on the companies operating out of China, are they associated with labour camps, WHATABOUTTHAT, Adidas has links to sweatshops and is a key corporate sponsor, WHATABOUTTHAT, the kits all footballers wear for all their games, WHATABOUTTHAT, it's redundant, stupid and pointless to try to link different issues that are all very real and very relevant in their own right JUST to try and illustrate that standing against one of them is wrong.

 

Im indifferent about bending the knee now it has distanced itself from BLM. Enough black players started to refuse and spoke out because they knew exactly what BLM was about. Glad Sky and the PL saw it as toxic too.

 

We train at a school!!

 

You don't upset children? I'm gutted, you're not the man I thought you were. I had you down as the "wicked uncle Quentin" type. I feel so let down Fordy.

 

Both for me too please!

 

but they dont.

 

Tbh, at the moment, because it’d be such a one off, and maybe the only time I’d see England win a major tournament, my vote goes for them. Though it is very close, under normal circumstances it’d be City every time. Be nice to be up here and us win it.

 

England win the euros all day long

 

Got to be England for me, had plenty of good times with City, and will do again semi regularly, but never have with England and might never in the future

 

Your first comment is blatantly daft, they could do it at the next Euros , right?

When I was a teenager the thought of City getting to Wembley, once, never mind three times and playing in the highest league in the country would have seen me with a white jacket on and chucked in a rubber room.

Give over!

 

As we haven't won anything in 55 years, the term 'once-in-a-lifetime' is more than fair. It is currently a never in my lifetime event!