01 Nov 2023 14:14:07
The World Cup should be the pinnacle of the world game and should stand on its own merits.

The best World Cup in my lifetime was in Mexico in 1970. Brazil, Italy, West Germany, England and Even Uruguay were top notch sides who played different styles of football very, very well. The World Cup was about the football and not about boosting the GDP for a bunch of obscenely rich (in a monetary sense) ruthless despots who are not afraid to suppress basic human rights.

To quote Kevin Keegan, “I’d love it, I’d absolutely love it’ if our football association and others around the globe grew a pair and said we are declining to participate in the qualification process for the World Cup with immediate effect. I think fans of the game would see that as a positive step that we could get behind.

1.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 14:53:09
Why start now just because it is Saudi? Pretty sure Qatar have just as bad human rights record. Maybe people should be looking a little closer to home at the people enabling it or even FIFA themselves for putting profit firmly before anything else.

2.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 15:44:43
Im sorry mate. the worlds is not revolves just around Europe and western worlds, asia is the future, western have enjoy long period of exploiting third world resources, and i know its not your fault. and for the human rights things. maybe we can ask why English is the internasional language nowadays, i guess the colonization and abusing human rights in their colonized country is the answer, but i guess everybody know that. let just stay in supporting our beloved Liverpool. peace.

3.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 16:05:31
FLS, Are you saying that we should be ok with horrible acts and attitudes today because of horrible acts and attitudes in the past?

If so, I’m not getting that at all mate.

If not, what are you saying please?

4.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 16:08:10
I don't know about Asia being the future.
Check YouTube for China's "tofu dregs".

5.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 19:05:27
It’s all about money…… no one at FIFA cares about fans or players.

I have little interest in the World Cup but I understand that players may be keen to represent their countries.

Virtually every country has issues that are or were at the time unsavoury so calling out Middle East states doesn’t get us very far. I don’t think any country has a blemish free record …. look at the Aussies and how they have treated their indigenous people…. USA and it’s awful record of racial segregation…. China and it’s horrendous human rights abuses…… the Manx’s and their terrible haircuts…. the list is endless

Anyway a winter World Cup in Saudi will be rubbish whatever we say or think …. we just have to suck it up.

6.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 19:13:43
Seems like because Britain done a lot of wrong things in the past that makes it ok for Asia to do it now? Is that what you’re getting at FLS? Seems like backward thinking to me ?‍♂️.

7.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 19:52:31
Britain has done a lot of bad things on the past, and is still doing a lot of bad things. They’ve had their hand in majority of wars since WW2.
Britains bombs are landing on Gaza as we speak.

USA and UK are head and shoulders above the rest of the world when it comes to violence and civilian deaths. And when they aren’t killing themselves, they support other killers.

They control the media, at the moment they are making every effort to hammer into our heads that israel is defending itself by killing 3000+ children and 2000+ women. And that just this month.

8.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 20:43:47
The thing I don't get is those having a pop at Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc would never live there.

However those who having a pop at England usually live there. does anyone else see the irony here?

9.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 21:18:13
What has where we live got to do with speaking out against evil. Should we stay quiet in the face of this evil just because we live there, but speak up at others evil because we don’t live there! there is a word for that sort of person. hypocrite
That wasn’t a well thought out response.

It’s funny how everyone is happy to use fuel and resources from these ppl.

10.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 21:31:12
My post clearly states that people who disagree with a countries ethics should question there own reasons for living there.

i. e. I've had numerous work opportunities to work in Saudi, but refused even though I would of earn't a lot more money and lived a much better lifestyle.

This is why I question anyone that lives in a country they don't agree with their values, I hope this clears things up for you KaylBey.

11.) 01 Nov 2023
01 Nov 2023 23:37:25
SzSz8, There's nothing wrong with looking at how your own country is run and criticising it. People do it all the time. I would be more concerned if people follow blindly what the leaders of the countries are doing since that is the main cause of what is happening now between Israel and Palestine.

Speaking of which, it is true that KSA has questionable human rights laws and they are rightly being called out for it. But at the same time, there is a need to also acknowledge that the UK has been complicit in the massacre of women and children in Palestine, by supplying weapons to Israel and voting against a ceasefire.

Hence, I do find it strange that people think that England should refuse to participate in the KSA world cup as a protest for human rights when they are accomplices in what is effectively a genocide. The word hypocrites come to mind.

12.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 07:58:21
KayiBey one side is explicitly targeting civilians while the other is targeting militants who hide under civilians. The evil side is not difficult to see if you take your blinkers off.

13.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 08:56:26
My stance on these countries has softened a lot in the last year. I tend to think of wokeism as just another form of oppression and to push western ideals on other countries and cultures is just another form of colonialism. It’s not up to us to police the world.

14.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 09:03:49
@Stuie, I actually said boycott it with immediate effect.

Saudi is just another example of where the game is increasingly rapidly heading (on geographical, apparently, and financial management levels) . There is no right time to take action except now.

15.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 09:05:48
@FLS Two wrongs don’t make a right, two wrongs actually make two wrongs.

16.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 09:54:46
WDW but my point being why is it suddenly now just because Saudi are making waves? The action should have been taken years ago when Blatter and his cronies were corrupting the game beyond repair. FIFA should have been reined in a long time ago and not allowed to grow to be the all powerful, corrupt organisation it is.

17.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 09:58:57
@QV - so what you are advocating is ‘live and let live’ which is a fine sentiment, except of course that it’s not a sentiment that is shared by everybody. Abuse of human rights isn’t exclusive to national borders or tonic groups or race. I was born in Britain which has an appalling history - look at the massacre of Jews at Clifford’s Tower in York in 1190 - 830 years ago.

We also gave the world concentration camps. I’ve lived in Australia since 1999 and if you head down to Botany Bay, where the First Fleet landed - a group of criminals marshalled by British Marines, there are a couple of plaques. Sickeningly one of them commemorates the fact that the descendants of white European settlers held a referendum which recognised Aborigines as people. The acceptance that the owners of the land could be classified as humans happened in 1967.

I’ve done a fair bit of travelling - Russia when Brezhnev was in charge, Europe, Asia, America and at different times I’ve lived in England, Holland, Germany, America, Singapore and Australia. The thing is, wherever I’ve been humans follow the same pattern. Give me 20 people and you will have 18 people who just want to get on with their lives, 1 who is a pain in the a*** and one who goes out of their way to help everybody they meet. The issues occur when zealots of whatever kind manage to inveigle their way into power.

I’ve no doubt that the great majority of Saudis, and Palestinians and Israelis and Russians and Chinese and Australians and British are decent people. Not so the people who run the countries, states or regions.

Rant aside, I wasn’t referring to the vast majority of people in my original post in the World Cup thread. I was talking about two groups of people morally bankrupt and driven by a desire to acquire wealth, and through wealth, power (Radix malorum est cupiditas). As I say, I would happily support a boycott of the World Cup now.

18.) 02 Nov 2023
02 Nov 2023 12:10:31
That’s kind of what I mean. Who are we, who is anybody to insist that anybody, country, culture should live their lives according to someone else’s ideals, regardless of how perverse they are to us? All our culture seems to drive at the moment is telling other people (including within our own countries) how to think and live their lives.

The basis of our culture is capitalist which inevitably will mean someone somewhere is persecuted or exploited. By definition, we are encouraged to capitalise on or to take advantage of a given situation for our own gain, within ever modulating moral standpoints. What we see as fair game at the moment will be something to be outraged at in the future and what people rage at now will be seen as tough cookie, them’s the breaks in the future.

Honestly, in 50 years there’s not a person alive that will give two hoots about where World Cup ‘22 and ‘34 were held or why. There will just be some other reason as to why a World Cup shouldn’t be here or there.

While we’re at it, in fifty years I expect Saudi to be a shining example of how to invest in itself and to develop a nation. I do think their stance will soften on certain humanitarian issues as well, but we seem to have a habit of expecting full cooperation with our stance NOW or to hell with you forever. You can’t change hundreds or thousands of years of ideals by simply withholding a World Cup.

The very fact that they are trying to gain a presence within our culture or consciousness should be seen as a positive thing.