Insta-FootPol. Political Fallout! Euros, Copa America and Israel/FIFA Edition

We're back (briefly) from our summer break! Co-hosts Guy and Francesco break down the politics that's making the headlines in the wake of Spain's and Argentina's respective Euro and Copa America wins. They look at what's happened following Rodri's claim that "Gibraltar is Spanish" and the Spanish political right's response to seeing a multiracial team lift the trophy. They also examine the response by Argentina's political leaders to Argentine player Enzo Fernandez's racist and transphobic chanting against the French national team, while Guy offers an insight into Argentina's racial minorities and their treatment. Finally Francesco reports on what might happen at the FIFA Council this weekend, when the question of banning Israel for its genocidal actions in Gaza comes before it.

Unless there is more political happenings in football, this episode will be our last until after the summer break. We'll be back in early September!

Transcript

Insta-FootPol. Political Fallout! Euros, Copa America and Israel/FIFA Edition

Guy Burton 00:09

Hello and welcome to an emergency edition of the FootPol podcast or maybe in what Francesco likes to call the Insta-pod. My name is Guy Burton, one of your co -hosts, and I'm also joined by my other co -host Francesco Belcastro. 

Guy Burton 00:21

Francesco, how are you doing? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:22

I'm fine, but I think it's Insta-Pol. 

Guy Burton 00:25

Insta-Pol! We're still discussing this several months on. To be fair, we haven't done very many of them, though, have we? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:31

Or Insta-FootPol that's, that's the other ,that's the other version.

Guy Burton 00:35

Why are we here Francesco? I mean we said that we were going away! 

Francesco Belcastro 00:38

Well, I got no idea, I was on holiday, you emailed me the other day, you messaged me the other day, saying we need to do an episode. As you know, I'm moving out, so I'm not really up to date with the news. 

Francesco Belcastro 00:46

I know there's something that's been followed about the FIFA vote on Israel and its participation, its membership rather. But what else? What else has been in the news? 

Guy Burton 00:58

Well, that's it. I mean, we decided to sort of call it call time for a short summer break, as listeners will know. We've been going on about for the last few weeks. That would be back in September. But the Copa America happens, the final, and also the final of the Euros. 

Guy Burton 01:14

And then there's been political fallout from that. So we kind of felt, I felt it would probably be pretty good for us to have a quick chat sort of talk about what's the political ramifications of what's been happening recently. 

Guy Burton 01:24

And of course, as you've said, there's also been, there is a FIFA Council vote coming up at the end of this week. And so we don't normally do this, Francesco, do we? I mean, we tend not to do topical, you know, subject matter. 

Guy Burton 01:37

We tend to do episodes which pretty much can fit in any time. 

Francesco Belcastro 01:43

We do sometimes, so we had an election one, but having said that, that's something that was valid at the time, but it's still, at least we should still check it out. We had a cost, Christina Philippou for that one. 

Guy Burton 01:56

But that was a pretty in -depth one. I think, you know, with our sort of Insta -FootPol Pod, as you want to call it, we just want to have a quick look at what's going on, right? So if I may, I mean, did you watch the Euros final, or were you already in the process? 

Francesco Belcastro 02:11

I did, I did, I did watch the Euros final, I thought. 

Guy Burton 02:15

Do you know what happened afterwards? 

Francesco Belcastro 02:17

Well, I mean, let's start by sort of congratulating Spain on a well -deserved victory. They were by far the best tournament, the best team in the tournament. I really, really enjoyed watching them. But as I understand, after the tournament, there was a public celebration back in Spain. 

Francesco Belcastro 02:35

And some of the Spanish players were caught singing something that has to do with politics quite a lot. Now, a little thing that we want to say to listeners is that some of the Spanish players have already been associated with the political right. 

Francesco Belcastro 02:53

I think Dani Caravajal would be the main example there. And in Spain, there's been a discussion about this not so warm handshake with the socialist prime minister of Spain. So there is that kind of background, the political background around some of the players. 

Francesco Belcastro 03:08

And now what happened, Guy? Why is everyone talking about the Spanish national team? 

Guy Burton 03:12

There is that, but then there's also Rodri at the team gathering in the middle of it shouted, you know, Gibraltar is Spanish, which, as you can imagine, upset a lot of people both in the UK and in Gibraltar. 

Guy Burton 03:27

This is actually something that has sort of, it's been a rumbling thing, isn't it, in Spanish politics, sort of Gibraltar being a part of Spain and Spain wanting to have Gibraltar back. The Gibraltar FA was very upset about this and has actually protested to UEFA. 

Guy Burton 03:45

I think it's significant because Gibraltar is now a member of the UEFA and it has been since 2013. So it's not something that can sort of just be brushed under the carpet. And really, the UEFA really were probably not happy about this because you recall in previous weeks when we were talking about both the, you know, when we were talking to Nicolas Sbetti about the, you know, the politics that might come around the sports happening this summer. 

Guy Burton 04:11

One of the things that we should keep in mind as well is that UEFA does not like political protest at its events, right? And we were thinking at the time that there might be something around Palestine and Gaza. 

Guy Burton 04:24

We didn't see that. But it's not going to, it's very, very, very keen to not have political statements made. And so it has introduced, I think, a disciplinary commission to sort of try and push the issue further and further away. 

Guy Burton 04:38

But it's going to be interesting to see what the result will be from that. 

Francesco Belcastro 04:42

Yeah. And I think it also goes back to the idea of Spanish national identity and how football is used to project a certain idea of what it means to be Spanish, which has got parallels with other cases of other countries. 

Francesco Belcastro 04:57

And I think it kind of connects a bit to the other debate, which is the one that has partially come out as a Copa America, but more... Yeah, go ahead. You want to add something? I don't know. 

Guy Burton 05:09

Well, before we go with that, because I think I know where you're going, because there's the sort of, you're going to be talking about the racist, the racist singing that around Enzo Fernandez, but before we do that, we should also talk a little bit about in Spain as well, what's happened, because as you recall, the Spanish team was a very diverse one, right? 

Guy Burton 05:26

I mean, it had a number of Basque players, Catalan players, sons of immigrants as well, most notably, Nicol Williams, as well as Lamal. 

Francesco Belcastro 05:35

Lamine Yamal. 

Guy Burton 05:35

Lamine Yamal. And what's interesting about that is to see the reaction in Spain to the Spain victory, the right. 

Guy Burton 05:45

I mean, we talked a little bit about DaniCaravajal's response to the socialist president, prime minister, but we also haven't mentioned as well how the Spanish political rights has responded to Spain's Euro victory. 

Guy Burton 05:59

It found it very uncomfortable, actually. And so in its tweets, in its publicity, it has not publicized the team. In fact, if anything, it's just focused on Spain as champions, superimposed on an image of Gibraltar. 

Francesco Belcastro 06:16

Whenever there is a multicultural team that wins a competition or a team with people from different backgrounds, the right is very uncomfortable. So I think that's a plus of Spain's victory, as it would have been if England won, right? 

Francesco Belcastro 06:33

You know, there's been a lot of debate around Englishness whenever England does well, given the fact that the English team is a very multi -acting, multicultural. It's these fantastic young players from different backgrounds. 

Guy Burton 06:48

And we touched upon this, I think, actually in our last episode, when we were talking to Jack Black about whether or not it would come home. And I asked you about what goes on in Italy around football or nostalgia of football. 

Guy Burton 07:02

And you also mentioned this issue about diversity starting to emerge and challenge, I guess. And I think this actually might be a topic that we explore at a later date, sort of this idea of identity and diversity in, not just in the UK case, but with Spain, Italy and other places as well, are coming to see experiences for the first time, I suppose. 

Guy Burton 07:28

So any listeners out there who are interested in this or know people that we can talk to, please get in touch with us. And I think we really want to take this further. 

Francesco Belcastro 07:36

So the first, the first headline is Rodri wants Gibraltar back and many people are not very happy about it. That's, that's the first headline. The second one, it's diverse Spanish team and noise right -wing and football commentators happy about right -wingers being, being annoyed, and then the other one you want to talk about it's as to do we answer Fernandez, right? 

Guy Burton 07:58

Yes. 

Guy Burton 08:00

Exactly. So, I mean, you, as you recall, Argentina beats Colombia in the final, and after the victory, and of course, you know, after the victory, there was a video that emerged of Enzo Fernandez as one of the Argentine players singing both a racist and transphobic chant. 

Guy Burton 08:20

And with several of the other players, and this has sort of created a furore, you know, it's received condemnation from the French... 

Francesco Belcastro 08:32

Can we also add that seeing the chant had to do with France and with this national theme and with the diverse background of this particular, the racist reference was to the fact that many players were allegedly Africans in these racist chants. 

Guy Burton 08:50

It's not it's not just racist. It's also transphobic because 

Guy Burton 08:52

Yeah, there's also a transphobic reference to Mbappe, I think? 

Guy Burton 08:56

Exactly and that's and that's actually something that's been sort of overlooked somewhat in the controversy that's that's resulted since then so as you can imagine the French the French FA protested and in fact actually as of today we're recording on Thursday... The French FA is talking about taking the Argentine FA to court on this. And in response we've actually had the... Well, when that happens, we then had one of the Argentine sports ministers demanding that Messi and the president of the Argentine Federation Apologize and soon after that he was sacked by the Argentine president And the Argentine vice president has been saying there is nothing to apologize here at all. The French are behaving as colonizers, you know...

Guy Burton 09:44

We support Enzo Fernandez. And in fact, this seems to be sort of an... How can I put this if this is this this this isn't just limited to politicians. There is actually wider sentiment in Argentina that is supportive of Enzo Fernandez despite the fact that he has already claimed that this is not who he is in a public statement. And even though Chelsea his football club is actually taking disciplinary action against him 

Francesco Belcastro 10:11

Yeah, and to make things even spicier, some of his teammates at Chelsea, in particular, [Wesley] Fofana had responded to that and condemned that, which I assume will make for an interesting return back to the club when he does. 

Guy Burton 10:27

Well, a little bit like Rodri and Manchester City, right? Because when he said, you know, Gibraltar is Spanish, he was shut down quite quickly by his captain saying, but you play in England. We haven't heard anything from the Manchester City lot yet, but it would be interesting to see whether, you know, if this actually carries, you know, how Man City will respond to that. 

Guy Burton 10:46

But I mean, let's get back to the Fernandez case. So it's what he and the players were chanting was racist and transphobic. You know, it's but what's what's disturbing is the political reaction coming from the top in Argentina. 

Guy Burton 11:01

Rather than sort of, you know, condemning it, they're seeing they're trying to portray themselves as the victims here as somehow, you know, there's nothing to apologize here for, and which is a problem. 

Guy Burton 11:12

Because ultimately, if you know, if you don't recognize that you have a problem with racism, then it's difficult to solve it. I mean, we've seen this in Spain, if you think about Vini Junior, you know, the Brazilian player who, you know, haranged, you know, for in Spanish football by by by by racist chants and stuff. 

Guy Burton 11:30

And the Spanish FA and Spanish clubs tend to ignore it. 

Francesco Belcastro 11:34

Yeah, and I think it's absolutely you're right and I think it goes back also again to national identity and I know you've been looking a bit into the case of, well, forget for a moment about France, which in itself is a very interesting case because again, this dynamic that we mentioned about Spain, about sort of, you know, national identity in France has been a much richer debate than has been in a lot of European countries. 

Francesco Belcastro 11:59

So that's that's an aspect of interest, which I think, you know, the sort beyond the domestic dimension of France and how different parties perceive this. But luckily, there has been, I think, more and more of a generic general condemnation. 

Francesco Belcastro 12:13

But from the point of view of you've looked particularly, Guy, at the sort of Argentinian situation, right? Yeah, because it's one is one of interest. 

Guy Burton 12:21

Yes, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm an expert in the subject, but I have studied and researched Latin American politics, but I was curious to know more about Argentina's population because it's not one of the sort of attitudes, and I think maybe part of the racism in Argentine society can relate back to this idea that Argentina, in the national story, the national myth, was an empty country that these colonized colonists, 

Guy Burton 12:50

most initially Spain but then subsequently Italians and others, came to and found an empty country, which is not true. There were indigenous people already there, and also, notably, a black population which was brought over as part of the transatlantic slave trade. 

Guy Burton 13:03

There was a point, actually, in the colonial period, a couple of decades before independence in 1810, when the population of Buenos Aires was about a third black, right? Granted, after independence and the population just exploded in Argentina, and so what you actually have is, from a population of around 100, 150 ,000 in 1800 or so, you have several million by 1900. 

Guy Burton 13:32

Now, most of those immigrants were Italian, German, Spanish, being brought over in the later part, latter part of the 19th century. So that pretty much diluted, if you want, the black population, but apparently, there has been some research which points to the fact that, because there have been questions, where did the black population in Argentina go? 

Guy Burton 13:53

And actually, the result is miscegenation. Some studies about 10, 15, 20 years ago have suggested that about 10% of, or rather 10% of Argentines, of the Argentine population, has some black blood, African heritage in them. 

Guy Burton 14:09

So it's not that they ever went away, but the problem is, of course, that in Latin America, you have this history which kind of rewrites it all. There was always, and if you look at the 19th century, in the 19th century in Latin America, there was very much this idea of they wanted to, these were newly independent countries, they wanted to modernize and to develop and progress, and the way they saw that was becoming like Europe. 

Guy Burton 14:33

And so, how do you become like Europe? Well, basically, you import, you migrate these white populations to get a bit of that urgency. 

Francesco Belcastro 14:46

I've got a question, Guy. When we say a more diverse population, you mean, obviously, like, people brought from Africa, but also indigenous populations, population of there, right? So that was, that was, that was, that was, it means a more diverse population. 

Guy Burton 15:00

Yeah. I mean, look, 

Guy Burton 15:01

There is the indigenous population of Argentina as well, a little bit like in North America. They were pushed off their lands or the lands that they used in order to establish ranching plantations and other sorts. 

Guy Burton 15:14

This actually had backing by the Spanish colonial and then subsequent independent Argentine states. Of course, throughout the 19th century, there is this sense of the myth of the indigenous as a sort of barbaric, lacking civilization, which is also pretty much attributed to all non -white populations. 

Guy Burton 15:38

In fact, actually, what you have in Brazil and I think to a certain extent in Argentina and other places is this so -called, quote, whitening policy, which is to try and breed out the so -called backward elements that non -white populations have. 

Guy Burton 15:55

Unfortunately, there is still sort of this underlying tendency to some of the ways that people think about race and politics in these countries. But this is why I think also it's striking that when the Argentine players are being accused of racism towards the French, that it's important to not overlook the historical legacy of the countries in which they are living. 

Francesco Belcastro 16:26

Absolutely. And this kind of brings us to the third point that we want to make. 

Guy Burton 16:32

Which you're going to talk about, I think, yeah? 

Francesco Belcastro 16:34

Yeah, I'm going to say a few things, but obviously you or yourself have a background in Middle East politics and definitely have been following the news more than me in the last couple of weeks. So please feel free to jump in. 

Francesco Belcastro 16:44

So listeners might remember, because we had an excellent episode with Karim Zidane and Pijetlovic a few months ago. At the time we were looking at whether the FIFA Congress in Bangkok in May would decide to proceed and suspend the Israeli Football Federation from FIFA for a series of violations. 

Francesco Belcastro 17:07

Some of them obviously have to do with the ongoing genocide taking place in Gaza at the moment, but also listeners should be aware there's been a longer struggle around sport and where basically in the last 15 to 20 years the Palestinian Federation has been trying to affirm its rights and to show that the Israeli Football Federation in Israel as a state has been denying Palestinians the right to play, 

Francesco Belcastro 17:33

has been filling themes based in occupied territories and carrying out the series of violations against FIFA's own rules on the basis of which the Palestinian Federation argues Israel should be suspended. 

Francesco Belcastro 17:46

Now these have kind of gained momentum again within going genocide in Gaza. As you know Guy, we are now in the region of at least 40 ,000 people have died. Studies suggest that it's more, but even if you take this number, if you look at it the impact on sport and all of other sectors has been very very high. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:09

Just high profile athletes and footballers being killed. Obviously the impact of the genocide is on other population including sport. So in May there's been this attempt to bring this to the Congress. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:24

The Congress, which is let's say the kind of the yearly meeting of FIFA that decides on main aspects. 

Guy Burton 18:36

The Council rather than Congress, right? 

Francesco Belcastro 18:37

Sorry, the Congress in May. 

Guy Burton 18:39

Oh, is it OK? Right. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:41

However, the Council is what is deciding now, right? Yeah. Am I correct? So now the FIFA Council. 

Guy Burton 18:47

Yeah. I believe so. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:50

So where was I? Yeah. So President Infantino as basically and people around them have decided that they want to ask a legal opinion. Really a way of sort of kicking the can further down the road. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:07

And they gave themselves a deadline of the 20th of July for this legal opinion to decide how to proceed. Now, the 20th of July is this Saturday. So we expect that on Saturday, there's going to be an announcement of the decision made by the FIFA council. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:25

Now the FIFA Council is the organ of 47 members, I think it is, that brings together representatives of different confederations and other I elect I am level of feature elected from FIFA. It's basically the organ that decides the daily running of the organization as opposed to the Congress and meets every year. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:48

So this has been seen as an attempt by President Infantino who himself has got quite long history of political intervention in the FIFA in the Palestinian Israel issue, which we won't go in now. But as you know, I've looked at it from an academic point of view myself. 

Francesco Belcastro 20:06

So now on Saturday or on Saturday, we should have a decision on whether FIFA will suspend temporarily Israel given the ongoing crisis in Gaza. The sense I think is that FIFA won't despite all the pressure mounting, including by high profile politicians, not sport politicians or politicians, leaders from different countries. 

Francesco Belcastro 20:35

The initiative by the Palestinian Federation has been backed in particular by the Jordanian Football Association and by the half brother of the king of Jordan. So it has quite a lot of and there's been a lot of popular momentum, popular pressure towards that. 

Francesco Belcastro 20:53

So there is a sense that FIFA it's trying to contain this pressure because it's difficult to deny what's going on and because there is also precedence. The one of Russia is probably the most obvious one. 

Francesco Belcastro 21:08

So that's where we are. So Saturday, we will know a bit more in terms of what happens. But it's a very important decision. And I think FIFA will lose quite a lot of credibility if it has any. If it is not to act in any way, given the current status of what's happening in Gaza. 

Guy Burton 21:28

Can I ask you a question? Given that FIFA decided to ban Russia for invading Ukraine, isn't that pretty much an open and shut case? It's hard to see how it can then suggest something different is happening in the case of Israel and Gaza, no? 

Francesco Belcastro 21:53

I mean, in the case of other institutions, you think that's the case. But FIFA has a long track record of fudging things and of just being able to postpone and to and the logic of, you know, waiting for July was to hoping that you don't have to be able to decide. 

Francesco Belcastro 22:07

You move it from sort of a more public sphere to one that is a bit more controlled. You take a few months of time and you hope that it goes away. Now, unfortunately, things got worse. It didn't go away. 

Francesco Belcastro 22:19

So, yeah, I mean, at one level, you're right. It's going to be difficult to find but to come up with something that is completely legitimizing the organization. Having said that, Infantino doesn't strike me as someone who's particularly concerned about his reputation because he's in a few years as a FIFA chair. 

Francesco Belcastro 22:35

He already is ready to build a reputation for being ruthless and not exactly fair. And we know where his politics are. We know he's not in any way someone who is a concern about these matters. So you want rights violations, not in any way sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. 

Francesco Belcastro 22:54

So whether the pressure is going to be so much that despite what he wants to do, the council will decide to vote in a certain way. It's hard to say. I think they're going to try everything not to suspend Israel even on a temporary basis. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:13

That's, that's the sense. But whether it's going to be able to do that, it's hard to say. 

Guy Burton 23:18

Yeah, I mean, one thing that I think is would be interesting is given that, you know, as you were talking about, the Council has a certain number of members, and those members are from different confederations. 

Guy Burton 23:27

And it's not as simple as... And those, those, the representatives of those confederations come from the national FAs as well. So, you know, it's not as simple as sort of, you know, equating sort of the politics that happens at state level, with sort of the politics of the National Football Association, right? 

Francesco Belcastro 23:45

It's not at all because some of these people are, for example, the vice chair of the Asian Federation, right? So it's not there strictly to represent its country, but rather the sort of the Asian Federation in this case. 

Guy Burton 23:59

And yes, I mean, and you know, and yes, and the cheque that's basically the senior rep from the AFC, the Asian Federation is from Bahrain, and Bahrain has relations with Israel now, right? You do although they also have Qatar and Malaysia, who are in the Asian Confederation representatives. 

Guy Burton 24:16

And then I guess maybe a couple of the African ones like Nigeria and Mali, I mean, but yeah, it's going- I mean, I hear what you're saying. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:26

It's more complicated than the nationality of people voting, because what's going to be happening now is that every federation is going to receive pressure from its members and then it's going to go to the regional confederation. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:38

So it's a very complex machine, but in the reason why it's been brought to Council, it's because there is more control over there than there is at Congress. 

Guy Burton 24:48

We should, it's definitely something we should look at, you know, maybe in the new season as well, Francesco. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:53

We can have another Insta- FootPol next week with the decision, Guy! 

Guy Burton 24:56

Well, exactly. Well, I may not have access to the internet by then because I'll have moved out of my house, but we shall see...

Francesco Belcastro 25:03

You can hotspot from the cafe! So people in the cafe can learn about FIFA as well! 

Guy Burton 25:11

So all these listeners who thought that they were getting, you know, getting some peace and quiet from us, you know, going to get us constantly speaking, coming back on these topical things. I mean, yes, look, we just wanted to bring you guys, you know, up to date with what's been going on in the sort of the just in the last few days since the cup finals. 

Guy Burton 25:27

It's also quite striking that, you know, all this stuff has happened when we thought when we were when we were talking to, you know, both Nicolas Sbetti and and also, you know, to Jorge Knijnik, you know, about what do you did they think might be sort of some of the political ramifications from from the Euros and the Copa America. 

Guy Burton 25:43

And so far, we haven't really seen very much of that. Right? I mean, we've not seen any kind of protest...

Francesco Belcastro 25:47

There's still the Olympics coming though, Guy, so I wouldn't...

Guy Burton 25:49

And speaking of which just I mean, I know this doesn't necessarily relate directly to football, but we have had as of this morning as well, the French Olympic Committee announcing that its players will not be wearing- be allowed to wear the hijab. 

Guy Burton 26:04

Right. Now, as far as I'm aware, I don't think there are any, you know, Muslim players on the French women's football team. But again, this is, you know, one of those those decisions, those one of those decisions that's very heated and, you know, generates a lot of, well, discussion and it's not and you can imagine it seems a bit odd for that announcement to come out just at the same time that the French FA is playing the victim in and launching a legal dispute against the Argentine FA. It doesn't look good, politically at least. 

Francesco Belcastro 26:38

Listeners should check out the episode with Shirin Ahmed on this, which is an excellent one we did in the first season. So, and listeners should also watch out for this independent legal advice given to the FIFA Council and FIFA Council's decision that should be coming out in the next couple of days. 

Francesco Belcastro 26:54

Alright, Guy, this was meant to be a short one, so... 

Guy Burton 26:58

I know, exactly. So it will listen, it was great chatting to you again. And as ever, to listeners, get in touch with us, you know, by now you should know where we are on social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, you know, tell us what you think what you're thinking about the about the show, what we could do better, as well as new topics, because we are in the process of preparing, aren't we, Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 27:18

We are, we are. So get in touch wuth us and... um... 

Guy Burton 27:19

And also, I forgot to mention, we have we don't do this often enough, we also have an email account that they can address rights to us, right at football podcast at gmail .com. 

Francesco Belcastro 27:30

Okay, so any Spanish and Argentinian nationalists that want to have a go at Guy, please, please- 

Guy Burton 27:36

I've already been on the receiving end of some of those, Francesco! But listen I will let you get back to the to your house house moving duties as will I and To the listeners. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to us and-

Francesco Belcastro 27:49

Have a good summer of football and politics. 

Guy Burton 27:51

Yes, and do listen to our episodes while- if you're desperate for more FootPol. Okay, bye! 

Francesco Belcastro 27:56

Bye -bye!