UNTOLD ARSENAL » 2009 » February » 13

Listening to Lord Triesman (chair of the FA) give an after dinner speech last night one thing was very clear.

He absolutely cannot register that some people think the FA is of itself a very bad thing.  His view more of less seems to be “it is, it must be”.

Of course as chair of the FA he is hardly likely to say anything negative about it, but it seemed clear, particularly in his answers to questions from the audience after the speech, that the idea that a substantial number of football fans would sooner there was no such thing as matches between countries is just not on his radar.

He, and presumably the FA with him, don’t even contemplate the fact that they might have to launch some PR initiative to suggest why internationals are good.  For him, it is obvious.

The FA gets money from two sources: the TV deal for showing England matches and the income from the FA Cup.   The FA also has a permanent seat (along with the FAs of N Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and a rep from UEFA) on the body that looks at rule changes.

So it takes loads of money, and it has loads of influence.  I think the real question is: why should it?

The concept that supporters who pay good money to watch their clubs are fed up that they can’t watch their own star players (eg Theo) because they have been knocked about when with the England team, is wholly missing.  So is the notion that fans don’t like the interruptions to their season.  As is the idea that internatioinal football matches promote racism by encouraging the notion of difference on the base of where by chance you (or your grandmother) happened to be born.

The FA and other bodies have successfully gained the agenda, and are able to push through their arguments about restricting the number of players coming from outside of a country.    But the truth is we should be celebrating the diversity of football – we should celebrate the fact that Arsenal has players from so many different countries, rather than try and restrict this on purely racist and nationalistic grounds.

In many ways the FA is, along with the criminal gangs at the heart of FIFA, the enemy of Arsenal and clubs like Arsenal.  They are the people who want to say, “no Arsenal, you can’t play Henry and Vieira and Berkgamp, because they are not English.   And no Arsenal, you cannot play Cesc, Denilson, Merida and Vela, because they are children, and you stole them from their homelands.”  (Lord Triesman had a lot to say last night about the need to restrict the movement of players before a certain – undefined – age.)

The media of course is utterly pro-FA.  Presumably there is some financial arrangement that encourages the media to act in this way and to dismiss as “stupid” anyone who says he is not supporting a team just because he was born in the same country as some of the players from that team.  (I was born in Southgate, Middlesex – that doesn’t mean I have to go and find Southgate FC and support them.  So why should I support England?)

To move the agenda onto an even basis, so that those who are against national influence in club football is a huge task – but that doesn’t mean it is not worth taking on.  And very occasionally the voice against natioinalism in sport does get heard.