Brazil has recently won the Confederation Cup in South Africa, as many of you may be aware.Not as many of you, though, are aware that Brazil has received condemnation from FIFA (Federation International Football Association) and is facing possible disciplinary action because their players, after the victory in the final, have gathered together in the pitch and prayed to God (the Christian one in case you were wondering), thanking him for the victory.
FIFA has stated that politics or religion have no place in modern day sport, and therefore the Brazilians were very naughty in collectively celebrating in a religious way their victory. FIFA has explained that individuals can celebrate their religion on the pitch but not the team as a whole, or the majority of it.
OK then, so FIFA decides to ban collective religious celebration in order to make all religions live happily ever after. What a good idea you may think: no Brazilian players celebrating the Christian God, no Burmese players thanking Buddha, no Muslims celebrating… oops, actually, not really, there are, as always, exceptions.
In fact, a couple of days before the naughty Brazilians celebration, another team, after winning a match, have collectively celebrated in a religious way.
The team was Egypt, and the whole team (or the majority of it) started to pray, kneeling towards Mecca.
FIFA did not issue a statement, not a word of condemnation, nothing of the kind. Is it maybe because, as always, there is one standard for one religion and a different standard for another one?
To be honest, I found out this news only by reading the Italian papers online. I then checked the British ones, and the news was rather difficult to get. Actually, I couldn't get the news at all on some of the sites.
Is it maybe because the real censorship is in the UK (rather than Italy?), thanks to the liberal media championed by BBC and the Guardian, always condemning some religion or some ideologies and turning a blind eye when some other religions, or some other ideologies are concerned?
Next World Cup I would like a Muslim team to win the tournament, and then I hope to see the players celebrating the victory by praying, kneeling towards Mecca and then... I want to hear the sound of silence coming from FIFA.
1 comment:
The Egyptian team also prayed en masse when they won the last African Nations Cup - so FIFA can hardly be unaware of the issue.
Personally I am more interested in what it tells us that teams did not use to do this sort of thing 20-30 years ago. Another sign of the increasing religiousness of society - football after all simply mirrors society.
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