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People being outraged that teams were prevented from wearing the OneLove armbands (to show solidarity with LBGTQ rights amid the backdrop of Qatari views on homosexuality) are ignorant, arrogant, and dogmatic. This is part of what other regions of the world mean when they say the west forces our values onto other people. You don't get to go into another region of the world for a sport as global as soccer and then shit on them for not sharing the same views as you. Not everything needs to be about activism. I don't have the stats, but I have to imagine most people are not in favor of gay marriage in the middle east and, as much as i am in favor of gay marriage, you have to respect that. I mean it wasn't even codified legally in the US until fairly recently. If you want to interact with other countries, you have to accept that they see things differently than you and have different values. This strikes me as being a strong instance of 'i am so open minded that i am close minded'.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-21/european-teams-won-t-wear-pro-lgbt-armbands-at-world-cup?cmpid=BBD112122_MKT
What if they said no wearing any crosses or anything else indicating religious beliefs? What if they were in China, which I have no doubt would prohibit any pro-Uyghur or pro-Tibet sentiments? What if they were in Russia (assuming Russia ever gets to hold a world event again) which I am sure would prohibit Ukrainian flag armbands?
I agree that we cannot enforce our values on other countries, but fuck countries that host world events and then tell the people of the world what they're allowed to say while there.
Have you seen the ridiculous speech Infantino gave? Apparently he knows what it is like to be a gay disabled migrant worker because he's a ginger (or was, when he still had hair) and was bullied for it as a kid.
It's no secret FIFA is corrupt to the marrow of its bones and cares only about money, and the only reason Qatar got to host the World Cup was that it out-bribed everyone else. I think the PR campaigns about kick racism out of football and LGBT+ rights and BLM kneeling and rainbow laces and all the rest of it is simply performative virtue signalling, and if a Muslim player doesn't want to wear a rainbow jersey for his club match then his rights should be respected too, but this is just pulling away even the fig leaf that FIFA cares. As pointed out, they'd happily bully a Western country about not having a Pride flag waving in every stadium, but Qatar can get away with human rights abuses because money money money.
I do think that Qatar does have the right to say "our country, our rules, no rainbow flags in the stadium" but it's not like FIFA have any actual principles about any of this, and the clubs/teams from Western countries are doing as much PR signalling as they are genuinely caring about the topic.
Then the French government would happily back them up, because laïcité. The most recent fights around this have involved Islam, but it started off applied to Catholicism.
And I'm sure you could find people in America who would enthuse about rainbow flags in the classroom if a teacher wanted to put one up, but would be equally adamant about "no way" if a teacher wanted to wear a visible cross.
I don't GAF about FIFA or the World Cup, honestly, and I know 90% of the LGBT+ stuff is virtue-signaling. I don't expect any integrity from sports organizations, but it's not wrong to call them (and Qatar) out on it.
I am unswayed by the argument that we should respect Qatar culture and their right to exercise their sovereignty over what visiting soccer players wear. I don't think anyone outside Qatar actually cares about these things. But I tire of the pettiness of defending literally anyone and anything just so long as what's being defended is that they're pissing off your outgroup.
You say that as if the only reason anyone is attacking isn't that someone pissed on their ingroup.
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