Lawmakers in France, England, and Italy have been busy over the past few days. Not the Continental economic crisis, but soccer was the subject of concern. The inglorious exit of these former soccer superpowers from the World Cup has provoked potent political drama.
Italy's conservative Northern League, for example, blamed immigrants. "By filling up our teams with foreigners" said Davide Cavallotto, "our football players have become useless." Never mind that these same foreigners helped Italy's Inter-Milan team capture this year's Champion's League-- The European equivalent of the Superbowl.
In contrast, the French celebrated their multi-racial World Cup champion team eight years ago. This changed in the subsequent world cup when legendary footballer Zenedine Zidane, the son of North African immigrants, headbutted an Italian player, jettisoning much of this enthusiasm away. When the current team's dark-skinned captain lambasted France's white coach following an embarrassing loss to Mexico, it opened old-- but largely unspoken-- racial wounds from the soccer field to parliament in the aftermath of the event. While England's nativist National Front party has not yet followed its counterparts in Italy and France, British lawmakers also recently passed legislation condemning the "troubling state of British football."
What does the bizarre marriage of sports and immigration policy in the public sphere teach us? Perhaps the lesson is that many Europeans care more about their national soccer team than the politicians who represent them at the EU. But Europe is not the only continent embroiled by a World Cup crisis. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has "suspended" his national team for two years. One can only worry that the North Korean squad faces a similar plight. After an unlikely qualifying campaign that landed them in the World Cup, North Korea was ousted in an embarrassing 7-0 defeat by Portugal. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-Il elected to make the game the first televised international sporting event in North Korea in more than half a century.
And the Americans? Our squad gets a pat on the back for exceeding expectations-- and besides, we always win the world series and the superbowl.
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ReplyDeleteMy son, a 15 y.o. American born of an ex-patriate British mother, will be traveling to compete and train in Italy this summer with UK Elite FC based in NJ. I would not allow him to play American football (it's really rugby with pads and only one guy gets to kick the ball with his foot). Much that my husband is a huge fan of the Steelers iron clad gladiators. So yes I doth protest that football belongs to Europeans, but we need to embrace our multicultural friends from all nations to further grow the love of the beautiful game. Otherwise we will end up as Americans competing in a 'superbowl' that is exclusive to our own separate nations athletes.