Taking the mickey ...

[daib0]

Suffolk Gazette


Fifa, a proud and squeaky-clean guardian of world football, caused a storm this week by banning England and Scotland players from wearing poppies on their shirts during the Armistice Day World Cup qualifier on November 11.

Now Fifa fines England and Germany over WW1 Christmas match

The English and German football associations have been fined by Fifa because the famous Christmas Day match between opposing World War One troops was “a political statement”.

Read all: http://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/fifa ... y-football

[Rover the Top]

The fact the British media take exception to the fact British teams aren't allowed to wear a symbol they feel they're obliged to wear makes FIFA's point for them. Whilst the poppy appeal is at face value a charity, it's a charity to support the Armed Forces, which makes it intrinsically political.

[mrblackbat]

And a charity that honours the victors in wars, and therefore implicitly the victors over another country, who's soldiers also died. I wonder what the response in Britain would be if the Germans wanted to wear a symbol honouring their war dead....

[Ethiaa]

I always assumed that armistice day and the poppy was about remembering people on both sides. You don't need a bloody thing stuck on your arm to do that though. This is the world that UKIP built.

[daib0]

Even so, I don't think the remembrance will last that much longer, as it goes from living memory. No-one stops to think of the killed and wounded in the English civil war. Nor the Boer war ...

But actually, I think the article was simply taking mockery out of FIFA rather than making a political point in itself

[Gibbon]

I always give money and leave the poppy personally.

[Rover the Top]

Even so, I don't think the remembrance will last that much longer, as it goes from living memory. No-one stops to think of the killed and wounded in the English civil war. Nor the Boer war ...

But then there's the Falklands, the Gulf war, Afghanistan, etc.

[mrblackbat]

And THE WAR ON TERROR!

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/imag ... -eSL_2OT6-

[Rover the Top]

I always assumed that armistice day and the poppy was about remembering people on both sides. You don't need a bloody thing stuck on your arm to do that though. This is the world that UKIP built.

As far as I'm aware, money raised from the poppy appeal only goes to those who've served in the British armed forces, and not just in conflicts where we've clearly be in the moral right. And that is the problem - whilst it may not be seen as political within Britain, on the international stage other nations could understandably see it as a nationalistic symbol. Particularly when there's such a fuss over the teams being obliged to wear it that the PM feels the need to comment on it. Like you say, you don't need to wear a badge to take part in remembrance, and pushing the issue seems to prove FIFA right to me.

[Ethiaa]

I always assumed that armistice day and the poppy was about remembering people on both sides. You don't need a bloody thing stuck on your arm to do that though. This is the world that UKIP built.

As far as I'm aware, money raised from the poppy appeal only goes to those who've served in the British armed forces, and not just in conflicts where we've clearly be in the moral right. And that is the problem - whilst it may not be seen as political within Britain, on the international stage other nations could understandably see it as a nationalistic symbol. Particularly when there's such a fuss over the teams being obliged to wear it that the PM feels the need to comment on it. Like you say, you don't need to wear a badge to take part in remembrance, and pushing the issue seems to prove FIFA right to me.

Oh yes, the money does (British Legion) - but it was originally a concept to remember all war dead I believe. I personally don't buy a poppy - if the British Legion are happy to take money from the BNP they don't need my money.

[mcteeth]

I don't have a particularly strong opinion about any of this, but I do think it highlights is the short term-ism of modern social and the negative impact of social media. It hasn't taken some media agencies to point out that in November 1999 England and Scotland played each other and didn't wear poppies and again in 1987 England played Yugoslavia on Remembrance Day and didn't wear poppies.

This just feels like an issue created to whip up a media frenzy for the sake of large corporations making money, a far cry from actually taking issue about Remembrance.

FIFA governs the entire world so their ruling seems impartial and I'm not sure what else they could do?

[Rover the Top]

So whilst I could understand the stance on the players wearing poppies, FIFA had to take it further and fine Wales and Northern Ireland for various other remembrance acts. Now it seems more like a vendetta.