FIFA and the Poppy: We Will Remember This

Talking points. Debate. Differences of opinion. When it comes to football, our national pastime, our mutual obsession, our modern-age opiate, discourse complements our thirst for knowledge, for intrigue, for opinion. Disagreements are common and rightly so. Not only do they help sustain a level of excitement and develop the storylines of a season; no, our passion for discussing the beautiful game extends beyond hyperbole. It marks a defining aspect of contemporary British society. In a world of unease, of tension, of uncertainty, our days and weeks can be framed by conversational jocularity and enthusiasm for sporting dialogue, a world away from the moribund minutiae of real working life.

In the past week we have debated, consciously or otherwise, the rights and wrongs of new academy systems, potentially weighted in favour of the affluent few, the positive benefits of a Great Britain Olympic football team against the potential chilling effect this might have on the kingdom entities of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and whether the England captain, John Terry, is or is not a racist, and did or did not show a demonstrable lack of foresight, dignity and intelligence in employing language of a disgusting nature – whether deliberately racist or not – during a live television broadcast of a Premier League football match.

Each of these issues deserves proper constructive debate, and opinion rages for all. It seems, with our ever-developing communication mediums of instant news and views, that contrasting opinions have never been more polarised; that, in making the world smaller than it has ever been, our technological advances have illustrated just how opposed, and how vociferous in that opposition, we can be to each other. Is there then, in the midst of the in-fighting and quarrelling, a cause we can all rally around, all agree on? Is there an issue that can unite football fans of all persuasions and judgments?

Yes, there is. Unsurprisingly, the erstwhile governing body of the beautiful game, FIFA, has managed in its infinite wisdom to raise the ire of a plurality of English football fans. On Saturday 12 November 2011, the England national team takes on World and European champions Spain at Wembley Stadium in London. Ostensibly a ‘friendly’, this match is interesting for a number of reasons. It gives Fabio Capello the chance to see how some of his young starlets compare with one of the best national sides in recent generations. It allows us to determine our prospects for next summer’s European Championships. It provides an opportunity to look at a tactical system that deals with the absence of Wayne Rooney. It brings the most exciting national side in world football to the cultural home of the country that created the sport.

Take a look again at that date. 12 November 2011. One day after Remembrance Day. On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month this entire nation stops in silent memorial, in soundless vigil, in order to remember. We will remember them. Remembrance Day was originally conceived to commemorate the heroism and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers, many of them just teenagers, during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. In dying for their country on the fields of Flanders, in the mud of the Somme, the fog of Ypres, they held off the onslaught of a dangerous imperialism, protecting not just the interests, but the territory, of both our own sceptered isle and our allies’ sovereignty. Twenty-one years later, our military forces went in to battle again, defending not just our right to live, our very existence, but fighting against totalitarianist fascism, an evil stalking not just Europe but our entire planet and prepared to battle to the death to exterminate those they hated. We will remember them.

When we look back on the work of the British army throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries we may flinch and recoil at the political decisions that sent these brave servicemen and women in to harms way. We may argue, as we do about everything from the economy to politicians’ expenses, that the British Army has been used for less than altruistic purposes in recent times, that our dedicated military has become a pawn in the frivolity of geopolitical subterfuge. Surely, however, when we look past party political grandstanding, we can at the least agree that beneath the special interests of the suits lies the professionalism, the history, the dedication and the honour of the uniform.

Every November, then, we donate small change to the Poppy Appeal, wearing the red flowers of Flanders fields on our blazers and suits and lapels. As we go about our busy lives the red of the poppy stands out: its bold, striking colour contrasting with our grey office modernity. Across towns and cities, teeming with peripatetic humanity, red dots entrench themselves on our horizons, through our peripheral vision, in our hearts. We see the poppy and know instantly what it means, why it is there. We will remember them.

The Poppy Appeal is more than just Remembrance Sunday, each year falling on the Sunday closest to 11 November. It is more than just our political leaders laying wreaths and hearing the muted trumpet of the Last Post. Wearing poppies in November is as much about being British as employing a stiff upper lip in adversity, bemoaning inadequate public transport, using the weather as a default topic of conversation, and enjoying cups of tea. The First World War is nearly a century old. Few living in Britain today have any memory of it: the noise, the smoke, the piles of bodies, the lives wasted for so few metres of territory gained. It is said, perhaps with a rueful, folkloric nostalgia, that Londoners enjoying a Sunday lunchtime stroll in Regents Park could hear the guns of the Somme. The years between 1914 and 1918 were marked by young cheerful men leaving their homes, their families, their communities, and returning harrowed and old, shell-shocked and infirm, if they even returned at all. It is as much a story of ordinary local people, of a lost soul of England slowly burnt away, as it is about the high politics of the era, of empire, of power.

We wear poppies as a mark of respect, of grateful thanks, of remembrance. As the nights draw in, as fireworks whirl in commemoration of another of England’s seminal moments of history, poppies continue to exist as a comforting prelapsarianism in this oftentimes confused nation. Unsure of our place in the modern world, caught between memory and ambition, wearing a poppy is one of the last acts of British unity still visible in contemporary society. It represents what Abraham Lincoln once described as “the last full measure of devotion”: that their acts of gallantry and heroism, at that time and in that place, shall not perish from this earth. We will remember them.

Poppies do not just grow in the fields of northern France and Belgium. They do not just appear on our suits in paper form. We see them in other areas of modern life. In football it is now common for professional teams to play their early November matches with the poppy marked on to the shirt. Stadia hold silences as close to Remembrance Day as possible. Players, officials and fans bow their heads in tribute. In 2011 Remembrance Day falls on a Friday. A day later, our national team plays a key match in the capital city of the country that created the world’s most popular sport. This author was astounded and angry to learn that the England side has been prevented from adorning the poppy on its kit on 12 November in the match against Spain. Why? Because FIFA has banned it.

How dare they? How dare these grey-suited, grey-haired, mindless millionaires decide whether this nation’s football team can or can not wear the red poppy of Flanders on its famous white shirt? The Anglophobic machinations of FIFA are well documented but in banning the FA from using the poppy for the game against Spain they have demonstrated themselves to be beyond reproach. This is about remembering fallen soldiers fighting for freedom. It is not about journalistic investigations into FIFA corruption. It is not an excuse for payback for English self-righteousness in the wake of giving the World Cup to a nation that bans a significant proportion of their population from voting in elections, let alone even attend a football match. It is not about marking a deliberate shift from Old World dominance. No. This is beyond point scoring. This is beyond policy. This is scandalous. I have no hesitation in suggesting that if Russians or the French wore poppies in November, and wanted to on the closest fixture to their national memorial day, FIFA would say and do absolutely nothing. If Qataris, currently engaged in a brutal struggle against their oppressive political masters, adopted a symbol of resistance and of dedication to those who have already lost their lives in such a struggle, and then decided to use it on their national football kit, I am sure that FIFA’s executives would happily collect their bounty and keep quiet. FIFA’s decision to ban England from using the poppy is borne purely and simply out of a hatred of this country, an anger and resentment arising out of consternation at our free press and their investigations in to FIFA corruption, of our executive committee members having the temerity to suggest sound and open governance, of daring to speak out against a cabal of oppressors. We will remember this.

FIFA, of-course, have created a reason for their ruling. They argue that no national side should use or wear political paraphernalia. I am not aware of the poppy being an instrument, an image, an icon of political division. You can vote for any party and support the Poppy Appeal. It is not a device of the Far Right, or an icon of the Left. It is neither Labour nor Tory. It is neither Conservative nor Liberal. It is, has been, and always will be, a symbol of respect for those who have died fighting for the very political freedoms that we enjoy in this country today and which allow us to argue against our leaders, to enjoy a free press that investigates corruption, and that allows a young lawyer like myself to lend voice to thought in the form of this article.

Indeed, FIFA’s reasoning for the ban is wrong for three reasons. Firstly, the Poppy is not ‘political paraphernalia’. Those that run the Poppy Appeal have no specific political affiliation. It enjoys a broad spectrum of support across politics and society. It is possible to donate to the appeal, wear a poppy on your jacket, and conscientiously abstain from voting in any election. The poppy itself contains no wording of a political nature and, while similar to the Labour Party’s red rose emblem in that it shares a colour and is also a flower, has no iconographic basis for anyone to argue that it is in any way linked to any specific political party, pressure group or movement. It is that rarest of modern beasts: altogether wholly altruistic and philanthropic; no agenda here, Mr. Blatter. No agenda except your own.

Secondly, the use of the poppy should transcend football governance. If Sepp Blatter and his cronies want to pick a fight with the English FA (if they have not already), then there are genuine ways they can do this. FIFA can open a frank discussion about the dissemination of Premier League television money or discuss the old powers’ free executive committee voting powers. They can offer a detailed response to claims that the 2018 World Cup bidding process was far from a clean contest and can publish why the executive committee deemed England’s bid to be worthy of just two votes (including one from our own representative) despite suggesting publicly that it was “the best technical bid”. Mr. Blatter and his supporters can articulate a proper defence against English newspaper investigations into corruption and malpractice and fiduciary breaches; not through incredulous retorts and retreating in to its inner sanctum of self-congratulation and Anglo antipathy, but by working hard to iron out its failings, by explaining itself openly and honestly, by reforming and setting clear and understandable policies for the future. All such examples are within the realms of debate, of the sort of discourse mentioned at the start of this article. Wearing a poppy is not an act of controversy: it is a fundamental right, it is a commonly accepted November practice, and it is for a wholly good purpose.

For ultimately, when we strip away all of FIFA’s legalese, this decision is the very definition of hypocrisy. It is not just that it is highly disrespectful and mean spirited. It is galling because an organisation that has been shown to be entirely based on corruption, palpably living off and enjoying undeclared contributions and donations from organisations and government entities, now has the audacity to ban the use of poppies on the England kit because it supposedly amounts to political grandstanding. This, from an organisation that included an executive committee member who attempted to horde English money in exchange for voting preferences. This, from an organisation that included on its executive committee individuals seeking to swap votes and favours to ensure favourable election outcomes. We will remember this.

Poppies may pass you by. They are so common, so part of our daily life every autumn, that it perhaps matters little to you to hear that England will not wear poppies in the match against Spain. Stop for just one moment and analyse why. The poppies will be absent not because anybody involved with the England set-up refused to wear them, or because the kit manufacturers forgot. It is because the sport’s governing body, which suggests that its decisions are “for the good of the game” and which argues that football can be used to build bridges between communities, to break down walls and barriers, to restore our faith in humanity, in beauty and art, in a brighter future for all, has decided to ban this blossom of English heritage, this flower of the fallen, this Last Post of a heroic yesterday. When Sepp Blatter looks back at his career in football politics he, and the chroniclers of our time, may point to great efforts to involve as many nations as possible in the World Cup, to bring football workshops and events to third world countries, to new schemes that have seen household names help pressure governments in deprived areas to invest in better infrastructure, improved aids projects and political reform. Yet amidst the positive patronage, amidst the development of football as a global phenomenon, we will remember the scandal, the outrage, the inconsistency, the hypocrisy, the meddling, the gifting of hosting rights, the accepting of bribes and now, Blatter’s souring denouement, the banning of the poppy.

When we take to the field against Spain on 12 November 2011, my sincerest hope is that the English FA puts poppies on the shirts anyway, and turns around to FIFA and asks them to do their worst, to bring on the committees and the hearings and the comments. Sometimes football politics brings out the worst in football, but football can bring out the best in people, in humanity. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, and on our blazers and on our jackets, in our homes and on our streets, in our hearts and in our minds, through our silences and amidst our discourse and, yes, on our football kits: we will remember them.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Jewish Supporters and Why Baddiel Is Wrong

Apparently I’m being racially abused. Yes, it’s true. Ask David Baddiel. He’s Jewish and he likes football so he should know. Don’t worry about asking any other Jewish football fans; just adopt the default setting of the persecuted outcast and complain. It’s the only way to make the bigots see sense on the terraces of White Hart Lane and beyond.

Or is it? David Baddiel is a smart man. He went to Haberdashers’. So it was with some surprise that I discovered he is fronting a new campaign to raise awareness of anti-Semitism in football. Of-course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with conducting a public exercise in informing people of the problems of racism. Such a display of philanthropic morality is to be applauded. In modern day Britain we live in a world of both vocal and silent oppression. The days of Brick Lane riots may be long gone, but the sinister guise of homophobia, xenophobia, hatred and idiocy still lurks on our street corners and estates, in our places of work and, sadly, through the dogma of some extremist political parties. In many ways David Baddiel is being perfectly avant-garde in his decision to lend voice to thought and publicity to propriety.

Unfortunately this is the right campaign carried out in the wrong way; the correct sentiment utterly confused with incorrect methodology. Anti-semitism exists in football; this much is true. We’ve all heard opposition fans hissing in evil reproduction of the noise of gas chambers. Some of us may have even been subjected to direct chants of real racial venom, songs and phrases that go way beyond what can be publically understood as ‘banter’ and well across the line into blatant abuse. A campaign to raise awareness of such incidences is important. It brings the problem to the forefront of national debate, concentrating the minds of our policing and political authorities towards tackling the problem, and hopefully encouraging the silent majority to stand up and shout down the racially prejudiced. Baddiel’s campaign would be fine if that appeared to be its overriding objective and, for all I know, perhaps it is. Perhaps the ultimate aim is to achieve just that: a new wave of citizens fighting back against the appalling behaviour of a small minority of extremists. If that is the case, then I applaud and lend my support to a scheme that, if it was intending such an end, is as nuanced as it is principled.

Sadly I am afraid Baddiel has completely missed the point. It is startling that so much of the dialogue that this campaign has created has been about the use of the word ‘yid’ at places like Tottenham Hotspur FC. On its own, or out of the context of a football match at White Hart Lane or another Spurs-related event elsewhere, this word would undoubtedly cause offence. It is steeped in a history of persecution, arising etymologically from Eastern European ‘Yiddish’ language, which mixed German, Polish and Russian with Hebrew into a vernacular of specific peculiarity to Ashkenazi Judaism. The Nazis would abbreviate Yiddish speakers to ‘Yids’. It became a by-word for segregation, for misinterpretation, for the ghetto, the concentration camps. Even earlier than Hitler, the term ‘Yid’ had been used to separate Jews from locals in Russian villages during the Pogroms of the late nineteenth century. Go back through annals of Jewish history, and the word ‘Yid’ has been used not so much by Jews themselves, but by those who have sought to isolate them, to control them, to destroy them.

Imagine the following scenario: a businessman is chairing a meeting and introducing each participant. Round the table he goes, using first names, last names, nicknames, informally and affably combining the professional with the casual as he takes control of the session ahead. Reaching a Jewish man at the table, the chairman describes him as a ‘yid’. Is this socially unacceptable, humiliating, degrading, inappropriate and offensive? Yes, absolutely.

Now imagine the next scenario: it is 1973 and English football is rife with racism, dominated by white masters in boardrooms and white supremacists in the stands. Tottenham Hotspur are playing a home game and the visiting supporters start singing a song about Auschwitz. Knowing that Spurs have more Jewish supporters than any other team (although Arsenal are a very close second), these visiting supporters immediately latch on to the fact that, somewhere near them in the stadium, will be a Jew. Is the song as equally disgusting and illegal as the businessman in the scenario above? Yes, absolutely.

If Baddiel was trying to fight against instances akin to those described above, we’d be discussing a campaign of genuine altruism. Racism of any form should not be tolerated anywhere, but in the UK in 2011 it is a downright disgrace that its menace still stalks our streets. We live in the age of information, where knowledge is but a click, a touch screen, away. With the dissemination of ideas and opinions comes an opportunity to educate. This should be a time of ever-increasing harmony, not through a new closeness in our coalition politics, but simply out of pure understanding of each other, of why and how we are they way we are. I feel proud to live in a free country like the UK, where any and all religions are tolerated, where our right to protest is celebrated and encouraged, where our troops fight for similar freedoms around the world, where we can be as bright a beacon of hope for humanity as the great revolutionaries that have gone before in America, in France and, yes, in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet still our progress is hampered by a moronic few, the sub-intelligent detriments to development. We can all see how the British National Party feeds on basic social fears and political vacuums, feeding worried communities with propaganda and vitriol, anger and resentment. Violence begets violence, misunderstanding begets misunderstanding. Across generations such sentiment breeds and festers, a cancerous molecule redoubling with every passing year in isolated localities under siege from extremists. Their racism needs documenting. Our freedom depends on it.

You do not need to be Jewish, or a football fan, to know that the two illustrations I set out above are not, or were not, beyond the realms of possibility. In the 1970s, anti-semitism really was rife, not just in football but throughout society. Football, with its already laddish culture of booze and banter, was an easy breeding ground for such acerbic extremist behaviour. Tottenham supporters were easy targets and something had to be done. In the way that only football fans can, supporters of Spurs turned the anti-Semitic chants and songs on to the racists themselves. It was, and is, a display of sheer genius from the terraces of N17; reserve psychology so impressive that for forty years or so Tottenham Hotspur has imbued a sense of defiance in the face of anti-Semites, taking on the label of ‘yids’ not as a crest of abuse but a badge of honour. Racists cannot sing songs about ‘yids’ if the Jews themselves are referring to their team and their fellow fans as ‘yiddos’.

David Baddiel should understand context and shame on him for miscomprehending it or, worse still, ignoring it. Tottenham Hotspur supporters define themselves as the ‘yid army’ to shut the racists up. While it is no doubt true that some Spurs fans themselves will be idiotic bigots and unaware of why we do this, the vast majority know that this is a club that has spent many years fighting against oppressive supremacists. It might have started as gallows humour or simply psychosomatic mockery and repartee between rival sets of supporters, but Tottenham’s identification with Jewish terminology and paraphernalia was borne out of a sense of injustice and of needing to find a way to stop the hatred.

The real racists are the ones hissing about gas chambers, or mocking those in turbans, or beating up black people. They are not 36,000 Spurs fans lifting blue-and-white Israeli flags with ‘THFC’ on them, or telling Jermain Defoe he is a ‘yiddo’ because he plays for their beloved team. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it helps create a community, a history, a togetherness. The irony is that such features, if adopted throughout mainstream society, would help lock the door on racists forever. Bigotry breeds during moments of uncertainty and fear, when the walls of society start to break down, when cracks appear in our socio-economic cohesion. David Cameron may not be explaining ‘the Big Society’ very well, but the underlying motif is right: only through creating a real sense of community on our streets will we be able to treat each other with the understanding, respect and freedom that we all deserve.

Let me be clear. On its own, out of context and away from the stadium, calling someone a ‘yid’ is insulting and offensive. Spurs fans refer to each other by the use of this term not to offend others, but out of a sense of uniqueness through togetherness. It is a complex concept, merging together a small religion’s sense of persecution into a large societal movement, acknowledging our isolation by letting a larger association take on our struggle with us. This is not about shouting the word ‘yid’ randomly on the street. It is about understanding why Spurs fans use the term, where it comes from and what it means. When you go to the trouble of learning the situation’s nuance, intricacy and history it puts the onus back on David Baddiel to refocus his efforts more appropriately to the situation.

On Wednesday 20 April 2011, Spurs will play Arsenal at White Hart Lane: the North London Derby between the two sides in England with the most Jewish supporters. Baddiel’s video will be shown on the big screens. His virtuous ambition should be applauded. Sadly for all concerned, the strategy and logic to achieve such lofty and respected aims is simplistic. Important issues deserve intelligent solutions, not lowest-common-denominator philosophy. Jewish football fans deserve better than that; after all, we’ve been fighting this battle for decades. Without David Baddiel, and in our own peculiar way, we seem to be getting somewhere. Gareth Bale will still be a ‘yiddo’ when he runs over towards the Shelf Side to take a corner. Spurs will still be the ‘yid army’, not just as a battle cry to fight the opposition on the pitch, but to take on the racists at their own game in the stands.