FA chief adamant Pep Guardiola’s yellow ribbon is political symbol

Martin Glenn, the Football Association chief executive, has rejected any suggestion that Pep Guardiola wearing a yellow ribbon in support of imprisoned Catalan politicians is equivalent to the governing body’s defiance over the poppy ban. Glenn claimed the Manchester City manager has angered many by wearing the ribbon during games.

Guardiola has until 6pm on Monday to respond to a charge for wearing what the FA considers to be a political symbol, during the 1-0 FA Cup defeat by Wigan last month.

It is understood an element of the City manager’s defence may be a comparison to the FA’s fight against Fifa’s poppy ban. Guardiola’s representatives are set to claim the ribbon is a show of solidarity for pro‑independence Catalan politicians imprisoned in Spain as opposed to an act of political activism.

That idea is unlikely to hold much sway with the FA, which was able to argue successfully that the poppy was an act of remembrance for fallen soldiers and not a political emblem.

“We have rewritten Law 4 of the game so that things like a poppy are OK but things that are going to be highly divisive are not,” Glenn said. “That could be strong religious symbols, it could be the Star of David, it could the hammer and sickle, it could be a swastika, anything like Robert Mugabe on your shirt – these are the things we don’t want.

“To be honest, and to be very clear, Pep Guardiola’s yellow ribbon is a political symbol, it’s a symbol of Catalan independence and I can tell you there are many more Spaniards, non‑Catalans, who are pissed off by it. All we are doing is even-handedly applying the laws of the game.

“Poppies are not political symbols; that yellow ribbon is. Where do you draw the line, should we have someone with a Ukip badge? Someone with an Isis badge? That’s why you have to be pretty tough that local, regional, national party organisations cannot use football shirts to represent them.”



Source: theguardian

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How was your weekend running?

Can anyone tell me how I can learn to love cross country? Or is it a gene you are born with? Would greater exposure to it (I live in London - aside from the Surrey League fixtures, opportunities are minimal ...) engender affection? At any rate, it’s certainly not my favourite kind of running, though the relief when it’s over almost makes it worthwhile. No, wait, that’s the cake my teammates bring. Saturday saw us in Richmond Park for the final fixture of the season - a wonderful location for it, and complete with classic freezing cross country weather. I suppose at least I warmed up while running, unlike my poor kids who were dragged along and ended up wearing pretty much every discarded coat. And eating a fair amount of the cake. There’s been lots of debate about distance inequality in XC recently - prompted by the campaign/petition Maud Hodson has written about for me here. And it’s a campaign I am thoroughly behind, which anyone who knows my feelings towards XC finds hilarious. Why,...
Read more

An updated formula for marathon-running success

It was a real pleasure to see my marathon time predictor featured in the Guardian a few months back. My algorithm uses data from more than a thousand runners of varying abilities who have logged their training here on Fetcheveryone, to come up with a better prediction of marathon time. You can try it here. It’s based on my view that the usefulness of the popular formula devised by Peter Riegel in 1977 starts to break down at marathon distance. This may well be because runners are often under-prepared for the rigours of the marathon, but it’s arguably better for morale to smash a realistic goal than to burn out chasing an elusive one. Here is Riegel’s original formula applied to predicting marathon time from half marathon: Riegel’s classic formula uses R=1.06, which still provides excellent predictions for most distances even 40 years later – but out of 1,071 marathon runners in our Fetcheveryone sample (all of whom had completed at least five half and five full marathons), less than 5%...
Read more

The Alaska shipyard where the 'manliest men' meditate each morning

In the dark hours before sunrise, Vigor Alaska’s shipyard bosses circle up their crews. Dwarfed by vast steel segments of a new ferry, welders, painters and electricians twist their bodies. They roll their heads, shoulders and wrists. They ask about each other’s families. They celebrate pregnancies, raises and second chances. They jump. They lunge. They do push-ups and backbends. Seagulls call. Rain drizzles. Then – in jeans and work boots, sweatshirts and hardhats – they meditate. “I thought it was kind of weird,” said Irineo Munoz, 33, who started working for Vigor Alaska as a machinist in 2015. A former gang member from California, Munoz moved to Alaska after his release from prison. As public debate remains intense over gender roles in society and the workplace, Vigor’s morning routine defies gritty, masculine stereotypes associated with industrial labor. Crews meditate, stretch and socialize – on the clock – for a few moments at the start of each workday. Every Wednesday, around l...
Read more