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IQBAL SULEMAN puts out a challenge: With no end in sight for the genocide in Gaza, isn’t it time that solidarity activists seriously consider an audience boycott of Premier League games on TV?
IT is the most popular football league on planet earth. From Bangkok to Bangalore, Durban to Dublin, almost every town in this world, there are the fans of the premier league. Kindergarten kids, primary school kids, fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers, dock workers, doctors, Wall Street suits, butchers, bakers and street sweepers. Come match day, they leave the world and turn on their flat screens to watch a game of English Premier League (EPL) football. For two hours, they are transfixed. Approximately 1.4 billion people identify as EPL fans.
There is a presumption by many that the Premier League has been neutral since October 7 and hasn’t taken a side between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians. There are others that argue that silence in the midst of genocide is complicity and that far from being neutral, the Premier League is actually pro-Israel.
In the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel, the Premier League issued a statement: ‘The Premier League is shocked and saddened by the escalating crisis in Israel and Gaza, and strongly condemns the horrific and brutal acts of violence against innocent civilians.
‘We hope for peace, and our heartfelt sympathies are with the victims, their families and the communities impacted.
‘As a mark of respect for all those affected, Premier League players, managers and match officials will wear black armbands and observe a moment’s silence at the fixtures taking place from Saturday 21 to Monday 23 October.’
Is the Premier League really neutral? It seemingly issued the above statement to condemn primarily the attacks against Israelis on October 7 which killed approximately 1 100 Israelis.
After its October statement, it has remained silent. Since then, more than 33 000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 70 000 injured. During this Gaza Genocide, the Premier League has not issued any condemnation even though Israel has butchered more than 13 000 children and 9 000 women. Palestinians have also been dying of forced starvation. There was the massacre at Al Ahly Hospital, the ‘Flour Massacre’, the massacre at Al Shifa Hospital, the barbaric assassination of the World Central Kitchen aid workers. There were no armbands worn and no moments of silence for these victims of Israeli barbarism.
If the Premier League cannot have a moment of silence for the more than one hundred thousand Palestinian casualties, it is clearly racist. The Premier League is UK based and the UK government has, after America, been the most devoted supporter of the Israeli Genocide in Gaza.
Some of the Premier League clubs have been overtly Zionist.
Take Chelsea FC’s statement: ‘We have been enormously saddened by the huge loss of life following last week’s attacks on Israel. We stand with the Jewish community in London and around the world in the face of rising anti-Semitism which we have long campaigned against.’
So Chelsea FC has been enormously saddened by the loss of approximately 1 100 Israeli lives but are not saddened by more than 33 000 Palestinians killed?
The players and commentators who were vociferous about rights violations in the Qatar World Cup are completely silent on the Gaza Genocide. They were correct to raise the human rights violations in Qatar but what about the human rights violations in Occupied Palestine? What about the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? Why the inconsistency and the hypocrisy?
Harry Kane’s arms are bare; no band to stand in solidarity with the victims of Gaza.
Apart from retweeting a tweet, why has the Premier League’s ‘Mr Human Rights’, Gary Lineker, not spoken out about the Gaza Genocide?
Liverpool striker, maestro Mohamed Salah’s statement is so carefully choreographed and cadenced that he dare not condemn the Israel by name. ‘The escalation in recent weeks is unbearable to witness. All lives are sacred and must be protected. The massacres must stop. Families are being torn apart’.
These words may assuage Salah’s guilty conscience as being the most successful Arab player in the Premier League. Privileged, powerful and wealthy but not willing to take the risk of speaking truth to power and calling Israel out for its genocide in Gaza.
Salah is an Egyptian national. Egypt is complicit in the starvation of the people of Gaza by keeping the border closed. As a citizen of Egypt, Salah should take a strong and clear stand condemning the role that Egypt has played as Israel’s enforcer of the forced starvation and closing of the border crossings.
What about you who are in solidarity with the people of Gaza and at the same time the supporters of Premier League football clubs such as Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea, et al?
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Will you pretend that while you are sitting in front of your screen on match day that the genocide is not happening? Whilst you were watching the match, Israel would have killed eight Palestinian children in those two hours. While you jumped in joy close to your ceiling when Salah blasted the goal pass Manchester United’s Andre Onana, poor Palestinians are screaming in pain as Israeli bombs crush the buildings over their heads. As you hop in ecstasy wearing your Team Viewer logo Manchester United t-shirt when Amad Diallo scores the winning goal, a poor Palestinian girl is having her leg amputated without anaesthesia.
Why are you silent when one of the most famous and celebrated fans of Manchester United, Rachel Riley, trivialises Apartheid and black suffering? There is an iconic photograph of Jeremy Corbyn with the words ‘Defend the right to demonstrate against Apartheid, join the Picket, and Corbyn is being accosted and arrested by police officers because of his Anti-Apartheid activism. Rachel Riley uses the same photograph of Corbyn in handcuffs on her t-shirt but erases all reference to the anti-Apartheid resistance of Corbyn and inserts her own Zionist propagandist words, ‘Jeremy Corbyn is a racist endeavour’.
What gives this Zionist zealot the right to trivialise Apartheid and the oppression of black people that she can so audaciously erase the reference to the Apartheid resistance and denigrate a human rights icon? How can South African Manchester United supporters be silent and not take issue with their leading fan who is considered a leading voice of Manchester United supporters?
Corbyn is probably the most principled politician on the planet and spent his entire life fighting for social justice and against every form of racism from Apartheid, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Corbyn was an anti-Apartheid activist when the British and the United States governments were friends of Apartheid South Africa and his protest at the time in 1984 was against PW. Botha’s visit to London. South Africans are grateful for the role that Corbyn and other internationalists played in the global anti-apartheid struggle.
The Premier League has exclusive broadcasting partnerships with pay TV channels and strategic platforms. It is reported that the Premier League generated approximately 6.44 billion pounds from television deals in the 2022 season. For the same season, Manchester City received 210 million pounds, Manchester United 205 million pounds, and Liverpool 200 million pounds in revenue from TV deals.
The Premier League TV revenue is generated simply by supporters watching matches on TV. Now imagine if solidarity supporters embark on a strategic boycott of Premier League blockbuster games such as Manchester United versus Liverpool, Manchester City versus Arsenal, Manchester United versus Manchester City, and Liverpool versus Manchester City. This will make the Premier League and its clubs listen because it will be hurting their pockets. The last match between Manchester United and Liverpool was watched by at least 8.6 million viewers. With no end in sight for the genocide in Gaza, isn’t it time that solidarity activists seriously consider an audience boycott of Premier League games on TV/
Let us not forget the anti-Apartheid sports boycott in South Africa and the slogan ‘No normal sport in an abnormal society’.
- Iqbal Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria.
