160 French athletes penned an open letter urging voters to reject Le Pen’s party at France’s parliamentary election on July 7. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, called the snap poll after a humiliating defeat in the European elections.
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While Mbappe stopped short of identifying the RN, he said he supported his team-mate Marcus Thuram who had explicitly appealed to his fans to block the RN at the parliamentary elections.
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“Respect is one of the cornerstones of sport: respect for opponents on the pitch, respect for those who don’t think like us, respect for the environment. The extreme right tramples on this respect every day,” the letter reads.
“We call on all sports fans to mobilise against the rise of the extreme right. On June 30 and July 7, voting will be not only a civic duty, but also an act of love for our country, for our loved ones, and for all those more fragile than us, who will be prey to discrimination if the extreme right comes to power.”
Signatories include former and present tennis stars Yannick Noah, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Marion Bartoli.
Algerian international footballer Youcef Atal goes on trial in France, accused of inciting hatred after posting a video in which a Palestinian preacher threatens Israel with a “black day.”
Atal, who plays for Ligue 1 side Nice, shared the video on his Instagram account, which has 3.2 million followers
I’m so proud of the Palestinian movements! People are NOT going to be tamed in to fear and silence
Kyrie Irving is on the right side of history.
I’m so impressed and proud of Kyrie for supporting the Palestinian just cause
FIFA has stripped Indonesia of hosting rights for the upcoming U-20 World Cup after local objections to Israel’s participation. It also means the Indonesian team will no longer be playing.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2WrVXvmEds
A French politician has demanded that Karim Benzema be stripped of his Ballon d’Or and his French citizenship after the footballer expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEiVbvUl9Fo
Algeria has stepped in to host all matches involving the Palestinian national football team and bear all associated costs due to the continuing war in Gaza.
Algeria has agreed to stage “all official and non-official matches involving the Palestinian team’s preparation for qualification to the 2026 World Cup and 2027 Asian Cup and to assume all associated costs,” an Algerian football federation statement announced in a statement on Monday.
The move, subject to approval from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), was announced after a request was put forward to the Algerian authorities by Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian football federation.
The Green Brigade ultras group calls on fans to ‘raise the Palestinian flag’ at Champions League match despite backlash from the club’s board.
Fans of Scotland’s Celtic Football Club have pledged to continue their display of solidarity with the people of Palestine and “show the world that the club stands with the oppressed, not the oppressor” in the wake of Israel’s ongoing attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip and despite backlash from the club’s board.
The Green Brigade, an ultras group of **** Celtic fans, displayed banners saying “Free Palestine” and “Victory to the resistance!!” during the club’s Scottish Premiership match against Kilmarnock in Glasgow last week.
Israeli international and former Celtic midfielder Nir Bitton criticised the fans on social media, saying they had been “brainwashed”.
“Shame on you!!! Yes free Gaza from Hamas not from Israel!!” he said on Instagram.
However, the fan group remained undeterred and called on all Celtic fans to raise the Palestine flag during the club’s UEFA Champions League match against Atletico Madrid on October 25.
“We must apply learning from apartheid South Africa to dismantle apartheid Israel – if we are neutral in situations of injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor,” the Green Brigade said in a statement this week.
“We send our sincere solidarity and prayers to our friends across all of Palestine at this traumatic time when yet again much of the international community turns its back in cowardice while war crimes are inflicted on a largely defenceless, imprisoned population,” the statement added.
Al-Arian said it is “becoming increasingly hard” to show support for the Palestinians in Western countries because some governments in Europe have banned protests against the Israeli attacks in Gaza and have threatened to ban the display of the Palestinian flag.
“The question on any reasonable mind should be why? Why are Ukrainian lives more sacred than Palestinian lives?” it said.
Celtic’s fierce local rival Rangers have, in turn, supported Israel whenever both teams have met in the Old Firm – local derby – fixture over the years.
The blue-and-white-kitted Glasgow club held a minute’s silence for the people killed in Israel ahead of their Premiership match last weekend.
According to Al-Arian, the contrasting stances show that football is “never really separated from politics”.
The Wembley arch will not be lit in the colours of Israel and supporters will have flags confiscated when England play Australia on Friday night.
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Lord Triesman, the Jewish former FA chairman and ex-government minister, said the Wembley arch “absolutely should” have been lit in the colours of Israel’s flag.
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The FA put BLM logos on shirts & got players taking the knee to support BLM.
“BLM are currently supporting Hamas as they murder children.
“Now the FA won’t show solidarity with Israel by lighting Wembley as they did for other terror attacks.
“Just pathetic.”
Mark Jenkinson wrote: “ The FA are quite the outfit… BLM support, taking the knee – and now this.”
"It's a shame that we have to look to football players as examples for our politicians to follow in terms of how they should address the issue," Sanaullah told Insider.
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On an international level, French officials have rejected accusations from the UN about systemic racism in their police forces, per Le Monde.
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Some players from the French national soccer team, on the other hand, addressed the issue head on, without mincing words.
"A bullet in the head...It's always for the same people that being in the wrong leads to death," French goalkeeper Mike Maignan tweeted after Merzouk's death.
French defender Jules Kounde was more direct.
"As if this latest police blunder wasn't enough, the 24-hour news channels are taking advantage of it by making a big fuss," Kounde tweeted. "The 'journalists' ask 'questions' with the sole aim of distorting the truth, criminalizing the victim and finding extenuating circumstances where none exist. An age-old method for masking the real problem."
The sentiment was shared by young French midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni, who said that he heard his mother's voice in Nahel's mother's cries for her son after he was killed.
In an open letter twitter thread criticizing police brutality and French media coverage of the protests, Tchouameni questioned the regularity of racialized police violence, the double standard of critiquing racism in France, and asked for solutions.
Underneath each of the players' tweets, fans thanked them for speaking up.
The global outrage over the racist abuse of Vinícius Jr should spark a society-wide conversation on racism and colonial history in Spain.
It has been a month now since Black Brazilian forward Vinícius Jr suffered yet another disgusting episode of racist abuse during a match in Spain.
The incident triggered outrage in my country, Brazil, and across the globe. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on football bodies to “take measures so we don’t allow racism andfascismto take over”.
The Brazilian football authorities immediately took action to protect our player. They not only condemned the racist abuse and demanded action on it, but also organized an anti-racism campaign and had the whole national team take a knee while dressed in black jerseys during a friendly match against Guinea in June.
Meanwhile, other Black footballers have spoken up in solidarity with Vinícius Jr and have even considered forming a union to fight racism together.
But while international support for the Brazilian player has been strong, in Spain, reactions have been mixed at best. It is this ambiguity and lack of serious action that led an angered Vinícius Jr to write on Twitter: “It was not the first time, nor the second, nor the third. Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it’s normal, the Federation does too, and the opponents encourage it.”
Instead of showing unconditional support for the Brazilian player, La Liga, the elite Spanish football league, did the exact opposite. Its president, Javier Tebas, attacked Vinícius Jr for his tweet, saying: “Since those who should have, haven’t explained to you what La Liga is doing and can do in cases of racism, we have tried to explain it to you, but you have not shown up for either of the two agreed dates that you requested yourself.”
Instead of admitting that La Liga has a racism problem, Tebas passed the ball to the Spanish police, which also has done little to combat racist abuse when complaints have been lodged by football teams.
Before the most recent incident, Real Madrid had filed nine formal complaints in two seasons over racism specifically targeting Vinícius Jr. Despite the clearly systematic nature of the racist torment, the Spanish authorities did not take any action on some of these complaints.
One has to wonder whether there would have been any reaction from the Spanish authorities to the racist abuse during the Valencia-Real Madrid game had there been no international outrage.
That Vinícius Jr had “provoked” his racist abusers appeared to be a popular opinion in Spain.
Despite the long and rich track record of anti-Black racism in Spanish football, the common refrain after the Valencia-Real Madrid match was: “Spain is not a racist country”. Spanish society appears to be in denial about its racism problem which by far is not limited to football.
A 2016 report on the situation of Spain’s Black community prepared by several Spanish non-governmental organisations states that racism in Spain exists “in insidious and persistent forms”.
“[There is] an absolute public and educational erasure of the enslaving and colonialist Spanish past.”
While European nations, in general, do not seem too eager to admit to and apologise for the enslavement and colonisation of other peoples, Spain seems to be particularly behind in coming to terms with its history.
One just has to look at the reaction of Spanish politicians when US President Joe Biden declared ahead of Columbus Day in 2021 that the arrival of Europeans to North America led to a “wave of devastation” for Native Americans and called for “these shameful episodes of our past” not to be buried.
In response, Pablo Casado, leader of Spain’s conservative Popular Party (PP), said in a video posted on Twitter: “Does the Kingdom of Spain have to apologise because five centuries ago it discovered the New World, respected those who were there, created universities, created prosperity, built entire cities? I don’t think so.”
Spain clearly is not ready to apologise, much less remember its history correctly. Apart from the destruction Spanish colonisation wrought on two continents, official historical memory also conveniently excludes the role the Spanish Empire played in slavery.
Two international matches were abandoned on Monday following allegations of racial abuse.
New Zealand said they refused to play the second half against Qatar after saying Michael Boxall was abused by a Qatari player during the first half.
The Republic of Ireland Under-21s' friendly with Kuwait also ended early after an alleged racist remark.
The Football Association of Ireland said a Kuwait Under-22 player made the remark to a Republic substitute.
Both matches were taking place in Austria, with New Zealand beating Qatar 1-0 in Vienna and the Republic U21s leading 3-0 against Kuwait in Bad Radkersburg before the abandonments.
"Michael Boxall was racially abused during the first half of the game by a Qatari player," New Zealand posted on their Twitter account.
"No official action was taken so the team have agreed not to come out for the second half of the match."
The FAI said it will report the incident during the Kuwait match to Fifa and Uefa.
"The FAI regrets to announce that today's U21 international against Kuwait has been abandoned after a racist remark was made by a Kuwaiti player towards one of our substitutes," said the FAI's statement.
"The FAI does not tolerate any racism towards any of our players or staff and will be reporting this serious matter to FIFA and UEFA."
Last week, Fifa president Gianni Infantino said Real Madrid's Vinicius Jr will lead a special anti-racism committee made up of players which will suggest stricter punishments for discriminatory behaviour in football.
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia – While the people of Bali are famed for their tolerance and hospitality, a foreign policy impasse between Indonesia and Israel dating back to the 1940s is threatening to derail a little-known but symbolically important Olympic-recognised competition on the island.
The inaugural World Beach Games was held in Qatar in 2019, with subsequent events cancelled as a result of COVID.
With a tourism-dependent economy that was crippled by the pandemic, Bali’s winning bid last July to host the event announced to the world that the island was back open for business. But Bali’s hosting rights for the event are on a knife-edge.
Last year, the Indonesian Olympic Committee gave assurances that qualifying athletes from all countries would be accepted at the games. But Bali’s Governor Wayan Koster has now said Israeli athletes are not welcome, citing a preamble to the Indonesian Constitution calling for the universal abolition of colonialism and the country’s immutable support for Palestinian statehood.
“I remain consistent in refusing the Israeli team’s participation in the 2023 World Beach Games in Bali,” he told The Jakarta Post in April.
The preamble has prevented Israeli passport holders – even if they are Palestinians – from visiting Indonesia since the Jewish state declared independence in 1948.
If Indonesia is stripped of hosting rights over the dispute, it would be the second major sporting event derailed by Koster this year.
A little more than a month before Bali and two other Indonesian islands were set to host the 2023 FIFA Under-20 World Cup on May 20, he rejected the presence of the Israeli football team in Bali and accused world football’s governing body of double standards for blacklisting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine while turning a blind eye to Israel’s actions[It's OK for hypocrisy to be "white"].
“I invite the people of Bali to pray together so that FIFA will be moved to act fairly by eliminating the Israeli team in the FIFA U-20 World Championship, the same way it did when eliminating the Russian team in the 2022 FIFA World Championship in Qatar,” Koster said.
FIFA was not impressed. It revoked Indonesia’s hosting rights for the U-20 World Cup and expelled the Indonesian team from the competition, which took place in Argentina, and restricted funding to the Football Association of Indonesia.
In the world’s most populous Muslim nation, support for Palestinian statehood is almost universal and a tough stance on Israel often appeals to conservative Muslim voters – the most important bloc in any national election.
The move to ban Israeli athletes from sporting events in Indonesia is supported by the Ulema Council, Indonesia’s top Islamic scholars’ body, as well as the powerful Islamic Defenders Front, a hardline Islamist organisation and pressure group with a prominent social media presence, and other Muslim groups that held protests in Jakarta in March at which Israeli flags were burned and banners proclaiming “Israel is the enemy of Islam” were displayed.
A lower-level German soccer team called its punishment for stopping a game in protest after racist abuse was apparently directed at team captain Marcus Coffie “a slap in the face.”
Hamburg-based Teutonia Ottensen was leading 2-1 at Bremer SV in the fourth-division game on Saturday when Coffie, who is Black, said he was racially abused by an opposing player. Coffie’s teammates reacted by walking off the field and the game was abandoned before halftime.
The North German Soccer Federation said Monday it had no evidence that Coffie had been racially abused. It awarded Bremer SV a 5-0 victory. It also questioned “whether when such an accusation justifies calling off a game or not continuing it.”
“This judgement and the way it was written demonstrate a tolerant attitude towards the problem of racism underlying this incident,” Teutonia said in a statement.
“The decision is not just an example of what is wrong in the sport, what is still wrong in our society," Teutonia said, "but it’s the latest example of looking the other way, the latest example of a decision to tolerate racism in the sport and therefore in society.”
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