npearl4spurs
Believing Member
- Sep 9, 2014
- 4,252
- 11,118
Let's All Laugh At... Let's all laugh at Liverpool thread
- Thread starter OmarsComing
- Start date
riggi
Well-Known Member
- Jun 24, 2008
- 48,560
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tommo84
Proud to be loud
- Aug 15, 2005
- 6,200
- 11,235
I saw the headline yesterday evening after the game about City fans chanting about “stadium related disasters” and immediately knew three things:
1) What they were chanting (because it’s the same as Utd fans have sung for years at Anfield)
2) That the chants are heavily - if not primarily - in reference to Heysel (although I concede this hasn’t always been the case); and
3) That it would soon be reported that the chants were about Hillsborough with Heysel not mentioned.
A quick search on the internet finds images of graffiti in the Anfield away section which includes #JFT39 - a very clear reference to Heysel and only Heysel. Yet on this morning’s radio sports bulletin it’s reported that City fans were chanting about Hillsborough. They’ve not even used the vague ‘stadium related disasters’ language used by the club which at least acknowledged that the chants were referring to incidents other than Hillsborough. Colour me shocked.
The chanting is wrong and distasteful and it’s right that it’s condemned. However, it’s disingenuous for both LFC and the media to link the chants to Hillsborough without referencing Heysel when there is clear indication that’s what the chants refer to (at least in part). That they continue to do so will only give fans of City, Utd and maybe other clubs the motivation and perceived excuse to continue the chants.
1) What they were chanting (because it’s the same as Utd fans have sung for years at Anfield)
2) That the chants are heavily - if not primarily - in reference to Heysel (although I concede this hasn’t always been the case); and
3) That it would soon be reported that the chants were about Hillsborough with Heysel not mentioned.
A quick search on the internet finds images of graffiti in the Anfield away section which includes #JFT39 - a very clear reference to Heysel and only Heysel. Yet on this morning’s radio sports bulletin it’s reported that City fans were chanting about Hillsborough. They’ve not even used the vague ‘stadium related disasters’ language used by the club which at least acknowledged that the chants were referring to incidents other than Hillsborough. Colour me shocked.
The chanting is wrong and distasteful and it’s right that it’s condemned. However, it’s disingenuous for both LFC and the media to link the chants to Hillsborough without referencing Heysel when there is clear indication that’s what the chants refer to (at least in part). That they continue to do so will only give fans of City, Utd and maybe other clubs the motivation and perceived excuse to continue the chants.
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Kingellesar
This is the way
- May 2, 2005
- 8,764
- 9,261
They have a fairly kind run other than us until the world cup break....but the problem for them is not the performances at home (although they have dropped points) its away from home. Something which they have been ruthless with in the past 3/4 seasons, they just don't see them to be able to get anything going away this season.
Until they play us of course
Until they play us of course
They’re a scummy club. Don’t want to have to talk about heysel as there is no one else to blame
it’s actually mad that their then chairman blamed it all on Chelsea fans and the club still has never apologised
Gb160
Well done boys. Good process
- Jun 20, 2012
- 23,678
- 93,459
Fuck me.
DJS
A hoonter must hoont
- Dec 9, 2006
- 31,271
- 21,767
What possesses people to post such videos! ??
EastUpperDK82
Well-Known Member
- Jan 16, 2022
- 3,077
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Jota will miss the World Cup. Serious muscle injury confirmed.
Bluto Blutarsky
Well-Known Member
- Mar 4, 2021
- 15,185
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This is the injury Richarlison feared...
EastUpperDK82
Well-Known Member
- Jan 16, 2022
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Exactly...
sparx100
Well-Known Member
- Jan 8, 2007
- 4,650
- 6,704
No idea why anyone would call this xenophobia. I don't like Klopp but it feels like any comment from anyone gets over analysed.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63309620
Gbspurs
Gatekeeper for debates, King of the plonkers
- Jan 27, 2011
- 26,971
- 61,861
If they can get the media to start labeling negative comments about their ownership as xenophobic then soon enough no-one will be able to critique the regimes running these clubs without being a big fat racist. Sportswashing? Completed it, mate.
Trix
Well-Known Member
- Jul 29, 2004
- 19,511
- 330,452
I'm expecting Simon Jordan to tear into this, this morning.
Metalhead
But that's a debate for another thread.....
- Nov 24, 2013
- 25,422
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Pathetic attempt at deflection - no way on earth Klopp was being xenophobic. Those kind of comments do a disservice to genuine xenophobia.
Atomic Blonde
Well-Known Member
- Sep 1, 2017
- 99
- 493
Manchester City’s claims of racism are a bogus attempt at suppression of badly-required criticism
The recent report that figures at Manchester City believe Jurgen Klopp’s comments could be construed as bordering on xenophobic and racist is not the first time that this bogus argument has been broached.
www.independent.ie
Manchester City’s claims of racism are a bogus attempt at suppression
By Miguel Delaney
The recent report that figures at Manchester City believe Jurgen Klopp’s comments could be construed as bordering on xenophobic and racist is not the first time that this bogus argument has been broached.
It was raised by club chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak at the end of the 2018-’19 season. He at the very least made the comments publicly, when responding to La Liga president Javier Tebas’s comments on state-owned clubs, although they were no less wrong.
“There’s something deeply wrong in bringing ethnicity into the conversation,” Khaldoon said. “This is just ugly. The way he is combining teams because of ethnicity, I find that very disturbing to be honest.”
Tebas had not, of course, brought in ethnicity. He had merely mentioned “state-run clubs” and “petrol money and gas money”.
While the vast majority of people can see past this line of defence, and refused to even give it credence on Sunday evening, it is worth addressing why it is wrong – especially since it threatens to grow.
There is a very specific reason that Klopp mentioned “three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially”. It certainly isn’t anything to do with ethnicity.
It is that there are currently only three states that own clubs. They are the UAE through Manchester City, Qatar through Paris Saint-Germain and now Saudi Arabia through Newcastle United.
No other state owns a club, no other ownership group is on that scale. These clubs cannot go bust because they have oil economies behind them. This is what Klopp was getting at.
And there are even more specific reasons why it is so far only these states that own clubs. It is all related to the politics of the Gulf blockade and a longer-term rivalry, where Qatar have been on the opposite side to Abu Dhabi, and the United Arab Emirates they form part of, and Saudi Arabia.
It is essentially an arms race with soft weapons, where they can see the benefits of such strategies. Abu Dhabi was the first to realise the immense benefits of owning a western European football club in 2008, through the purchase of City, which led Qatar to immediately seek to respond. The Qatari royal family tried to buy Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Roma, before eventually winning this hugely controversial 2022 World Cup in 2010, and then settling on PSG. Saudi Arabia finally followed with Newcastle, using Abu Dhabi’s playbook.
No other state has yet pursued that route because it is something so particular to a regional political rivalry. An irony is that Klopp was not getting at anything more than financial disparity, but the claims also warrant rebuttal for more serious reasons.
The long-held view of all human-rights groups and academics on the area is that these states own these clubs as “sportswashing projects”. That is in part because they can continue business and economic pursuits despite hugely criticised human-rights records.
Most of those human-rights issues, as goes without saying, concern their own citizens. According to Amnesty, the UAE – of which Abu Dhabi forms the most influential emirate – continues to “arbitrarily detain Emirati and foreign nationals”.
“They’ve moved from limited basic rights to basically full-on no civil or political rights whatsoever, mass arrests of political opposition,” Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch said in 2020. “Some really insidious practices have started coming to the fore: forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture . . .”
They do not have a free press, something that makes these attempts at media spin all the more relevant.
“The UAE’s approach to criticism of its various human rights abuses and ruinous foreign interventions is to deny or ignore, and to smear and discredit its critics,” FairSquare’s Nick McGeehan said.
Such facts make the accusations of xenophobia or racism all the more absurd, but also all the more serious.
It looks little more than a disgraceful attempt to suppress discussion on one of the most serious issues in football, which has a wider moral dimension.
The implication of some of Sunday’s reports is all the more troublesome: if you even deign to comment on this –especially ahead of a fixture where it is never more relevant – you run the risk of abuse, and references to tragedies?
It is actually why it is all the more important that Klopp raised these issues. For all the limited discussion of sportswashing in the media, most of football has danced around one of the most serious issues of the game.
Without proper discussion, ludicrous defences like claims of “xenophobia” can take hold.
They must be immediately seen for what they are: attempts at suppressing the most badly-required criticism. This is what is really ugly here.
thebenjamin
Well-Known Member
- Jul 1, 2008
- 12,268
- 38,973
When the Russia / Abramovich stuff happened and journalists were suddenly allowed to write about him, it was clear how Abramovich and Chelsea had threatened basically every football journalist in the country with legal action if they wrote anything negative about him. Where city are conference, you can multiply that litigious threat by 1000. That's why the narrative has quickly pivoted to 'is Klopp xenophobic' instead of the completely valid point he was making, that nation stares owning football clubs is a bad thing. Man city are as proficient off the field as they are on it - anyone who says anything negative about them in public will face the full force of their multi million pound legal team.
Per. The Miguel Delaney article above, I'm certain he or the Indy will be facing all manner of legal problems to follow this narrative.
Trix
Well-Known Member
- Jul 29, 2004
- 19,511
- 330,452
I agree, but at the same time isn't it just deflection from Klopp making out Pool are in comparison the paupers from down the road who don't have a pot to piss in. His comments were certainly not xenophobic, but it's just smoke and mirrors from both sides.
