It seems a banal story but it is not, because it is one of those ridiculous stories that serve to make us understand how much the Western conscience is made of sugar paste, unaware of its very democratic short circuits and its moralizing advertisements with a high content of glucose.
British police have decided to investigate a Newcastle fan banner protesting the recent acquisition of the club by the Saudis. It shows a Saudi-clad man wielding a bloody sword and about to behead a magpie, as fans in the background chant: “We got our club back.” The banner then lists the crimes the Saudi regime is accused of by all human rights groups: terrorism, beheadings, civil rights violations, murder, censorship and persecution.
Saudis who criticize their government often end up in a lot of trouble. Now that may become the case also in the country that only two weeks ago saw one of its parliamentarians in office, David Amess, stabbed to death by an Islamist.
The Premier League promotes Lgbt bracelets and anti-racism genuflections in honor of Black Lives Matter, but allows Saudi Arabia, where gays are executed and women have fewer rights than a magpie, to take over a top club, but it also intends to prohibit any criticism of that regime.
Is Raif Badawi, a liberal Saudi blogger sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes (50 were given in the public square), also “racist”? Not only that, but while the police investigated Newcastle fans, Imam Anjem Choudary was free to stir up Islamic hatred.
The football hut costs money and Qatar buys Paris Saint Germain, the United Arab Emirates buys Manchester City and Saudi Arabia buys Newcastle (413 million euros are coveted by everyone). Football moralism, on the other hand, is free. And so David Beckham, celebrated as a “sexually fluid” icon of football, has no problem putting on the Qatar World Cup jersey. No prominent football figures have criticized the decision to organize the World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuals can be imprisoned for up to three years.
And now Europe’s stadiums can go back to rainbow colors against Orban’s Hungary, because Western consciousness is in a perennial glycemic crisis.