Pep’s T-shirt protest is no crime, UEFA
UEFA have a chance to claw back at least a little of the dignity and the credibility they have lost in recent years when their disciplinary panel meets on May 21 to consider whether to fine Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola.
Guardiola committed the heinous sin of expressing an opinion about something more important than football at his press conference last Monday before Bayern’s Champions League tie with Porto. The punishment for that kind of deviancy is severe if precedent is anything to go by. Football’s twisted world fines you more heavily for wearing branded underpants than indulging in racist chanting.
Guardiola’s crime is to have worn a T-shirt highlighting unanswered issues surrounding the death of a popular and respected Argentinian sports journalist during last year’s World Cup.
Jorge ‘Topo’ Lopez, who was a friend of Lionel Messi and Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone, was killed in a car crash in Belo Horizonte and several details of the incident are yet to be explained.
So Guardiola did the right thing. He wore a shirt bearing the slogan #JusticiaParaTopo. And sure enough, his charge ‘for an incident of a nonsporting nature’ will now be judged by UEFA next month.
It is strange, isn’t it, how we condemn our footballers for being one-dimensional and bemoan their lack of social conscience and say they are all spoiled little rich boys.
And then as soon as they do something a bit different, as soon as they challenge us, as soon as they break free from the norm, UEFA come down on them like a ton of bricks.
If they have any sense left, they will dismiss the charge against Guardiola out of hand.