BOYCOTT WORLD CUP
After Berlin’s 1936 Olympics, we Germans know all too well how evil regimes can exploit sport
England and germany have the world’s greatest rivalry on the football pitch. Every meeting between our national teams has been an eagerly anticipated epic since that fateful day in 1966. But now we must put aside our sporting differences and stand united on the issue of the 2018 World Cup in Russia in June.
The thought of English and german footballers shaking the hand of President Vladimir Putin in a packed stadium, in front of a billion or more TV viewers, makes my blood run cold.
germany, more than any other country, has to be aware of the impact that a global sports event can have as a cover for the atrocities of a regime. We bear responsibility for hosting the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, which did so much to legitimise adolf Hitler and the nazis in the eyes of the world.
When we say ‘never again!’ we must mean it. We do not have the luxury of turning a blind eye when sport is used to cover up mass bloodshed.
Of course, Putin’s Russia cannot be compared directly to nazi germany, but the mechanisms of propaganda are unchanged since then: the most vicious governments can use sport to acquire an aura of respectability, and that is what the World Cup means to Putin. That the Russian President has blood on his hands is not in doubt.
In recent years, he has made many declarations of war: on Ukraine by sending tanks into Crimea in a conflict that has so far cost more than 10,000 lives; and on civil aviation by equipping criminals in Eastern Ukraine with an antiaircraft system that blew Malaysia airlines flight MH17 to pieces, killing 298 men, women and children.
Most devastating of all is the war he is waging on Syrian civilians, first by flattening aleppo and now destroying towns in Eastern ghouta, allowing his murderous ally, President Bashar al-assad, not only to cling to power but also to use oil or shrapnel-filled barrel bombs and nerve agents such as sarin.
In recent days, we have seen, in all probability, Russia indulging in yet another act of war and unleashing a ‘military grade’ nerve agent — in effect a weapon of mass destruction — on the streets of Britain.
All of Europe is aghast at the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury that put hundreds of lives at risk.
In her powerful Commons statement yesterday, Theresa May described it as ‘an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom’.
How, in all conscience, can our national football teams play in a tournament hosted by a nation that is led by such a man?
at the weekend, my reporters at Bild, germany’s biggestselling newspaper, confronted members of the national squad, football officials and sponsors including Mercedes-Benz and adidas, with a picture of a Syrian girl, bloodied and bandaged in a wheelchair after being injured in Eastern ghouta, and posed that very question.
They reacted like any caring human beings — with outrage. and while they stopped short of calling for a World Cup boycott, pressure is growing — as I understand it is in the UK, too — for our politicians to make a stand. Certainly there is a moral case for such a boycott.
Of course, some people protest vehemently — players, officials, sponsors and fans among them — that sport and politics should not mix.
For me, it is a fake argument that ignores the reality of what Putin is all about.
He has no love for sport and its values, as he showed when Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. He turned that extravaganza into the most spectacular, statesponsored doping event since the fall of the Iron Curtain.
It was a violation of every rule, an inversion of every sporting virtue and aspiration and so blatant that even his friends at the International Olympic Committee had no choice but to ban Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Putin will not be hosting a celebration of sport this summer, but a propaganda event, and the grass and sweat-stained strips of the 32 teams taking part are a cover for the blood-stained blankets that the Syrians bury their children in.
The silence of the participating countries is, I believe, shameful.
When Bild asked Chancellor angela Merkel if she could attend a match in Russia while Putin’s jets drop their deadly payload over Syria — most likely making small talk seated next to him — her spokesperson replied: ‘We are only making our travel plans a week in advance.’
It was a cold, bureaucratic answer that could almost match Putin’s cynicism.
WE Asked the german brewery Bitburger, one of the main sponsors of the national football team, the same question.
‘I cannot see the connection you are making,’ said the spokesman. ‘ I am looking forward to a wonderful tournament with lots of good football, just as millions of germans do.’ Well, perhaps this fact will help german politicians and World Cup sponsors make the connection.
Russia is allowing assad to use sarin on his own people. This gas was developed during World War II by german scientists, who were also experimenting with Zyklon B.
Eventually, the nazis decided that Zyklon B, being most lethal in confined spaces, should be used in the concentration camps’ gas chambers to murder millions of people.
Sarin was most effective as a nerve agent in the open. now that same lethal toxin is being used against Syrian children.
I believe that germany has a special responsibility to oppose the use of sarin, and we are failing to do that. We would be glad of the support of our old friend and great sporting rival, England, in making a real stand.
We are bound by history and current events. England is the birthplace of the Beautiful game, and germany, current holders of the World Cup.
Together, we must spearhead this protest against handing Putin the World Cup propaganda coup he craves.
Football is beloved of all generations. Most of all, by children. But thousands of Syrian children will never see a match — because they are already dead or soon will be, killed by Putin’s bombs and assad’s sarin attacks.
no one wants to see the West at war with Russia. But that doesn’t mean we should lack the courage to oppose Putin’s murderous reign.