Celtic Fans Standing Up For Palestine

Dominic Brown follows up with his thoughts on the Match The Fine For Palestine appeal. Dominic Brown is a citizen of Glasgow and supporter of Celtic.

It is greatly appreciated that TPQ is devoting space and time to the Match The Fine For Palestine appeal.

UEFA are a perfect example of how "non-political" is frequently code for "doing very well out of the status quo."

They have no problem, for example, accepting cash from Gazprom, owner of a number of pro-Putin newspapers, and a company which has cut gas supplies to neighbouring countries, including Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, to further the Kremlin's foreign policies.

We're subjected to "anti-racist" pantomimes at games, while we're expected to stump up the price of a ticket to watch the champions of the racist (and  non-European) Israeli state play in the European Champions League, a geographical dispensation given because Israel's neighbours refuse to
compete against the apartheid state.

Express a point of view in agreement with these countries, FIFA members all, and your club will be fined, as happened to Dundalk FC a couple of years back, or worse.

Political positions taken by sports fans are often dismissed as noisy inactivity, and when the flag protest was first announced, it was criticised by some as gesture politics. Well, this gesture has, at the time of writing, raised £96,000 (from an initial target of £15,000) for medical aid and sports facilities for one of the most oppressed groups of people on our planet.

I've never felt more proud of the people around my club, but the contributions of others must be acknowledged too, including those of our brothers and sisters who follow other Glasgow teams.

Football, like everything else, is connected to wider issues. It's these links that make it more than just 22 men or women chasing a ball up and down a field.

Sporting authorities would like us to believe that football is "non-political". Whenever anyone uses that expression, they usually mean "there's only one way to think about this issue, and that's the official way. You bubble-headed little fans should just leave the important stuff to your betters".

Well, no we won't.

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