u/qwdicp

TLDR: The demand to "keep politics out of football" is a double standard that protects corporate money, governing bodies and billionaire owners who weaponise the illusion of "neutrality" in order to safeguard their profits, therefore their own pockets. Football is fundamentally inseparable from community struggles and global power (aka politics). Football grounds represent natural mirrors for societies, and sacrificing it for escapism isn't worth it.

The recent remarks by Ratcliffe and the way various online and offline spaces avoid/ban debate in football exposed the ignorance in modern day football. Many demand that people "keep politics out of football". Yet, football has been deeply political since its inception. The outcry against politics in football is funnily never applied consistently too. Instead, it is purely driven by selective outrage. Matter of fact, the majority of people who complain about politics in football related spaces usually mean that they do not want to see political views they personally disagree with because they simply lack of a basic tolerance in ambiguity.

When Ratcliffe uses media interviews to claim England is "on the slide", while he just targets welfare spending, and asserts that the UK has been "colonised by immigrants" the FA issued a "reminder" of his "responsibilities" before declining to take any disciplinary action. Yet, he did it again because his right-wing, anti-tax, and anti-immigration stances, and his supporters, align heavily with the Premier League's corporate interests, which then are accommodated as an "acceptable" part of the football ecosystem. When reviewing the leniency shown to Ratcliffe with the suspension of Gary Lineker for his social media posts criticising the government's harsh asylum policies, when he voiced empathy for migrants and refugees, it triggered an immediate "national crisis", with the same people who've agreed with Ratcliffe, labeling him as unpatriotic and claiming that Lineker must "stick to football".

The most common, everyday aspects of football are intensely political. Clubs regularly host official military appreciation days, display corporate state sponsorships on their shirts, and hold league-wide minutes of silence for political figures or (domestic) tragedies. Yet, because all these traditions feel "normal", they are accepted without a second thought. It is only when people use their platform to protest demagogy, racism, identity based discrimination, support human rights, or advocate for various minority groups that people suddenly label such actions as "too political", and demand the ban of discussion with arguments. All the clubs print poppies onto their match day shirts, foreign managers wear poppy pins, and grounds host formal military personnel on the pitch alongside a minute of silence. People comfortably wear shirts emblazoned with state-owned airlines, or crypto-companies, which are deeply political weapons that are purely used by foreign states to clean their human rights records. Yet, if fans, or players, express the slightest of support for human rights in those same grounds, they are penalised and excluded by people for making a "political statement" within the context of remaining "apolitical" in football.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, this myth of neutrality is fiercely protected to safeguard money and power. The global governing bodies like FIFA, alongside multi-billionaire club owners, view football first and foremost as a commercial enterprise. All they want is to sell more and higher priced tickets, more expensive broadcasting rights and TV subscriptions, and more expensive merchandise to the global audience while alienating fans. By maintaining this illusion of neutrality it protects particularly corporate brands, keeps wealthy sponsors happy and prevents all arguments that could and would hurt the top of football. A good example was when PIF bought Newcastle United, Crystal Palace’s Holmesdale Fanatics unfurled a massive banner at Selhurst Park which targeted specifically league's Owners and Directors Test. It listed human rights abuses such as terrorism, censorship, and murder, while depicting the Premier League's chief executive approving a bag of cash standing in a pool of blood (class act). Instead of treating it as a valid expression of a community concern over the ethics of their own league, many people immediately weaponised this myth of "neutrality" again. After a short amount of time the banner was reported to the Metropolitan Police, who quickly launched an investigation into their fans for a "complaint of an offensive banner", which essentially treats human rights related protests as an "illegitimate, political act within football".

Likewise, pushing the idea that fans, and players alike, should "just stick to football" helps at the end of the day only those in power to maintain the control over the beautiful game, by discouraging the base of working-class communities, who have factually built football, from questioning how it is run. Ultimately, separating the two is simply impossible because football is inherently political. It was born from the womb of working-class roots, community struggles, and local identities. Clubs were community institutions born out of industrial factories, dockyards, and local neighbourhoods. Their grounds were spaces where the working class could gather, express a collective identity, and voice their frustration against the political status quo. When the Glazers launched the leveraged buyout of Manchester United in 2005, by using debt that pushed ticket prices up and drained all money from the club, a large faction of working-class fans refused to "just stick to football". Instead of accepting corporate control, they broke away to form their own club, FC United of Manchester. Their club was founded on explicitly democratic, working-class principles. It is entirely fan-owned, entirely avoids corporate shirt sponsorships, and focuses on local community charity, just as football used to be. Their very existence is a direct, localised and political protest against the Glazer family which deserves a lot of respect. Looking at Manchester United today, it was the right call after all.

People underestimate that football represents immense global power and wealth today. States use its tournaments to boost their national economy or to project a sanitised image to the world, while their politicians repeatedly interfere with clubs and associations in order to gain influence, as when Abu Dhabi’s royal family purchased Manchester City, it wasn't just the standard financial investment into football. It was a very deliberate, and very successful, exercise in sovereign statecraft and soft power. By transforming the historically working-class club into the dominant global brand, the UAE has successfully projected this sanitised, modern, and highly appealing image to a huge worldwide audience, which effectively masks its foreign policy and human rights record behind the beautiful game.

Football has always been, and will always be, one of the most natural mirrors for society, and should remain the powerful stage to voice opinions and demand social change as before. Football had the likes of Sócrates, Cantona, Maradona, Presas, Thuram, Drogba, Sindelar, Mekhloufi, Neri, Caszely, Escolà, Zanetti, Breitner, Cruyff, Eusébio, Gullit, Détári, Boban, Mijatović, Fowler, Kopa, just to name the few players that stood against the myth. The desire for 90 minutes of apolitical escapism simply isn't worth turning a blind eye to the world outside the turnstiles, and it will cost us greatly in the future.