Football and Poppies

jsp

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Bit of a random topic but has footballs obsession with remembrance day always been like this?

Feels like this year the whole thing has spanned over 3 weekends because every clubs has held a minutes silence in their closest home game to remembrance day which is now always on the international break.

I'm sure in previous years the minutes silences were all done on one weekend before the international break and if you were away that weekend you didn't have it at home.

We have the same talking points every year although FIFA seem to have decided they don't care about the UK teams wearing poppies on the shirts/armbands for games in November and we obviously have the James McClean situation every year.
 
FIFA changed the laws allowing teams and Nations to wear poppies earlier this year without fear of trouble. Might explain the increased publicity this season
 
I'm pretty sure there's been no issue with club teams wearing the poppies they've been doing that for years but it's always been a grey area with the national teams as FIFA had that rule about no political statements/symbols being allowed on the shirts which the poppies technically was in breach of but realistically they were never going to bother enforcing any punishment if we did break that rule. If anything FIFA relaxing that rule made it less of a topic as we didn't have the usual tabloid headlines saying lets stick 2 fingers up to FIFA over our poppies.

It just felt weird that teams like Utd had a minutes silence 3 weeks before remembrance Sunday I was sure you only used to have it if you had a home game on that weekend if you didn't you just took part at the away ground. When they re-shuffled the international calendar a few years back that weekend was always an international weekend so clubs just did it the week before but now clubs are doing it 2 weeks before.

It mainly stuck in my mind because over the last 2 weeks I've watched quite a few games and it seems like I was observing a minutes silence 3 or 4 times a day because as we all know if there's a minute silence before a game on TV it's a bit awkward if you talk to someone. Haha!
 
I absolutely agree with the aforementioned article. Not only due to the fact that one English player ought to be able to make the choice to whether represent the national team or not but also why are foreigners made to wear poppies when representing their clubs. It's offensive for someone coming from an erstwhile British colony where the poppy was/is a symbol of British oppression.
 
It is all very strange and I find the press use it as an easy way to whip up some nationalist pride guff that applies to their target audience. It’s funny really as for the last month you barely saw a person on TV without the poppy on show then today 1 day after Remembrance Sunday all the poppies have been put away for a year. Everyone has to wear one because the nonsense you have to deal with for not doing it just isn’t worth it unless you are someone like James McClean who’s family have suffered at the hands of the British forces.

The way the media are reporting the us against them rhetoric during the Brexit negotiation is sadly returning to the past and whatever agreement gets made in 12 months time will leave a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth as neither side will get everything they want.

The way we portray our international athletes like soldiers or warriors to me is an insult to those who actually put their lives on the line for our freedoms. The press seem to be obsessed with it because it’s easier to explain our poor performance at tournaments on a lack of passion than actually look at the physical,tactical or technical reasons for our players getting out classed by the opposition

The drinkwater situation is laughable it seems like no one bothered to fact check the story that he’s actually got an injury that he didn’t want to risk in a friendly especially after he’s just moved to a new club where he needs to earn a place in the starting XI.
 

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