When it comes to sports, it is often not a good idea to sit down and watch what the other team is doing before you act. It is true that Greece once managed to win the European Football Championship with a defensive strategy. But other than that, it’s generally not a good idea to just wait and see. You do not win the Super Bowl like that.
So what has this got to do with the decision of the European Football Association (UEFA) to move this season’s Champions League final from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Paris, France? Enough in fact.
The Champions League is the most famous transnational event in European football. But UEFA and many other sports federations and clubs around the world have waited so long to talk about anti-democratic powers that hurt.
Ignorance or indifference?
The statement of Franz Beckenbauer, the legendary German footballer and manager, that he had not seen a single forced laborer at World Cup construction sites in Qatar is still infamous. He literally called the builders there “slaves”, but noted that “everyone runs freely”. Maybe some of the forced laborers had died comfortably in advance?
Some may have considered it a more practical solution. Besides, it would greatly facilitate cooperation with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Victor Orban of this world. It would also make it easier to pocket all the money needed for the war machine – oh, forgive me I mean, gaming machines.
So Gazprom, which has sponsored European football for more than a decade, is a Russian state-owned company? And does Russian President Vladimir Putin lock people in indiscriminately and invade other countries as he pleases? Oh, no, we had not noticed such a thing before, not once, not all these years.
Taking a position
One might be tempted to say that, in this context, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had a cleansing effect. It is simply no longer possible to look away, especially when there is a cannon barrel just below your nose. With that in mind, it will be much more enjoyable to play the next games in Paris than in St. Petersburg. Well, yes, thank you for that.
It would be easy to get angry at the real way in which sports officials — such as Thomas Bach, the German president of the International Olympic Committee — regularly offer young athletes up to dictatorships as if they were being held hostage.
It’s just sports and sports are apolitical, right? Nothing, gentlemen (because they are still mostly men at the top of the sport), nothing, is no longer apolitical. And certainly not in such times.
Vettel: “It’s wrong”
Not all athletes may have decided as firmly as Formula 1 race driver Sebastian Vettel. “I think it is wrong to fight in this country,” he said simply and clearly about an upcoming match in Sochi, Russia. The match has since been canceled.
If other sports heroes and heroines do not agree with the position taken by Vettel, here is a warning story that shows how winners can easily become warlords.
The German writer Klaus Mann wrote a great novel, “Mephisto”, about how success and fascist power can be combined. In the film version of the 1981 book, the protagonist, Hendrik Höfgen, is a stage star who capitulates to the Nazis to ensure his success. In the last scene of the film, he wanders around the iconic Berlin Olympic Stadium, shouting: “What do they want from me? After all, I’m just an actor.”
Until then, the fascists had long ago turned the spotlight on him and he realizes that he has made a deal with the devil.
Athletes in Berlin, and at all other stages of this world, should be aware that the character in Mann’s book was based on a real man, a director and an actor, who apparently collaborated with the Nazis to ensure creative success. And, yes, it was a success. But, no, he was not innocent.
This article has been translated from German.
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