No chants about Brexit, Fifa tells England fans
We’re basking in a glorious summer – and, says ROBERT HARDMAN, after that heart-swelling match . . .
ENGLAND fans were last night warned there could be repercussions if they were caught singing pro-Brexit chants.
Football’s global governing body, Fifa, said the Football Association faced punishment if English supporters were caught making reference to the 2016 EU referendum in their match against Belgium on Thursday.
It is feared the match could be fraught with political tension since Brussels is at the centre of the ongoing Brexit negotiations. Some have even light-heatedly dubbed Thursday’s match the ‘Brexit derby’.
Under Fifa rules, national football associations are liable for any improper conduct by their supporters.
Forbidden behaviour includes ‘displaying insulting or political slogans in any form’.
Last night a Fifa spokesman told The Times: ‘There is a risk of some kind of punishment to the FA if their fans are found to have used insulting or political slogans as there would be for any national association.’ England fans caused controversy at the 2016 European Championships in France by singing songs about Brexit.
Before the vote, which took place in the middle of the tournament, supporters were heard singing ‘f*** off Europe, we’re all voting out’. An updated version of the chant – ‘f*** off Europe, we all voted out’ – has been heard at England matches since the vote. There is precedent for teams being sanctioned for their fans’ political statements.
In 2016 Barcelona were fined £132,000 after supporters displayed the Catalan separatist flag during a Champions League game.
The Spanish club described the sanction as ‘totally unjust and... opposed to the exercise of the freedom of expression’.
It comes as England supporters grow increasingly confident about the team’s chances in the World Cup.
Social media was awash with excitement as fans predicted Gareth Southgate and his squad could even win the tournament.
Following a record breaking 6-1 victory over Panama and a 2-1 win over Tunisia, interest in the team’s campaign has soared.
Some experts have predicted the growing confidence will see an influx of fans now making a last minute dash to Russia to watch the Three Lions take on Belgium in Kaliningrad on Thursday night.
The Association of British Travel Agents yesterday reported that package deals to Russia were selling quickly and flight searches to the country had soared.
Gullivers Travel – running official England Supporters Travel Club trips – also said they had sold out packages to the Belgium game. Flights for as low as £90 were available from the UK to get fans to the match against Belgium.
England supporters have not yet used up the ticket allocation provided by Fifa, meaning tickets are still available to purchase.
Fifa have also promised to put last-minute tickets on sale costing as little as £79 for the Belgium game and future knock-out games. Yesterday thousands of social media users declared the football was ‘coming home’ following the team’s early performances. Several shared the famous 1966 World Cup photograph of Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup trophy – with Harry Kane’s face edited into the image. One enthusiastic fan wrote: ‘I Look forward to taking my kids to Wembley in the future... I will walk down Sir Gareth Southgate Way head into the Sir Jesse Lingard stand and have a drink from the Sir Harry Maguire Bar.’ Both England and Belgium managers have hinted they might rest key players during the next match.
Members of the England squad were put through their paces with some basic yoga stretches during their day off yesterday. Full back Ashley Young, goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and defender Harry Maguire were pictured doing the ‘warrior pose’.
There is a sweet spot in every english summer, that brief period between the end of spring and the first reports of melting motorways, hosepipe bans and a warning from the health and safety mob about the perils of barbecued food.
It is that moment of delicious anticipation when the summer holidays are imminent, but before we have actually seen the length of the airport queue. And there are still things to cheer across a sporting landscape that is at its most elegant — from Ascot and Wimbledon to henley and Goodwood.
When, though, did we last have a sweet spot as sweet as this one?
The sun is out, the economy is thriving (whatever the drearleaders of the pro-remain lobby might say) and, to cap it all, we are on a sporting high.
Last weekend was not merely good. It was astonishing. This is a nation which can get carried away when a homegrown player reaches the third round of Wimbledon or when the england cricket team are on a bit of a roll at Lord’s. We can work ourselves into giddy excitement when our footballers have merely managed not to lose.
remember all the hysterics during england’s euro 96 campaign — the tournament which gave us ‘Three Lions On A Shirt’. That kicked off with a terrible 1-1 home draw with Switzerland.
So the events of recent days have been of an entirely different magnitude. We have seen proper triumphs; serious and substantial records tumbling before our eyes.
Never before have england thrashed — and I mean thrashed — Australia at cricket in the way that we just have. Their win in the final one-day international at Old Trafford on Sunday meant england had beaten the Aussies 5-0 in a series, the first clean sweep in more than 140 years of cricketing rivalry.
Over in France, Britain’s Lewis hamilton was pulling off a stylish and commanding victory at the French Grand Prix.
All of which, in the past, would have been quite enough to give national morale a boost. That, though, is before we include the most astonishing result of the lot.
Sunday afternoon’s 6-1 england victory over Panama was the best result by any england team at any World Cup. ever.
Furthermore, it was achieved without headlines about hooligan behaviour. The only vaguely sour taste in the mouth is the pathetic decision by the Post Office to ban postmen and women from attaching england flags to their vans. Is this not the perfect moment to celebrate the Cross of St George?
OrdO we still have to regard it as a faintly ridiculous emblem for nationalist morons — as Shadow Foreign Secretary emily Thornberry did when she circulated her famously snobbish tweet mocking a rochester home draped in england flags?
regardless, the vast majority of the country (the english bit of it, anyway) is currently feeling exceptionally good about itself. To which cynics ( and Scottish football fans) might say: so what’s new? don’t the english always get these delusions of grandeur at the start of any big sporting tournament?
Look at the dismal performance at every soccer championship since, well, 1966. Look at all the hype and hoopla surrounding the last rugby World Cup. We were kicked out after the first round — and we were the hosts, for heaven’s sake.
Yet this does seem to be different territory. And it is not just down to the margin of victory — or the forecasts for a prolonged spell of flaming June sunshine stretching in to July. It is for the same reason that this england football squad have been so underrated: they are very young and very different.
We finally seem to have ended an england football tradition stretching from the 1990 Italy World Cup to the 2016 european championships. It was an epoch underpinned by a culture of spoiled brats, card games, golf and drinking matches; of surly indifference to the fans and the press; of bumbling managers who had somehow forgotten to practise penalty shoot- outs or had no idea that players were furtively boozing. remember Paul ‘ Gazza’ Gascoigne’s ‘dentist’s chair’ celebration — re- enacting a hong Kong cocktail bar drinking game — at euro 96?
The 2016 european championships, you may recall, coincided with the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. roy hodgson’s england squad were berthed not far from the battlefield and the great Thiepval memorial (bearing the names of many footballers). Yet the england squad somehow couldn’t be bothered to visit. They played a bit of golf instead or rang their agents or contemplated another tattoo. And then they got kicked out by Iceland.
So, I was rather heartened to see that five england players took it upon themselves to go for a guided tour around the hermitage in St Petersburg last week. It was not an exclusive, out- of-hours, VIP tour, either. They went round with the millions of ordinary tourists who visit one of the world’s greatest museums each year.
Other stars went shopping, of course, mingling with the public, happy to sign autographs for those who spotted them. To which might some might say: so what?
Yet what we are seeing — hopefully anyway — is a change of mindset. Through the years of david Beckham, Wayne rooney and John Terry, there was a siege mentality. That lot would no more have gone to look at an art gallery — least of all without minders — than use public transport.
I am certainly not suggesting that Gareth Southgate has created a squad of angels. There will be ugly moments ahead.
But in his choice of harry Kane as captain and role model, we do see a new direction of travel.
how refreshing to see a gifted, tattoo-free, grafter who is engaged to his childhood sweetheart and answers questions with a smile rather than a sneer.
Southgate himself seems content in his own skin, a young, upbeat man-manager rather than the traditional sort of twitching, chippy gum- chewer we have grown used to seeing growling away in the england dugout.
Bumper audiences of all ages are tuning in to this World Cup campaign and not just because england are doing well.
It is also because this lot started with low expectations and have turned into an altogether more attractive bunch than we have seen in a long time.
They also happen to be the most diverse england squad ever to grace a World Cup, with 11 of the 23 players from an ethnic minority or mixed-raced background — and a more impressive grasp of the National Anthem than most.
SOmuCh for all that remoanerish tosh about the england flag being ‘ racist’. Indeed, after this month’s toxic atmosphere at Westminster and the collapse of that parliamentary revolt on Brexit, haven’t all these sporting events helped to lift the gloom?
Let us recall the immortal words of the danish foreign minister uffe ellemann- Jensen after denmark rejected the eu’s 1992 maastricht Treaty and promptly won the euro 92 football championships: ‘If you can’t join them, beat them!’
I still wish this thing was not happening in russia. The crooks at FIFA should never have awarded the World Cup to a regime that invades its neighbours, shoots down civilian airliners and wages chemical warfare on the streets of Britain. Vladimir Putin will only feel emboldened once this World Cup is over.
meanwhile, the Left in Britain are far too busy dreaming up ways of insulting our most important ally ahead of donald Trump’s arrival next month.
No, the sweet spot is not going to last. But let’s enjoy it while we can.