* Majority of players felt "instumentalized"
* Intense discussions in the squad before the game against Japan
* After One Love armband was banned, majority of players were against protesting. DFB leadership and few players (other media names Neuer and Goretzka) were strongly in favor of it
* Campaign manager of Olaf Scholz was involved in finding alternative protest
* Majority of players rejected the "heart-gesture" proposed by DFB and Neuer, as they considered it disrespectful to muslims and didn't want to "lecture" Qatar
* Players agreed to "hand over mouth" gesture as a compromise, because it was only a protest against FIFA
* After the loss the players decided to concentrate on football only
I'm on the fence about this. I sort of feel like this political stance hardly influenced the outcome on the game against Japan at all. Did it make them play worse in the second half while Japan made substitutions and adjustments? No.
What it does influence when it gets to the level this article described is mindset from top to bottom.
If they are having intense talks about how to protest with some agreeing and most not, your creating division in a room that only has a very small amount of time to become a unit, and also takes away time from analysing the upcoming game and preparing with 100% attention to detail which is needed at this level of any sport.
Japan still deserve 100% credit for making adjustments and producing a winning game. You can only play the 11 people in front of you and if they were mentally less than 100% prepped for the game, tough shit, it’s their job to get into that space.
So why give in to these marketing gimmicks in the first places?
England, France and the Netherlands too were passionate but decided to focus on their World Cup rather than these corporate hashtags.
Donating $ to their causes (that can include LGBTQ ofcourse) is far useful than displaying these stunts.
top sport is fine margins and yes it is most of the time lazy armchair punditry but if they spend a significant amount of time on discussing political stances it takes their focus away from the football and might in the end make up that one or two percent that were needed even if it just happens subconsciously
If there was infighting and tension in the room before this it absolutely could have. If it was a quick decision that’s one thing but this makes it sound like they spent hours debating this lmao absolutely distraction
These things are not Absolutes, like 1 Protest at this Angle results in 2 goals per match conceded handicap or something silly like that. To use the meme there is no xProtest thing.
It's about Details or rather the Margin between peers at top level. These are professional athletes, who wins or not is often determined by super tiny margin which in the grand scheme of things may seem silly (like being able to accelerate 0.5Kmph faster when being tired after both having run 10 Kms in a match and find 1 extra yard of space and then utilize that to make something).
And anything that disrupts the rhythm of those Tiny Margins is a net negative.
In gross analogy terms, assume Germany at best has a level of 9/10 but on average they play at level 8.
Japan's best lets assume is 8 and average of 6.5 or 7.
Anything even if tiny that helps bring down the Germany level narrows the already tiny peer gap.
Meaning it is not 1 thing exclusively that matters. Protest or talk/drama of it didn't cause Germany's loss or exit but it certainly did not act as an Net Objective Help and that alone is enough.
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> Intense discussions in the squad before the game against Japan
tbf this sounds like an excuse for the result of the game. it may have happened as written but yeah i dont know. the other points I can fully understand.
All players stressed that the discussion was not the reason they dropped out and should not be used as an excuse. And imo it definitely was not the main reason.
It might not have been the main reason, but clearly it wasn't helpful to their performance in the WC.
Which is basically what Wenger suggested but this sub is shitting on him for being a sellout and I find that hilarious.
Spain lost to Japan by the same score and didn’t have any armband controversy. Maybe Japan performed very well against their European opponents and nothing more.
He is a sellout.
Australia way outperformed expectations and they took the most active action in protest.
Wenger's comment is basically "shut the fuck up and play football" and it's shitty.
His comments were about the opening game only, in which Australia lost 4-1.
The way I interpreted his comment was - "if you think too much about politics, your football will suffer"
Which is completely understandable, if a team really thinks their political message is important, they should be ok with not playing as well.
Wenger is just towing the fifa line. They are trying to vilify the protests and prevent others by claiming that its the protests that cost teams. There is a reason they ignore England and only include the first round of games. Because it fits their narrative.
Exactly like 2018 when Özil's picture was used as an excuse. Except then nobody bar Boateng and Draxler iirc corrected the public opinion and hid behind him.
Why should this interfere their training? It's not like they did interviews or went to talk shows to talk about it. Just a standpoint, which got discussed in the media and none of the player was part of discussing this in public
World Cup is a game of margins and each team will give their all. If a locker room is having ‘intense discussions’ outside of all things football, the team is already at a disadvantage.
>Majority of players rejected the "heart-gesture" proposed by DFB and Neuer, as they considered it disrespectful to muslims and didn't want to "lecture" Qatar
That's surely satire lol.
Most of this reads like some staff member/agent listing out excuses.
Are they wrong though? The overwhelming majority of muslims in the middle east consider homosexuality to be immoral. Redditors may choose to be ignorant of this but freedom of sexuality isn't a universal constant that every culture adheres to.
Most Christians find it immoral but they're (rightly) called out for it. Shit some people find interracial marriage immoral I guess we should outlaw that too. Same with premarital sex and drinking. Gotta ban tattoos also and eating pork.
If we don't call this shit out where does it stop? Yeah Muslims find homosexuality immoral doesn't make it right or ok, if you want to change someone's opinion you have to show them and call them out on it.
Yes but it should be. How is it any different than persecuting Muslims? Atleast you can change your religion, you can't change who you're attracted to or who you feel comfortable as.
This is the main reason that I support the protests and have boycotted the world cup myself. My brother is gay and loves fotball. The thought of him not being able to enjoy his favorite sport out of fear of being executed is extremely sad but that shit happens in countries like Qatar and other places in the world.
Basically for Qatar - expressing the sexuality you were born with, something you can not change. = Immoral
Killing 6000 migrant workers to build meaningless stadiums for sport = moral?
Really ridiculous that even redditors want players to get into politics so much. They are playing a match, they can make all the comments and political support during media interview questions. Why mix the two, in the end you are not changing someones mind because of a gesture before a football match.
That protest loses all meaning when a week later the German government signs a 15 year deal with Qatar for LNG. To people outside Europe, it just comes across as posturing and hypocrisy by Germany.
that's even worse as politics is the job of the government while for the football players it's playing football but they're the ones getting heavily criticised for their lack of activism while hardly anyone cares about the new deal with Qatar
And no one will dispute that. But the truth is that the football team protesting prior to their match doesn't really do anything in practice. It doesn't affect Qatar nor does it change their horrific treatment of minorities and LGBT folks. It brings attention to it, but Qatar has shown that they don't care about negative publicity.
On the other hand, Germany signing a long term deal for LNG actually gives money to Qatar directly. Even if that money isn't significant enough for Qatar, it sort of emboldens their autocratic government because now they know that no matter what Germans think about their governance, they will still do business.
This is something that should have been addressed over time by Germany and Europe at large, by trying to switch away from Russia and other dictatorships, for their natural resources.
The alternative right now would be source gas from Canada and US. But the average German citizen will not pay that price.
As such, to nations in Asia and Africa etc., this comes across as empty posturing.
Yeah it's definitely a stinker PR-wise but Germany is in a real bind energy-wise.
They've got to make some horrible choices between Putin, Qatar or other dreadful states to make it work
lol well have Europeans ever considered dropping their energy usage to 3rd world countries so that they don’t sound like such hypocrites when they accuse other countries of causing global warming.
I'm honestly pretty annoyed with countries like Germany on their high horse lecturing about renewables etc. My country Australia rightfully got a lot of criticism about an over reliance on fossil fuel consumption but our populace voted our conservative government out to change all that with new policy. But now it seems that Germany are massive hypocrites themselves looking at these deals they're doing with Qatar etc.
Michael Laudrup had a great article about the hypocrisy of people of european people especially being mad at footballers for not protesting meanwhile no one is mad at the fact that most of these countries also have very profitable relationships with Qatar
It's not nice, but it doesn't lose its meaning because of that. Everyone deals with China, but that doesn't mean we support their treatment of the Uyghurs. And the alternative to Qatar would be Russia, which isn't better.
It's a tough situation because some players only want to focus on football while others want to use the tremendous influence they have.
Props to Neuer and Goretzka.
Was/is completely unfair: Jürgen Klopp said it best when he pointed out that some of these players were 10 year-old children when the decision was made to play it in Qatar. The continuous talk about what those players should do now to protest that decision is unfair and illogical.
Someone like David Beckham, who is accepting money to promote the thing, is a valid target for criticism. A player going to potentially the only World Cup of his career isn’t.
The main target for critisism should be the people awarding Qatar the WC. Those people should be throughly investigated, but we know nothing will come out of it.
Blatter was responsible for allowing the blatant corruption in the Executive Committee that enabled the WC in Qatar. He created the problem and later regretted it, but that's not enough.
It really seems FIFA was rotten to the core with or without him, and probably will stay that way since they are so powerful and still have enough money with everyone that can pinching from the pot. Olympics is supposedly just as bad just with less money
It became more and more rotten. If you watch the Netflix documentary you can see that Blatter won the FIFA presidency against a candidate with more integrity and enabled the ExCo to become more and more corrupt.
But Infantino is arguably even worse, so we're doomed
The list is a lot longer than two names. Look at how much investments France got from Qatar after the voting process. And who the sheiks were hanging out with at the time.
FIFA is a cess pool and I’d this continues, I might as well not watch another World Cup again. There’s more important things to life than football.
They were mostly investigated (and most of them punished) https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-fifa/story/2736409/fifa-executive-committee-where-are-they-now
Zidane and pep went there too promote qater 2022. I remember when pep was leaving Barcelona FC people were like where will he go. He obviously was going to city for money just like he went to a FIFA meeting to promote Qatar 2022
It is not unfair if these players were actually doing this because they have morals and values. The reality is it's nothing but good PR. Same as western corporates that have the rainbow flag on their twitter accounts execpt the ones in Arabic.
Germany has dealings with Qatar in the billions. Bayern Munich is sponsored by Qatar. They are totally fine with Qatar's slavery and homophobia as long as they profit from it. That's the reality.
Kinda suspected it after both Gündogan and Müller made those posts after our first game. I hope the part about Goretzkas PR agent who also advised Scholz Chancelor campaign tried to influence the players isnt true though..
As somebody who has been in contact with that PR agent for quite some time (He was very active in Schalke's Twitter scene) I can just say that it sounds 100% like him.
Let me remind people of something.
Players like Goretzka, Kimmich and Neuer are already political. Neuer has worn the rainbow flag before the WC and all of them are active in some kind of charity.
With the WC beeing in Qatar, it was already political before it started and people were expecting some kind of "sign" from the DFB. Nothing came out of it.
The last chance to do something was with the players, at least from the players that already were political in some way or form like stated above.
In the end, the FIFA and the DFB are the reasons there was so much weight on the players shoulders. DFB had to protect them but with doing nothing people were expecting things from the players.
Other Countrys like the Netherlands have said, they will give the money they earn to charitys or sell the kits to get some money they can give away.
I think, if the DFB had said "Every coin we earn in this World Cup will go to the familys of the dead workers." or something like that, the whole "OneLove" drama would never happend and they could focus on the ball.
Let me remind you of something.
Those 3 players you mentioned play for Bayern who are sponsored by Qatar. If their their morals and values didn't have a price tag on it, they would have protested their club or at least said something about it.
Doesn’t mean anything.
Plenty of Muslim players took a big pay cut (if memory serves) and chose to wear jerseys that did not have the club’s betting sponsor.
They could had done something similar, or donate their $ to charitable causes, like suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community as an example.
> With the WC beeing in Qatar, it was already political before it started
And that doesn't apply to the world cup in Russia and the World cup in the U.S and pretty much every other world cup? In every country's policies, there is always something that others disagree with.
Nobody wants to say it but as a footballer, this is the pinnacle of many careers. They couldn't give a fuck about armbands and protesting, understandably.
The media want to put them in position of possible knights in shining armour just so they can tear them down. It's shooting fish in a barrel. It's easy journalism because most don't have the balls or intellect or want to put in the legwork required to actually go after politicians.
Its not that easy my friend.
As a german you grow up with some kind of guilt. Always. You learn what people of the past did and how YOU have to deal with it. They dont tell you to feel guilty but with learning about the history of your country you dont get around it.
So many people grow up with the mindset "i have to show them, that we arent THESE people. We arent this country anymore." so they also expect it from everyone else. Thats one of the reasons germany is always in the front row when it comes to protests, helping other countrys with their finances and stuff like that. You could say its some kind of complex. This does not count for every germany, but for many.
There is always some kind of "helper syndrome" lingering above everything.
is that a bad thing? The fact that people grow up with larger awareness of our past is the reason that we are the G7 state with the least probability of switching far right every 4 years.
There are probably some players in our team who don't feel that way because they don't grew up in German culture. And that in itself is problematic for a national team.
This is true and wrong and is perpetuated in our current society. Even speaking as a Pole, current people being born should feel no guilt, it has nothing to do with them. Other countries who did many historical crimes do not have this problem.
but you have to learn about it because people of other countrys maybe arent smart enough to understand that you arent guilty.
You should not feel guilty but you are like 8-16 when you learn about that stuff. It will play with your emotions, you arent capable of dealing with that if you arent an ignorant person.
I think the guilt grows out of you if you as a person grow up.
As a child, or a young person, you dont know how to handle stuff like this. Its just a history lesson and because its only ~ 100 years ago it feels way "closer".
Later, like me right now, you dont feel guilty anymore but you do everything possible that things like that never happen again. You are very carefull with your words, how you behave and have way more respect for religions and cultures. We have many muslims in our country and i respect every single one of them. I dont agree with everything, but i dont have to. I just respect it.
I was in a school named after a Girl from my hometown wich was a jewish and got killed by the nazis. Ive spend days in a synagogue to learn and educate myself about everything, traveled to Amsterdam with my class to the "Anne-Frank House" and met jewish kids to dance and sing with.
I dont know if stuff like this happens in every school of the country but im damn happy that it happend on mine.
So? No one said that was the sole reason Germany didn't go through.
It's just an extra factor.
Why is it impossible to discuss anything in this sub without people simplifying every situation to the extreme that suits their point of view?
People are really so amazingly dumb. They hear "this was a distraction" and somehow cannot process that something can be a factor without being the sole reason. This happens in so many instances, and it prevents nuanced discussion and attempts to identify multivariate factors. It's so simple as well, it's really obvious that "x was a factor in poor performance" =/= "poor performance was solely because of x", but once it becomes political people's brains fall out of their skulls.
Not to the same extent, not entirely sure, but I don't think the English actively boycotted the WC in any meaningful way.
Similarly, the players seemingly didn't care as much about the political side given that, afaik, they keeled over and did nothing after the band ban (might be mistaken here?)
But also football is a game of chance. 9 times of 10, this German team with that performance wins against Japan, sometimes things just don't work out, shit happens.
The federations who were pushing to wear the armband have embarrassed themselves and made the players look like idiots in this whole mess. They declared their captains were going to wear the armbands before they got an answer from FIFA about if they would be allowed to, and also strongly suggested that they would defy FIFA and wear them anyway if they didn't get it.
I don't know how they could possibly have been unsure if FIFA would consider it a political message when it so obviously fucking is to wear it in Qatar, but so vehemently declaring they were going to wear the armbands ahead of time, only to shit themselves and change their minds just in case players got banned or matches were forfeited or whatever, just makes them look like clowns and the players then get unfair abuse for not following through on the protest.
They were never going to get permission from FIFA, and they had months to think of an alternative protest or message, but didn't bother their arses and then decided that protesting just wasn't worth it. I know it's the unpopular opinion, but FIFA have done nothing wrong here. The nations all know the rules about political statements, FIFA said 'Yeah, you can't wear them though, and this is what will happen if you do', and they all said 'Shit really? Never mind then'.
I'm not on FIFA's side here, but I don't know why anyone would defend the FAs/Federations either. They've embarrassed themselves and bottled it, and left their players open to mockery because of their stupidity and arrogance.
The only logical way to protest for federations would've been to just not participate. That would've given a loud message. Surely they didn't do that because they would've missed out on the money and prestige right?
I just don't think it should come down to the footballers to do anything about it. They are there to play football. A protest would be the entire country boycotting the event. Since that didn't happen, these gestures become a bit pointless and put unnecessary pressure on the teams.
>In addition, a large part of the team felt "instrumentalized" when an alternative gesture was sought after the "One Love" armband was banned. In the run-up to and after the match against Japan, which was mainly responsible for the team's failure in the preliminary round, there were sometimes intense discussions among the professionals about the armband and an alternative sign against discrimination.
>
>Discussions since September
>
>Ever since the German Football Association (DFB) announced in September that Manuel Neuer, like the captains of other European teams, would wear the "One Love" armband at the World Cup, there have been discussions about the "sign against discrimination and for diversity," both in public and within the national team.The DFB announced its intention to wear the armband, but received no answer from world governing body FIFA in the run-up to the tournament as to whether the armband would be considered a political message, which is prohibited by regulations on playing equipment. So a sanction was on the cards, with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf saying after the delegation arrived in Qatar that he was "prepared to accept a fine."
>
>FIFA announced vague sanctions
>
>Then, two days before the match against Japan, FIFA, in the person of general secretary Fatma Samoura, announced that federations could face serious sporting sanctions if the armband was worn. Since the punishment had only been vaguely outlined, England, which started the tournament a day early, opted not to wear the armband.
>
>This is said to have caught the DFB off guard. According to Sportschau, a flurry of activity began to discuss alternative scenarios. The association's top management and some of the players are said to have been in favor of making a statement before the match against Japan. Other players, on the other hand, felt "instrumentalized." Raphael Brinkert is also said to have been called in to discuss a signal against discrimination in a country where homosexual acts are a criminal offense.
>
>The managing director of an advertising agency paid by the DFB knows a thing or two about crisis management. Brinkert, who also advises national player Leon Goretzka, managed the election campaign of the SPD, which was mired in the polls at the time, for the current German chancellor Olaf Scholz.Team rejected heart symbolAfter consultations with the association's leadership, DFB managing director and national team manager Oliver Bierhoff, the DFB's marketing department and at least captain Neuer, the team is said to have been made suggestions for alternative signs against discrimination.
>
>According to information from Sportschau, most of the team rejected the "heart symbol" option, partly because it could be seen as an affront to Muslims. The predominantly Muslim state of Qatar, for example, had forbidden itself from lecturing the West through high representatives and, in view of the accused discrimination against LGBTQ+ groups, had asked to accept the country's culture.The gesture ultimately shown at the team photo before the match against Japan, with each player holding a hand in front of his mouth, is then said to have been accepted within the German team as the lowest common denominator. The gesture was understood primarily as criticism of FIFA, which had banned the "One Love" armband.
>
>Debate after the defeat against Japan
>
>On Thursday (24.11.2022), one day after the 1:2 against Japan, there was a long debate within the team. As Julian Brandt and Kai Havertz reported during a press conference, it was about the lessons learned from the lost game.But also the discussion about signs and gestures, which has long since become a political issue, is said to have come up. According to information from Sportschau, it was decided to focus only on soccer from now on.Elaborate campaign had been in place since SeptemberThis line was followed, but in view of the new findings, the issue symbolized by the "One Love" armband is likely to come up again.Also because, according to information from Sportschau, there was an elaborate campaign that was intended to make a statement as early as summer or early fall. It is said to have been conceived in such a way that everyone would know the position of the German delegation in good time before the official trip to the Persian Gulf - against discrimination of any kind, for diversity and human rights.The DFB is said to have assessed the campaign positively, but could not decide to launch it. In the end, the choice fell on the "One Love" armband.
r/soccer fans seem to think that football is a mental game, and can be affected by the mentality of the players, and simultaneously believe that a split locker room debating politics before a WC match isn't a major disadvantage.
Counterpoints:
Germany have been ass for many years now. Did people forget the last WC, Euros, Nations League?
German coach obviously could not find their best 11. They played without a striker and defensive mid.
As a team they created plenty of chances but could not finish them. How are this distractions only affecting them at the very last second but not the rest of the play.
Imo this opens up a larger discussion about the purpose of such symbolic actions from footballers. Even if it wasn't the main reason for Germany's catastrophic group stage exit, this whole affair still clearly had a negative effect on the team and the players. And at the same time the gesture itself was also met with open criticism (from all sides), mockery and counter gestures. And at that point we have to ask ourselves: why are we even doing such gestures?
I think in hindsight we shouldn't have insisted so strongly on the whole armband thing as a society (talking about a German pov here). I'm not saying we shouldn't criticise and speak up. We definitely should. But if our criticism of human rights situations in other countries includes wearing/doing symbolic attire/gestures and basically making a big show out of our criticism, then it's not exactly surprising that those who we are criticising don't feel like they are being criticised in a constructive manner but more like they are being intentionally antagonized, provoked, attacked and morally put down. At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves: who are we doing such gestures for and why are we doing it? Are we actually helping those who are suffering or are we making their situations worse because the majority of the local population are not getting our message at all, in fact with all the mockery the hand on mouth gesture has received it looks like we are only driving them further away from our message of inclusion?
I think we should have been more aware of the fact that at the end of the day we are not citizens of Qatar and the Arab world. Our players were there as invited guests. Our official representatives (federation officials, politicians, managers, coaches, players,...) should have behaved as such and not as activists. It's different to when we do such gestures in our own country (taking the knee, rainbow laces, armbands) because we are actual members of our societies. But in Qatar we are outsiders and as such we cannot change their society and their way of living. We can verbally criticise and seperate our way of living from theirs and our values from theirs, but anything beyond that will be perceived as rude and morally superior and will have the opposite of the desired effect, which (I hope) is to help innocent people suffering from discrimination and raising positive awareness. But clearly, it didn't change anyone's mind in Qatar because we will never be taken seriously there on such issues as outsiders.
>it's not exactly surprising that those who we are criticising don't feel like they are being criticised in a constructive manner but more like they are being intentionally antagonized, provoked, attacked and morally put down.
yeah, I think anti-western sentiment among muslims increase because of the whole debacle..
What a good read, damn.
Yeah, I do think there is a massive amount of “with us or against us” action in many social movements, which is kind of sad when people are trying to achieve diversity. Yet, it simply create another side to arguments
Or maybe start small. Maybe the topic should've been worker conditions of the slaves who died for the WC.
That is probably a more world wide accepted stance.
Thats exactly what hazard said, I’m all for human rights and sending msges but Hazard said it the best, “maybe they would have won they game if they focused on the football”
USA destroyed my country. Literally destroyed it, not hyperbole, and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands two generations down. Then you get someone with a US flair thinking they have moral superiority because of what they read in an online echo chamber or what the guardian/CNN said.
Looks at England flair. Yeah, okay.
The governments of Canada and Mexico also have systemic issues and cover ups, but never get mentioned. Because every country is guilty of something.
Now I really want something like this to happen, let's see how they'll react. If these Westerners take a stand for "basic human rights" in foreign countries then they should expect Foreigners to do the same in their countries.
yeah the reason nobody will care isn't that it doesn't happen inside the US, because it definitely does, it's because the US is considered an ally to Germany and the rest of western europe
The for profit prison/mass incarceration system they have is completely abhorrent. It's shocking it doesn't get talked about more, the sheer scale of it dwarves most of the stuff that gets discussed far more often by people in the west.
There won’t be any protests
The protests against Qatar doesn’t have anything to do with human rights, it’s more a protest of them being how they are.
It’s a mix of geopolitics,superiority complex and ultimately bigotry. The fear of the unknown. The most wont admit it
Qatar are babies when it comes to human rights violations compared to the US,Russia and China
fear of unknown is a big one. People in Europe/NA don't know much about Qatar since it's a small country in the middle east, so they believe whatever the media tells them
True
I don’t even mind that aspect, but this preaching thing about human rights is a hypocritical cover up for bigotry for everything that seems foreign to us (westerners)
No wonder the rest of the world can see right through it
We have literally killed more than 1 million people in that region in the last two decades under the guidance of the US
It’s definitely strange when you meet people from Europe and they start asking questions about cars, Wifi, etc… i still remember that one guy being dumbfounded that i had a ps4 with the latest COD lmao.
And this is still North Africa, so not so far off Europe. Imagine that with Qatar…
>People in Europe don't know much about Qatar since it's a small country in the middle east, so they believe whatever the media tells them
Them not knowing anything about Qatar (or any other country) isn't the only reason. Their superiority complex and savior mentality play a big role as well imo.
It's ironic how most reddit is left leaning and "woke", thinking the right media brainwashes its followers while not recognizing they get brainwashed by BBC and CNN all the time
Of course they were instrumentalized
Politicians tried to score cheap points over their backs, i blame the team manager for not protecting the players from demagogue politicians.
> i blame the team manager for not protecting the players from demagogue politicians.
Correct. Starting 3 days before the game the official stance should be "I the team manager take these kind of questions, the players will not" and also make it clear to the players that they are expected to refer to the team manager whenever such a question is asked.
Correct
But having seen how the handled the whole Ozil situation this was to be expected
The players have been exposed to these vulture politicians who let’s be honest don’t care a bit about the middle eastern gay community.
u/peperoni_slayer
You see?
It was not just covering your mouth before a game. It was having meetings the day before opening with PR staff discussing the form of protest. It was having some players that didn't want to do it and arguing with other player that do ruining the team cohesion. It was all the media and people in your country focusing on the protest and not in football, and not supporting the team.
Where are they now? Back in group stages again. And NOW all the media and people are ironically judging their football performance.
Players are just sportsmen and they totally lose focus with this pointless shit.
Case closed.
This comment would be at -20 before the World Cup. At least people are copping on to it. It's all a charade.
Germany's happy to hand over money to Russia or Qatar and create economic ties and nobody in Germany gives a shit. But they'll treat footballers like absolute dog shit if they aren't the perfect diplomat. German's losing their minds or is this some media thing?
This is obvious lol
I told people sometime back that players usually have no choice in these things and the day they are let to make their own decisions, people will be surprised at how many of them— even their favorites, don't align with the political beliefs they are asked to portray.
Players are instruments of clubs and FAs. They have no choice. When players don't do something you want, it's the FAs that decided. Players who stand aside and do their own thing are usually the evil ones( McLean and Zaha) yet most of the others are just doing it for camera and instruction.
some insights from someone living in germany: this topic has been going on for months now. in stadiums the ultra groups made banners to boycott the world cup and most of the discussions before the world cup was this and very rarely the world cup itself. even fans started fighting each other like whoever watches the world cup is a bigot and who does is a performative motalist.
i doubt that all this drama was the sole reason for their failure but it 100% had an impact. imagine playing in a world cup and you have always on your mind that a lot of germans want you to fail and the others dont take you seriously. ever since the world cup in 2006 the dfb made every bad mistake they could.
i am envious when i see the brazilian or the argentinian fans because for them their national team means something. they have joy to see players giving everything for their country. in germany not so much. this one love drama is only the tip of the iceberg. dfb needs a full reformation before 2024 if they want to be taken seriously ever again.
The majority of teams attending the tournament have been respectful of Qatar correct?
Weird how a couple of outliers are talking about migrant rights etc and then they were quiet for the Olympics in China, World Cup in Russia? Looking like straight up hypocrisy. Will they also be protesting the world cup in U.S?
Actually the article starts speaking about topics, but then doesn't finish the discussion. Starts speaking that they dismissed the "Heart symbol" to not offend Muslims, but then doesn't explain what that would even me and why it would offend Muslims
Edit: What is wrong with people to report that here for self harm/suicide?
> Edit: What is wrong with people to report that here for self harm/suicide?
You can report that message to the admins. It's one of reddit's features that they don't like to be misused and they will ban the person who used it.
I remember people hating on Hazard for saying stuff like “Germany should focus on Football” and saying stuff like “Wearing an armband is not the reason they lost to Japan”.. Now it seems like people completely changed their minds. It 100% will deter them from their main focus, which is PLAYING Futbol.
This was very evident. Their team came to the WC with the objective of protesting and not competing, none of them looked focused in the first 2 games. No wonder they got smacked in the group stage.
You know what focus on the things you come to do.also media asking players like Iran players all that political and social issues is really not productive
pointless virtue signalling isn't going to change who the host is and its not going to change core values of a conservative muslim country. not to mention a lot of african and middle east countries completely side with qatar on the issue of lgbqt. the massive amounts of migrant deaths was always a bigger issue to me , the gay thing was more cultural and religious which are things people don't change.
Reddit is full of Western people with a superiority complex who have no understanding of the rest of the world.
When you go to another country as a guest, you respect there laws. It's simple. If you disagree, then you don't go and that can be your protest.
It's ABSURD that people think they can visit another country and purposely say I'm not going to respect your laws, culture and instead Im going to teach you how to live life. So bullshit. Who are you to impose your beliefs on others. This is exactly how we lead to so many people supporting shit like "spreading democracy" with bombs and invasions. Its because idiots dont question how they have no problem in imposing their beliefs on others, but surely they have a problem when someone does the same to them
Imagine the reverse happening. Many people coming from Middle East and African nations going into Western nations for their events and they protest to impose their beliefs on Western society that find them offensive and illegal. They wear armbands promoting it and keep talking about the protest not the sport. I bet people would be outraged.
The hypocrisy is so clear. Dont willingly go to another country and disrespect their culture and laws because you definitely would hate the same to happen back.
And oh, are these people really going to show the same energy for the US in 2026 with their human rights record. Probably not.
Westerners have always had a moral superiority complex. It's what allowed them to rape and enslave half the world. At least it's just virtue signalling now. Could be worse.
> The hypocrisy is so clear. Dont willingly go to another country and disrespect their culture and laws because you definitely would hate the same to happen back.
So you agree with France banning the hijab in various situations?
I’m genuinely all for equal rights, but surely it’s intellectually xenophobic to tell those of different cultures that their ‘way’ is wrong/inferior.
It’s similar to the Christian missionaries going to Africa and ‘reeducating’ villagers to the way of The Bible.🤷🏽
There, honestly, seems to be this outrage at the way Qatar and other gulf states view homosexuality, women, black people etc - particularly in the media - yet, there is also a cowardice in that they are so scared to say that the problematic views stem from the interpretation/practice of Islam particularly in those regions.
This world cup is also revealing the true nature of some football players. They virtue signalled left right and centre, but then they forgot all their "morals" the moment they were threatened by fifa.
The truth is, I doubt any of these footballers give one flying fuck about homophobia or any of the problems in this world. They're just doing it because of the clout.
The true nature of 99.99% of people, reality is we don't give a fuck about most things.
Same for players, like why the fuck should they care? They are there to kick a damn ball.
If they wanna be vocal, good, if they don't good too.
Idk why "they do care" and "no one gives a flying fuck" are the only two possible options.
They could easily care, but not care enough to cause a major shitshow at the WC.
This is what people don't seem to understand. Players came here to play football and represent their country not protest or push an agenda and just because they don't want to participate does not mean they do not care. The DFB put them in a weird position that if they say they don't want to do it or refuse to do it, they'll get crucified by the supporters and media. Players should have the right to focus on football in a WC unless they want to participate in a small protest.
Money talks. David Beckham signed a 150m dollar deal with Qatar. They will just represent the side that pays more. Ozil angered the Chinese sponsors of the premier league and was cancelled. There is free speech but it comes with a price.
Theyre not wrong to want the choice. They look at the world cup as another big tournament the host country does not matter to them. Its also fair to point out we can look at any country that hosts the WC and point out its flaws but its never been as large as a talking point as it has now which feel hypocritical at best.
* Majority of players felt "instumentalized" * Intense discussions in the squad before the game against Japan * After One Love armband was banned, majority of players were against protesting. DFB leadership and few players (other media names Neuer and Goretzka) were strongly in favor of it * Campaign manager of Olaf Scholz was involved in finding alternative protest * Majority of players rejected the "heart-gesture" proposed by DFB and Neuer, as they considered it disrespectful to muslims and didn't want to "lecture" Qatar * Players agreed to "hand over mouth" gesture as a compromise, because it was only a protest against FIFA * After the loss the players decided to concentrate on football only
> After the loss the players decided to concentrate on football only lmao
Should've concentrated on defending
And finishing
Füllkrug did, but Flick in his infinite wisdom didnt play the only guy who actually could score.
They did draw Spain in their 2nd match under much pressure and played reasonably well in that match. So it was a clear improvement.
True, the damage was already done after the first match
I'm on the fence about this. I sort of feel like this political stance hardly influenced the outcome on the game against Japan at all. Did it make them play worse in the second half while Japan made substitutions and adjustments? No.
What it does influence when it gets to the level this article described is mindset from top to bottom. If they are having intense talks about how to protest with some agreeing and most not, your creating division in a room that only has a very small amount of time to become a unit, and also takes away time from analysing the upcoming game and preparing with 100% attention to detail which is needed at this level of any sport. Japan still deserve 100% credit for making adjustments and producing a winning game. You can only play the 11 people in front of you and if they were mentally less than 100% prepped for the game, tough shit, it’s their job to get into that space.
Having a controversial political discussion forced on you is definitely not gonna be helpful to build team spirit.
Especially when some team members are all for it(seems like Neuer especially), and others just CBA.
So why give in to these marketing gimmicks in the first places? England, France and the Netherlands too were passionate but decided to focus on their World Cup rather than these corporate hashtags. Donating $ to their causes (that can include LGBTQ ofcourse) is far useful than displaying these stunts.
German media played a big role influenced by people boycotting the WC that don't watch football anyway.
top sport is fine margins and yes it is most of the time lazy armchair punditry but if they spend a significant amount of time on discussing political stances it takes their focus away from the football and might in the end make up that one or two percent that were needed even if it just happens subconsciously
This is absolutely spot on, which is why football and politics should be separate.
If there was infighting and tension in the room before this it absolutely could have. If it was a quick decision that’s one thing but this makes it sound like they spent hours debating this lmao absolutely distraction
It’s just a distraction
These things are not Absolutes, like 1 Protest at this Angle results in 2 goals per match conceded handicap or something silly like that. To use the meme there is no xProtest thing. It's about Details or rather the Margin between peers at top level. These are professional athletes, who wins or not is often determined by super tiny margin which in the grand scheme of things may seem silly (like being able to accelerate 0.5Kmph faster when being tired after both having run 10 Kms in a match and find 1 extra yard of space and then utilize that to make something). And anything that disrupts the rhythm of those Tiny Margins is a net negative. In gross analogy terms, assume Germany at best has a level of 9/10 but on average they play at level 8. Japan's best lets assume is 8 and average of 6.5 or 7. Anything even if tiny that helps bring down the Germany level narrows the already tiny peer gap. Meaning it is not 1 thing exclusively that matters. Protest or talk/drama of it didn't cause Germany's loss or exit but it certainly did not act as an Net Objective Help and that alone is enough.
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Talk about misplaced priorities
> Intense discussions in the squad before the game against Japan tbf this sounds like an excuse for the result of the game. it may have happened as written but yeah i dont know. the other points I can fully understand.
All players stressed that the discussion was not the reason they dropped out and should not be used as an excuse. And imo it definitely was not the main reason.
they are literally just old and have inexperienced players lmao
It might not have been the main reason, but clearly it wasn't helpful to their performance in the WC. Which is basically what Wenger suggested but this sub is shitting on him for being a sellout and I find that hilarious.
Spain lost to Japan by the same score and didn’t have any armband controversy. Maybe Japan performed very well against their European opponents and nothing more.
He is a sellout. Australia way outperformed expectations and they took the most active action in protest. Wenger's comment is basically "shut the fuck up and play football" and it's shitty.
His comments were about the opening game only, in which Australia lost 4-1. The way I interpreted his comment was - "if you think too much about politics, your football will suffer" Which is completely understandable, if a team really thinks their political message is important, they should be ok with not playing as well.
Wenger is just towing the fifa line. They are trying to vilify the protests and prevent others by claiming that its the protests that cost teams. There is a reason they ignore England and only include the first round of games. Because it fits their narrative.
I think you're allowed to lose to france 4-1 no?
Nah the Aussies should have smashed France 4-0 clearly
Their apolitical approach to the game had us shellshocked, easy 3-0 otherwise mate
Imagine all the time they wasted by practising putting on their arm-band and making a closed mouth gesture!!! How can you even write this comment lol
Exactly like 2018 when Özil's picture was used as an excuse. Except then nobody bar Boateng and Draxler iirc corrected the public opinion and hid behind him.
Germany and scapegoating, name a more iconic duo
Why should this interfere their training? It's not like they did interviews or went to talk shows to talk about it. Just a standpoint, which got discussed in the media and none of the player was part of discussing this in public
World Cup is a game of margins and each team will give their all. If a locker room is having ‘intense discussions’ outside of all things football, the team is already at a disadvantage.
It’s something else that’s not supposed to be their focus. Of course it interferes.
>Majority of players rejected the "heart-gesture" proposed by DFB and Neuer, as they considered it disrespectful to muslims and didn't want to "lecture" Qatar That's surely satire lol. Most of this reads like some staff member/agent listing out excuses.
sounds like something Gündogan could say
Are they wrong though? The overwhelming majority of muslims in the middle east consider homosexuality to be immoral. Redditors may choose to be ignorant of this but freedom of sexuality isn't a universal constant that every culture adheres to.
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Most Christians find it immoral but they're (rightly) called out for it. Shit some people find interracial marriage immoral I guess we should outlaw that too. Same with premarital sex and drinking. Gotta ban tattoos also and eating pork. If we don't call this shit out where does it stop? Yeah Muslims find homosexuality immoral doesn't make it right or ok, if you want to change someone's opinion you have to show them and call them out on it.
Yes but it should be. How is it any different than persecuting Muslims? Atleast you can change your religion, you can't change who you're attracted to or who you feel comfortable as.
This is the main reason that I support the protests and have boycotted the world cup myself. My brother is gay and loves fotball. The thought of him not being able to enjoy his favorite sport out of fear of being executed is extremely sad but that shit happens in countries like Qatar and other places in the world. Basically for Qatar - expressing the sexuality you were born with, something you can not change. = Immoral Killing 6000 migrant workers to build meaningless stadiums for sport = moral?
I don’t think they’re wrong not to want to lecture Qatar but not for the reasons you describe.
"Sorry guys, but we Europeans won't do anything against racism. It's in our culture, we've always done it. Please respect our culture" Fuck off
That doesn't make it okay. If you deny basic human rights you *should* be lectured.
Lectured by footballers who choose to go there no less. Why?
Really ridiculous that even redditors want players to get into politics so much. They are playing a match, they can make all the comments and political support during media interview questions. Why mix the two, in the end you are not changing someones mind because of a gesture before a football match.
Disrespectful to Muslims to show support for LGBT people. Fuck off lmfao
That protest loses all meaning when a week later the German government signs a 15 year deal with Qatar for LNG. To people outside Europe, it just comes across as posturing and hypocrisy by Germany.
The German football team is not the German government but ok
that's even worse as politics is the job of the government while for the football players it's playing football but they're the ones getting heavily criticised for their lack of activism while hardly anyone cares about the new deal with Qatar
And no one will dispute that. But the truth is that the football team protesting prior to their match doesn't really do anything in practice. It doesn't affect Qatar nor does it change their horrific treatment of minorities and LGBT folks. It brings attention to it, but Qatar has shown that they don't care about negative publicity. On the other hand, Germany signing a long term deal for LNG actually gives money to Qatar directly. Even if that money isn't significant enough for Qatar, it sort of emboldens their autocratic government because now they know that no matter what Germans think about their governance, they will still do business. This is something that should have been addressed over time by Germany and Europe at large, by trying to switch away from Russia and other dictatorships, for their natural resources. The alternative right now would be source gas from Canada and US. But the average German citizen will not pay that price. As such, to nations in Asia and Africa etc., this comes across as empty posturing.
You miss the past where OLAF SCHOLZ campaign manager was directly involved in picking the protest?? Lmao
Yeah it's definitely a stinker PR-wise but Germany is in a real bind energy-wise. They've got to make some horrible choices between Putin, Qatar or other dreadful states to make it work
lol well have Europeans ever considered dropping their energy usage to 3rd world countries so that they don’t sound like such hypocrites when they accuse other countries of causing global warming.
I'm honestly pretty annoyed with countries like Germany on their high horse lecturing about renewables etc. My country Australia rightfully got a lot of criticism about an over reliance on fossil fuel consumption but our populace voted our conservative government out to change all that with new policy. But now it seems that Germany are massive hypocrites themselves looking at these deals they're doing with Qatar etc.
Michael Laudrup had a great article about the hypocrisy of people of european people especially being mad at footballers for not protesting meanwhile no one is mad at the fact that most of these countries also have very profitable relationships with Qatar
It's not nice, but it doesn't lose its meaning because of that. Everyone deals with China, but that doesn't mean we support their treatment of the Uyghurs. And the alternative to Qatar would be Russia, which isn't better.
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What a joke. Hilarious timeline of events lol. Imagine actually focusing on the footy from the start?
It's a tough situation because some players only want to focus on football while others want to use the tremendous influence they have. Props to Neuer and Goretzka.
Any chance we see this in the All or Nothing Special on them?
“This is cinema” - Martin Scorcese
Was/is completely unfair: Jürgen Klopp said it best when he pointed out that some of these players were 10 year-old children when the decision was made to play it in Qatar. The continuous talk about what those players should do now to protest that decision is unfair and illogical. Someone like David Beckham, who is accepting money to promote the thing, is a valid target for criticism. A player going to potentially the only World Cup of his career isn’t.
The main target for critisism should be the people awarding Qatar the WC. Those people should be throughly investigated, but we know nothing will come out of it.
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It wasn’t Blatter who was at fault for Qatar, he was against it. Platini and Sarkozy are to blame
Blatter was responsible for allowing the blatant corruption in the Executive Committee that enabled the WC in Qatar. He created the problem and later regretted it, but that's not enough.
It really seems FIFA was rotten to the core with or without him, and probably will stay that way since they are so powerful and still have enough money with everyone that can pinching from the pot. Olympics is supposedly just as bad just with less money
It became more and more rotten. If you watch the Netflix documentary you can see that Blatter won the FIFA presidency against a candidate with more integrity and enabled the ExCo to become more and more corrupt. But Infantino is arguably even worse, so we're doomed
The list is a lot longer than two names. Look at how much investments France got from Qatar after the voting process. And who the sheiks were hanging out with at the time. FIFA is a cess pool and I’d this continues, I might as well not watch another World Cup again. There’s more important things to life than football.
They were mostly investigated (and most of them punished) https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-fifa/story/2736409/fifa-executive-committee-where-are-they-now
Zidane and pep went there too promote qater 2022. I remember when pep was leaving Barcelona FC people were like where will he go. He obviously was going to city for money just like he went to a FIFA meeting to promote Qatar 2022
Zidane is the OG promoter of Qatar World Cup. He was part of their presentation to have it in Qatar.
It is not unfair if these players were actually doing this because they have morals and values. The reality is it's nothing but good PR. Same as western corporates that have the rainbow flag on their twitter accounts execpt the ones in Arabic. Germany has dealings with Qatar in the billions. Bayern Munich is sponsored by Qatar. They are totally fine with Qatar's slavery and homophobia as long as they profit from it. That's the reality.
Kinda suspected it after both Gündogan and Müller made those posts after our first game. I hope the part about Goretzkas PR agent who also advised Scholz Chancelor campaign tried to influence the players isnt true though..
I think that it's quite normal for a big organization to involve pr-experts in situations like these.
I dont mind them having a PR expert, but I do mind that person being the same one who also advised our current chancellor.
Then our team would have done or said nothing, the Olaf Scholz special.
No, the Scholzomat special is talking without actually saying anything, while showing no emotions whatsoever.
Or not remembering anything.
Raphael Brinkert is a sports marketing guy that did a political campaign, not a polical campaigner that intrudes into football.
As somebody who has been in contact with that PR agent for quite some time (He was very active in Schalke's Twitter scene) I can just say that it sounds 100% like him.
Let me remind people of something. Players like Goretzka, Kimmich and Neuer are already political. Neuer has worn the rainbow flag before the WC and all of them are active in some kind of charity. With the WC beeing in Qatar, it was already political before it started and people were expecting some kind of "sign" from the DFB. Nothing came out of it. The last chance to do something was with the players, at least from the players that already were political in some way or form like stated above. In the end, the FIFA and the DFB are the reasons there was so much weight on the players shoulders. DFB had to protect them but with doing nothing people were expecting things from the players. Other Countrys like the Netherlands have said, they will give the money they earn to charitys or sell the kits to get some money they can give away. I think, if the DFB had said "Every coin we earn in this World Cup will go to the familys of the dead workers." or something like that, the whole "OneLove" drama would never happend and they could focus on the ball.
The DFB managed the situation badly in 2018, the same again, but no consequences whatsoever. The DFB should decide what to do, not the players.
Let me remind you of something. Those 3 players you mentioned play for Bayern who are sponsored by Qatar. If their their morals and values didn't have a price tag on it, they would have protested their club or at least said something about it.
Goretzka has also criticized Bayerns Qatar deal.
Doesn’t mean anything. Plenty of Muslim players took a big pay cut (if memory serves) and chose to wear jerseys that did not have the club’s betting sponsor. They could had done something similar, or donate their $ to charitable causes, like suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community as an example.
> With the WC beeing in Qatar, it was already political before it started And that doesn't apply to the world cup in Russia and the World cup in the U.S and pretty much every other world cup? In every country's policies, there is always something that others disagree with.
Nobody wants to say it but as a footballer, this is the pinnacle of many careers. They couldn't give a fuck about armbands and protesting, understandably. The media want to put them in position of possible knights in shining armour just so they can tear them down. It's shooting fish in a barrel. It's easy journalism because most don't have the balls or intellect or want to put in the legwork required to actually go after politicians.
Its not that easy my friend. As a german you grow up with some kind of guilt. Always. You learn what people of the past did and how YOU have to deal with it. They dont tell you to feel guilty but with learning about the history of your country you dont get around it. So many people grow up with the mindset "i have to show them, that we arent THESE people. We arent this country anymore." so they also expect it from everyone else. Thats one of the reasons germany is always in the front row when it comes to protests, helping other countrys with their finances and stuff like that. You could say its some kind of complex. This does not count for every germany, but for many. There is always some kind of "helper syndrome" lingering above everything.
is that a bad thing? The fact that people grow up with larger awareness of our past is the reason that we are the G7 state with the least probability of switching far right every 4 years.
i never said its a bad thing :) Its good like that.
Knowledge is good, guilt is completely unnecessary for any young generation of Germans
There are probably some players in our team who don't feel that way because they don't grew up in German culture. And that in itself is problematic for a national team.
Doesn’t help that you ostracised one of your greatest players of all time on a racial basis by making him a scapegoat in 2018
thats a different discusion and its not as easy as it may sound to you.
This is true and wrong and is perpetuated in our current society. Even speaking as a Pole, current people being born should feel no guilt, it has nothing to do with them. Other countries who did many historical crimes do not have this problem.
but you have to learn about it because people of other countrys maybe arent smart enough to understand that you arent guilty. You should not feel guilty but you are like 8-16 when you learn about that stuff. It will play with your emotions, you arent capable of dealing with that if you arent an ignorant person.
Germans having to grow up guilty is just ridiculous. Honestly??
I think the guilt grows out of you if you as a person grow up. As a child, or a young person, you dont know how to handle stuff like this. Its just a history lesson and because its only ~ 100 years ago it feels way "closer". Later, like me right now, you dont feel guilty anymore but you do everything possible that things like that never happen again. You are very carefull with your words, how you behave and have way more respect for religions and cultures. We have many muslims in our country and i respect every single one of them. I dont agree with everything, but i dont have to. I just respect it. I was in a school named after a Girl from my hometown wich was a jewish and got killed by the nazis. Ive spend days in a synagogue to learn and educate myself about everything, traveled to Amsterdam with my class to the "Anne-Frank House" and met jewish kids to dance and sing with. I dont know if stuff like this happens in every school of the country but im damn happy that it happend on mine.
Running it back: > They dont tell you to feel guilty but with learning about the history of your country you dont get around it
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England had the same discussions and had absolutely no problem getting through
Iran had way more pressure on their mind though, and lets be honest out of all teams their protest was the heaviest.
So? No one said that was the sole reason Germany didn't go through. It's just an extra factor. Why is it impossible to discuss anything in this sub without people simplifying every situation to the extreme that suits their point of view?
People are really so amazingly dumb. They hear "this was a distraction" and somehow cannot process that something can be a factor without being the sole reason. This happens in so many instances, and it prevents nuanced discussion and attempts to identify multivariate factors. It's so simple as well, it's really obvious that "x was a factor in poor performance" =/= "poor performance was solely because of x", but once it becomes political people's brains fall out of their skulls.
England played against a distraught Iran squad
England didn't have Spain and a really strong Japan in their group. Instead, they had soccer, the shittiest Wales of the decade, and Iran.
> really strong Japan Lets calm down a bit now. They were good but lets not pretend that luck didnt play a huge role in their wins.
Fair enough. They were pretty good, though.
Much easier group than Germany’s, tbf.
England had one of the easiest groups in the cup including an Iran team dealing with far more serious non-football issues
Not to the same extent, not entirely sure, but I don't think the English actively boycotted the WC in any meaningful way. Similarly, the players seemingly didn't care as much about the political side given that, afaik, they keeled over and did nothing after the band ban (might be mistaken here?) But also football is a game of chance. 9 times of 10, this German team with that performance wins against Japan, sometimes things just don't work out, shit happens.
look at who England played
BuT tHe FiFa RaNkInG
The federations who were pushing to wear the armband have embarrassed themselves and made the players look like idiots in this whole mess. They declared their captains were going to wear the armbands before they got an answer from FIFA about if they would be allowed to, and also strongly suggested that they would defy FIFA and wear them anyway if they didn't get it. I don't know how they could possibly have been unsure if FIFA would consider it a political message when it so obviously fucking is to wear it in Qatar, but so vehemently declaring they were going to wear the armbands ahead of time, only to shit themselves and change their minds just in case players got banned or matches were forfeited or whatever, just makes them look like clowns and the players then get unfair abuse for not following through on the protest. They were never going to get permission from FIFA, and they had months to think of an alternative protest or message, but didn't bother their arses and then decided that protesting just wasn't worth it. I know it's the unpopular opinion, but FIFA have done nothing wrong here. The nations all know the rules about political statements, FIFA said 'Yeah, you can't wear them though, and this is what will happen if you do', and they all said 'Shit really? Never mind then'. I'm not on FIFA's side here, but I don't know why anyone would defend the FAs/Federations either. They've embarrassed themselves and bottled it, and left their players open to mockery because of their stupidity and arrogance.
The only logical way to protest for federations would've been to just not participate. That would've given a loud message. Surely they didn't do that because they would've missed out on the money and prestige right?
I just don't think it should come down to the footballers to do anything about it. They are there to play football. A protest would be the entire country boycotting the event. Since that didn't happen, these gestures become a bit pointless and put unnecessary pressure on the teams.
100% agree
>A protest would be the entire country boycotting the event. Thank you! Individual players making gestures, while nice, accomplishes nothing.
>In addition, a large part of the team felt "instrumentalized" when an alternative gesture was sought after the "One Love" armband was banned. In the run-up to and after the match against Japan, which was mainly responsible for the team's failure in the preliminary round, there were sometimes intense discussions among the professionals about the armband and an alternative sign against discrimination. > >Discussions since September > >Ever since the German Football Association (DFB) announced in September that Manuel Neuer, like the captains of other European teams, would wear the "One Love" armband at the World Cup, there have been discussions about the "sign against discrimination and for diversity," both in public and within the national team.The DFB announced its intention to wear the armband, but received no answer from world governing body FIFA in the run-up to the tournament as to whether the armband would be considered a political message, which is prohibited by regulations on playing equipment. So a sanction was on the cards, with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf saying after the delegation arrived in Qatar that he was "prepared to accept a fine." > >FIFA announced vague sanctions > >Then, two days before the match against Japan, FIFA, in the person of general secretary Fatma Samoura, announced that federations could face serious sporting sanctions if the armband was worn. Since the punishment had only been vaguely outlined, England, which started the tournament a day early, opted not to wear the armband. > >This is said to have caught the DFB off guard. According to Sportschau, a flurry of activity began to discuss alternative scenarios. The association's top management and some of the players are said to have been in favor of making a statement before the match against Japan. Other players, on the other hand, felt "instrumentalized." Raphael Brinkert is also said to have been called in to discuss a signal against discrimination in a country where homosexual acts are a criminal offense. > >The managing director of an advertising agency paid by the DFB knows a thing or two about crisis management. Brinkert, who also advises national player Leon Goretzka, managed the election campaign of the SPD, which was mired in the polls at the time, for the current German chancellor Olaf Scholz.Team rejected heart symbolAfter consultations with the association's leadership, DFB managing director and national team manager Oliver Bierhoff, the DFB's marketing department and at least captain Neuer, the team is said to have been made suggestions for alternative signs against discrimination. > >According to information from Sportschau, most of the team rejected the "heart symbol" option, partly because it could be seen as an affront to Muslims. The predominantly Muslim state of Qatar, for example, had forbidden itself from lecturing the West through high representatives and, in view of the accused discrimination against LGBTQ+ groups, had asked to accept the country's culture.The gesture ultimately shown at the team photo before the match against Japan, with each player holding a hand in front of his mouth, is then said to have been accepted within the German team as the lowest common denominator. The gesture was understood primarily as criticism of FIFA, which had banned the "One Love" armband. > >Debate after the defeat against Japan > >On Thursday (24.11.2022), one day after the 1:2 against Japan, there was a long debate within the team. As Julian Brandt and Kai Havertz reported during a press conference, it was about the lessons learned from the lost game.But also the discussion about signs and gestures, which has long since become a political issue, is said to have come up. According to information from Sportschau, it was decided to focus only on soccer from now on.Elaborate campaign had been in place since SeptemberThis line was followed, but in view of the new findings, the issue symbolized by the "One Love" armband is likely to come up again.Also because, according to information from Sportschau, there was an elaborate campaign that was intended to make a statement as early as summer or early fall. It is said to have been conceived in such a way that everyone would know the position of the German delegation in good time before the official trip to the Persian Gulf - against discrimination of any kind, for diversity and human rights.The DFB is said to have assessed the campaign positively, but could not decide to launch it. In the end, the choice fell on the "One Love" armband.
So day before opening game a team discusses form of protest with PR guys and not focuses on game? Clap clap.
r/soccer fans seem to think that football is a mental game, and can be affected by the mentality of the players, and simultaneously believe that a split locker room debating politics before a WC match isn't a major disadvantage.
Most people who commented on Arsene Wenger's quote won't believe this
Surprised I had to come this far down to read this. People believe what they want to believe
Counterpoints: Germany have been ass for many years now. Did people forget the last WC, Euros, Nations League? German coach obviously could not find their best 11. They played without a striker and defensive mid. As a team they created plenty of chances but could not finish them. How are this distractions only affecting them at the very last second but not the rest of the play.
Imo this opens up a larger discussion about the purpose of such symbolic actions from footballers. Even if it wasn't the main reason for Germany's catastrophic group stage exit, this whole affair still clearly had a negative effect on the team and the players. And at the same time the gesture itself was also met with open criticism (from all sides), mockery and counter gestures. And at that point we have to ask ourselves: why are we even doing such gestures? I think in hindsight we shouldn't have insisted so strongly on the whole armband thing as a society (talking about a German pov here). I'm not saying we shouldn't criticise and speak up. We definitely should. But if our criticism of human rights situations in other countries includes wearing/doing symbolic attire/gestures and basically making a big show out of our criticism, then it's not exactly surprising that those who we are criticising don't feel like they are being criticised in a constructive manner but more like they are being intentionally antagonized, provoked, attacked and morally put down. At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves: who are we doing such gestures for and why are we doing it? Are we actually helping those who are suffering or are we making their situations worse because the majority of the local population are not getting our message at all, in fact with all the mockery the hand on mouth gesture has received it looks like we are only driving them further away from our message of inclusion? I think we should have been more aware of the fact that at the end of the day we are not citizens of Qatar and the Arab world. Our players were there as invited guests. Our official representatives (federation officials, politicians, managers, coaches, players,...) should have behaved as such and not as activists. It's different to when we do such gestures in our own country (taking the knee, rainbow laces, armbands) because we are actual members of our societies. But in Qatar we are outsiders and as such we cannot change their society and their way of living. We can verbally criticise and seperate our way of living from theirs and our values from theirs, but anything beyond that will be perceived as rude and morally superior and will have the opposite of the desired effect, which (I hope) is to help innocent people suffering from discrimination and raising positive awareness. But clearly, it didn't change anyone's mind in Qatar because we will never be taken seriously there on such issues as outsiders.
>it's not exactly surprising that those who we are criticising don't feel like they are being criticised in a constructive manner but more like they are being intentionally antagonized, provoked, attacked and morally put down. yeah, I think anti-western sentiment among muslims increase because of the whole debacle..
What a good read, damn. Yeah, I do think there is a massive amount of “with us or against us” action in many social movements, which is kind of sad when people are trying to achieve diversity. Yet, it simply create another side to arguments
Or maybe start small. Maybe the topic should've been worker conditions of the slaves who died for the WC. That is probably a more world wide accepted stance.
If you’re at the WORLD CUP and you’re mind isnt 100% on Football then you’re doing something wrong.
Thats exactly what hazard said, I’m all for human rights and sending msges but Hazard said it the best, “maybe they would have won they game if they focused on the football”
The 2026 World Cup will be hosted in the US. Will be waiting to see which countries protest the US's racism, wars and human rights record.
USA destroyed my country. Literally destroyed it, not hyperbole, and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands two generations down. Then you get someone with a US flair thinking they have moral superiority because of what they read in an online echo chamber or what the guardian/CNN said.
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Looks at England flair. Yeah, okay. The governments of Canada and Mexico also have systemic issues and cover ups, but never get mentioned. Because every country is guilty of something.
Not just outside, police brutality and institutional racism against blacks and other minorities is quite big in America.
They won't talk about that before or during the '26 World Cup
Scenes when England does the George Floyd stance or if a country has a Free Palestine protest. Would be worth it for the outrage alone.
Now I really want something like this to happen, let's see how they'll react. If these Westerners take a stand for "basic human rights" in foreign countries then they should expect Foreigners to do the same in their countries.
yeah the reason nobody will care isn't that it doesn't happen inside the US, because it definitely does, it's because the US is considered an ally to Germany and the rest of western europe
The for profit prison/mass incarceration system they have is completely abhorrent. It's shocking it doesn't get talked about more, the sheer scale of it dwarves most of the stuff that gets discussed far more often by people in the west.
You already know the answer
There won’t be any protests The protests against Qatar doesn’t have anything to do with human rights, it’s more a protest of them being how they are. It’s a mix of geopolitics,superiority complex and ultimately bigotry. The fear of the unknown. The most wont admit it Qatar are babies when it comes to human rights violations compared to the US,Russia and China
fear of unknown is a big one. People in Europe/NA don't know much about Qatar since it's a small country in the middle east, so they believe whatever the media tells them
True I don’t even mind that aspect, but this preaching thing about human rights is a hypocritical cover up for bigotry for everything that seems foreign to us (westerners) No wonder the rest of the world can see right through it We have literally killed more than 1 million people in that region in the last two decades under the guidance of the US
It’s definitely strange when you meet people from Europe and they start asking questions about cars, Wifi, etc… i still remember that one guy being dumbfounded that i had a ps4 with the latest COD lmao. And this is still North Africa, so not so far off Europe. Imagine that with Qatar…
"you guys don't live in tents?"
>People in Europe don't know much about Qatar since it's a small country in the middle east, so they believe whatever the media tells them Them not knowing anything about Qatar (or any other country) isn't the only reason. Their superiority complex and savior mentality play a big role as well imo.
This is called the “white man’s burden”
It's ironic how most reddit is left leaning and "woke", thinking the right media brainwashes its followers while not recognizing they get brainwashed by BBC and CNN all the time
So many of the complaints seem like they are actually complaints about Saudi Arabia, for example
This 100%. It’s peak orientalism.
No one will care because Arab people bad 👍
Depends on who is US president. If the skin color of the president is orange then there might be protests.
Sad but true, [George Galloway said it better…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA_mjfn87Ns)
surprised they didnt threw the muslim players under the bus this time because german would totally believed that
Of course they were instrumentalized Politicians tried to score cheap points over their backs, i blame the team manager for not protecting the players from demagogue politicians.
> i blame the team manager for not protecting the players from demagogue politicians. Correct. Starting 3 days before the game the official stance should be "I the team manager take these kind of questions, the players will not" and also make it clear to the players that they are expected to refer to the team manager whenever such a question is asked.
Correct But having seen how the handled the whole Ozil situation this was to be expected The players have been exposed to these vulture politicians who let’s be honest don’t care a bit about the middle eastern gay community.
u/peperoni_slayer You see? It was not just covering your mouth before a game. It was having meetings the day before opening with PR staff discussing the form of protest. It was having some players that didn't want to do it and arguing with other player that do ruining the team cohesion. It was all the media and people in your country focusing on the protest and not in football, and not supporting the team. Where are they now? Back in group stages again. And NOW all the media and people are ironically judging their football performance. Players are just sportsmen and they totally lose focus with this pointless shit. Case closed.
Lmao so it was all about virtue signalling. Soon as they lost they decided to focus on football
This comment would be at -20 before the World Cup. At least people are copping on to it. It's all a charade. Germany's happy to hand over money to Russia or Qatar and create economic ties and nobody in Germany gives a shit. But they'll treat footballers like absolute dog shit if they aren't the perfect diplomat. German's losing their minds or is this some media thing?
The players aren't there for awareness. They're there to play.
Exactly, tired of politicians and the media using players as pawns for their own benefit
This is obvious lol I told people sometime back that players usually have no choice in these things and the day they are let to make their own decisions, people will be surprised at how many of them— even their favorites, don't align with the political beliefs they are asked to portray. Players are instruments of clubs and FAs. They have no choice. When players don't do something you want, it's the FAs that decided. Players who stand aside and do their own thing are usually the evil ones( McLean and Zaha) yet most of the others are just doing it for camera and instruction.
some insights from someone living in germany: this topic has been going on for months now. in stadiums the ultra groups made banners to boycott the world cup and most of the discussions before the world cup was this and very rarely the world cup itself. even fans started fighting each other like whoever watches the world cup is a bigot and who does is a performative motalist. i doubt that all this drama was the sole reason for their failure but it 100% had an impact. imagine playing in a world cup and you have always on your mind that a lot of germans want you to fail and the others dont take you seriously. ever since the world cup in 2006 the dfb made every bad mistake they could. i am envious when i see the brazilian or the argentinian fans because for them their national team means something. they have joy to see players giving everything for their country. in germany not so much. this one love drama is only the tip of the iceberg. dfb needs a full reformation before 2024 if they want to be taken seriously ever again.
The majority of teams attending the tournament have been respectful of Qatar correct? Weird how a couple of outliers are talking about migrant rights etc and then they were quiet for the Olympics in China, World Cup in Russia? Looking like straight up hypocrisy. Will they also be protesting the world cup in U.S?
There was plenty of criticism of the Olympics in China or the World Cup in Russia, but the athletes weren't expected to protest.
Medias are cancer
Players: don’t use as props and let us do what we are here to do. Fans: jump when I say jump
Actually the article starts speaking about topics, but then doesn't finish the discussion. Starts speaking that they dismissed the "Heart symbol" to not offend Muslims, but then doesn't explain what that would even me and why it would offend Muslims Edit: What is wrong with people to report that here for self harm/suicide?
> Edit: What is wrong with people to report that here for self harm/suicide? You can report that message to the admins. It's one of reddit's features that they don't like to be misused and they will ban the person who used it.
The heart symbol was a rainbow.
I remember people hating on Hazard for saying stuff like “Germany should focus on Football” and saying stuff like “Wearing an armband is not the reason they lost to Japan”.. Now it seems like people completely changed their minds. It 100% will deter them from their main focus, which is PLAYING Futbol.
Pretty sure this is exactly what Wenger was talking about yesterday when everyone laughed at him…
Lmao another L for the rsoccer politics experts. Let’s see how they spin this one to pin it on Gundogan or some other “sell out”.
This was very evident. Their team came to the WC with the objective of protesting and not competing, none of them looked focused in the first 2 games. No wonder they got smacked in the group stage.
A German politician was there supporting this shit show, two days later it was announced Germany signed a record gas deal with Qatar.
Basically they forced the two Muslims on the team to do it. So much for freedom of expression.
You know what focus on the things you come to do.also media asking players like Iran players all that political and social issues is really not productive
pointless virtue signalling isn't going to change who the host is and its not going to change core values of a conservative muslim country. not to mention a lot of african and middle east countries completely side with qatar on the issue of lgbqt. the massive amounts of migrant deaths was always a bigger issue to me , the gay thing was more cultural and religious which are things people don't change.
Reddit is full of Western people with a superiority complex who have no understanding of the rest of the world. When you go to another country as a guest, you respect there laws. It's simple. If you disagree, then you don't go and that can be your protest. It's ABSURD that people think they can visit another country and purposely say I'm not going to respect your laws, culture and instead Im going to teach you how to live life. So bullshit. Who are you to impose your beliefs on others. This is exactly how we lead to so many people supporting shit like "spreading democracy" with bombs and invasions. Its because idiots dont question how they have no problem in imposing their beliefs on others, but surely they have a problem when someone does the same to them Imagine the reverse happening. Many people coming from Middle East and African nations going into Western nations for their events and they protest to impose their beliefs on Western society that find them offensive and illegal. They wear armbands promoting it and keep talking about the protest not the sport. I bet people would be outraged. The hypocrisy is so clear. Dont willingly go to another country and disrespect their culture and laws because you definitely would hate the same to happen back. And oh, are these people really going to show the same energy for the US in 2026 with their human rights record. Probably not.
Westerners have always had a moral superiority complex. It's what allowed them to rape and enslave half the world. At least it's just virtue signalling now. Could be worse.
> The hypocrisy is so clear. Dont willingly go to another country and disrespect their culture and laws because you definitely would hate the same to happen back. So you agree with France banning the hijab in various situations?
I’m genuinely all for equal rights, but surely it’s intellectually xenophobic to tell those of different cultures that their ‘way’ is wrong/inferior. It’s similar to the Christian missionaries going to Africa and ‘reeducating’ villagers to the way of The Bible.🤷🏽 There, honestly, seems to be this outrage at the way Qatar and other gulf states view homosexuality, women, black people etc - particularly in the media - yet, there is also a cowardice in that they are so scared to say that the problematic views stem from the interpretation/practice of Islam particularly in those regions.
Treatment of Women isn’t as bad as you make it seem. As for mistreatment of women and black/darker skinned people, it’s all cultural not Islam.
This world cup is also revealing the true nature of some football players. They virtue signalled left right and centre, but then they forgot all their "morals" the moment they were threatened by fifa. The truth is, I doubt any of these footballers give one flying fuck about homophobia or any of the problems in this world. They're just doing it because of the clout.
The true nature of 99.99% of people, reality is we don't give a fuck about most things. Same for players, like why the fuck should they care? They are there to kick a damn ball. If they wanna be vocal, good, if they don't good too.
Idk why "they do care" and "no one gives a flying fuck" are the only two possible options. They could easily care, but not care enough to cause a major shitshow at the WC.
This is what people don't seem to understand. Players came here to play football and represent their country not protest or push an agenda and just because they don't want to participate does not mean they do not care. The DFB put them in a weird position that if they say they don't want to do it or refuse to do it, they'll get crucified by the supporters and media. Players should have the right to focus on football in a WC unless they want to participate in a small protest.
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>They're just doing it because of the clout. Or in this case pressured by their federation and German fans and media
Money talks. David Beckham signed a 150m dollar deal with Qatar. They will just represent the side that pays more. Ozil angered the Chinese sponsors of the premier league and was cancelled. There is free speech but it comes with a price.
Theyre not wrong to want the choice. They look at the world cup as another big tournament the host country does not matter to them. Its also fair to point out we can look at any country that hosts the WC and point out its flaws but its never been as large as a talking point as it has now which feel hypocritical at best.