To any sports star who gets political I say: More power to your elbow.. and your knee
GERARD PIQUE and Pep Guardiola are not the most popular people among the vast majority of Spaniards right now.
Barcelona centre-back Pique was viciously barracked during Spain’s open training session on Monday, with fans holding up obscene banners as they chanted at him to leave the national side.
His crime was to vote in a referendum on Catalan independence and condemn Spanish riot police for the brutality they unleashed on his compatriots.
Manchester City boss Guardiola went further, accusing the Madrid government of covering-up the violence and making a “mockery” of democracy.
The message to them in every region of Spain outside Catalonia is to shut their mouths, because politics and sport should never mix.
It’s a mantra we hear a lot today as the most powerful politician on earth demands all NFL players who kneel during the American national anthem to protest against racial discrimination should be fired. And it’s a cowardly one.
We should applaud keeping politics out of sport when it’s politicians wanting the entry. But brave sportsmen taking a stand for their own people regardless of how it affects their careers can be one of life’s truly noble sights.
Brian Clough turning up on miners’ picket lines and telling Sport Minister Colin Moynihan he’d like to “strangle him by the balls”.
Robbie Fowler revealing a T-shirt during a European game showing solidarity with 500 sacked Liverpool dockers, (above) knowing he’d be censured by the Establishment.
James McClean refusing to wear a poppy out of respect for fellow Bogsiders killed by the British Army, not caring that he would be reviled in stadiums across England. All important acts of solidarity as sports stars with profiles gave a muchneeded voice to their people.
If only more players followed Steven Naismith’s and Andy Robertson’s example and were actively involved with food-banks. Or do what Middlesbrough players did, wearing Save Our Steel Tshirts, the next time thousands of jobs are killed by government policy.
How can the idea of a sportsman being involved in politics be automatically deemed wrong when the greatest of them all, Muhammad Ali, was prepared to go to prison for his belief that, as a black man, he had no quarrel with the Vietcong?
To understand how deeply men like Pique and Guardiola resent aggressive rule from Madrid go back to 1938 when Barcelona was under siege from Franco’s Hitler-backed fascists, and Catalonians were slaughtered trying to defend their democratically-elected government. Interestingly, in May of that year, in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, England’s footballers were forced to give a Nazi salute during the German anthem in front of 110,000 spectators.
According to Stanley Matthews there was a dressing-room revolt when the players were told what the Foreign Office demanded they do as part of its policy of appeasing Hitler.
Britain’s ambassador to Berlin told them they must obey orders, so the seething players reluctantly gave that Nazi salute to a watching Goebbels, Goering and Hess.
The shameful image remains the greatest testament to why our politicians should never be allowed to foist their agenda on to sport. Had they defiantly keep their hands by their sides, how noble and correct would that intervention in politics by those brave young players now look?
To any sportsman who wants to stand up for their people I say more power to your elbow, your knee or your middle finger.