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Kate Rice ✍ with a poem.

Hunger

Bodies stacked with grass stained mouths
buried shallow beneath the glen
you looked away, and then for Sands
you looked away again
♞♜♝
It’s long been known, the surest road
to reach a proud man’s heart
is through a stomach filled by hand
the working person’s art
♞♜♝
It is easy to shrug off hunger pains
when it is not your gut that aches
it’s easy to feel no need to give
when you’re fed by what it takes
 ♞♜♝
But hunger is an angry thing
you’ve used it here before
you carved it here in ‘famine’ years
they wielded it in war
♞♜♝
They refused your empty plate
the scraps of hoarded greed
and sat with a hunger, raw and ripe
that justice alone could feed
♞♜♝
Lust for freedom is without age
their hunger marked as crime
hope will outlive an Empire’s rule
and time is time is time

⏩Kate Rice is a peace baby.

Hunger

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Ninety Four

A Morning Thought @ 3168

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 3-June-2026.

Photo: GOL.

Sometimes the presidents of Colombia go down in history not just for what they did but rather for what they said. The most stupid of them like Duque (2018-2022) for phrases so lacking in eloquence like “What are you talking about mate? in response to a journalist asking about a bombardment in which children were killed. Others such as Uribe (2002-2010) left us an endless list of quotes amongst which stands out“They weren’t picking coffee” his infamous justification for the murder of defenceless youths, known as the false positives that took the lives of 7,838 youths.

Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) also handed down various expressions. In my opinion the worst one was not what he said about drug money entering his electoral campaign but rather his comments on proposals for a new military code that would exclude certain crimes the military jurisdiction and pass them over to the ordinary justice system and that Due Obedience would not be accepted as a justification in human rights cases. Samper stated that:

As President and commander in chief of the Armed Forces I prefer to see the military fighting the subversives in the mountains and not in the country’s courts responding to groundless charges presented by their enemies.[1]

It does not sound like the statement of a human rights defender, and as president he wasn’t one. But he turned up in the midst of the election campaign, nodded his head every once in a while, putting himself forward as a human rights defender. He did something similar in Petro’s campaign and even before that the Communist Party invited Samper to their congress where he gave a speech in favour of peace.[2] They put behind them the scandals that dragged his government through the mud such as his tooth and nail defence of the CONVIVIR, the legal façade given to right wing paramilitary groups, created under a decree from president César Gaviria and his minister for defence Rafael Pardo that Samper implemented or the Faceless Justice System, another of Gaviria’s inventions that Samper enthusiastically applied, jailing more than one communist using false and cloned witnesses.[3] Samper is now seen as a man of peace, a human rights defender, a man far removed from the armed conflict of the country. When he was president, nobody spoke of him in such terms. And nobody means nobody. Not even many of the Historic Pact that nowadays have their photos taken with him and share on social media as part of the electoral campaign.

Samper has always denied having any responsibility for the armed conflict and the human rights violations under his presidency. To himself, his government was a blameless government of little angels in the flesh. Samper will be remembered for his expression “it was all done behind my back” in reference to drug money entering his election campaign. He said it so vehemently that he seemed to forget that he was the candidate that the money benefitted. In truth, as far as Samper was concerned everything bad about his government was done behind his back.

In 2007 he got into an argument with Myles Frechette, the US ambassador to Colombia during his government, over the issue of paramilitaries, the CONVIVIR, and the general human rights situation. Samper replied in the best style of Uribe Vélez and with a gall on a par to him.

That high-ranking officers of the armed forces of the country were linked to favouring paramilitary groups is totally false, it is just a strategy to discredit the government of the period.[4]

He took us for fools. To name just two: the generals Rito Alejo del Río and Uscátegui. Rito Alejo was in 1997 the general in charge of Operation Genesis in Urabá in which troops under his command operated in alliance with the paramilitaries. In 2012 he was sentenced to 25 years. Rito Alejo del Río was a key player in the paramilitary network, or as Javier Giraldo describes his long and bloody record, he was a “bulwark for the paramilitaries”.[5] Uscátegui was sentenced to 37 years in 2009 for the massacre of Mapiripan that also occurred in 1997 when Samper was president. There is also the case of Captain Rodrigo Cañas and the pool hall massacres in April 1996 in the town of Segovia. Not as a high a rank as the other cases, but it is noteworthy as Cañas was sentenced to 50 years and never set foot in his place of detention: the Tolemaida military base. No one knows where he went. Perhaps to Israel, perhaps he joined the paramilitary groups. No one knows.

Even in the cases in which the Colombian justice system worked Samper opted for congratulating the military on their dirty work, as in the case of Nydia Erica Bautista:

Following an unprecedented decision by the Procurator Delegate for Human Rights, in September 1995 an army brigadier-general in active service was dismissed from the armed forces for responsibility in the abduction, torture and murder of a political activist in 1987. The dismissal of Brigadier-General Alvaro Velandia Hurtado was strongly opposed by senior military commanders and sectors of Colombian Congress who attempted, unsuccessfully, to reinstate him. Following the Procurator Delegate’s initial call for his dismissal, General Velandia was decorated by the commander of the armed forces, on the order of President Samper. (bold not in original).[6]

Samper always defended the military and denied that they violated human rights. In response to a resolution of the European Parliament in October 1996, he stated without blushing:

It is not true, that the Colombian security forces have developed an emergency strategy, characterized by aid to paramilitary groups, extrajudicial killings, torture and disappearances.[7]

Throughout his presidency human rights groups took advantage of Samper’s pretty and public discourse on human rights to make a series of recommendations. Samper accepted the state’s responsibility for the Trujillo massacre that took place before his presidency, but despite the requests made he never implemented the recommendations of the commission of investigation. Various organisations also asked him to enact a law making forced disappearance a crime in compliance with Art. 12 of the Colombian Constitution. Amnesty International publicly requested he do so in September 1994 two months after he took over the presidency.[8] He didn’t do it; it fell to his successor Andrés Pastrana in the year 2000. Samper did little of what he was asked and following the murder of the lawyer Eduardo Umaña Mendoza, Amnesty did not hesitate in demanding that the “Colombian Government should tackle pattern of attacks against human rights workers”[9]

In June 1997 human rights defenders presented the Colombian Government with a series of proposals to help guarantee their safety. These included a call for members of the security forces responsible for human rights violations to be brought to justice, and for effective action to be taken to dismantle paramilitary groups. Human rights defenders also called for those members of the security forces supporting or operating in unison with paramilitary forces to be brought to justice.
If the Colombian Government had taken such decisive action Dr. Umaña Mendoza and other human rights workers might still be alive. (Bold not in original).[10]

It was worth remembering that Umaña was a reference point for almost all those who are now in the Historic Pact and more than one of those who pose for photos with Samper. Samper is spoken of in terms that nobody used when he was president. Towards the end of his term, Amnesty International wrote an open letter to him that all those who back Samper now should read. It is very telling and the parts cited here describe him in terms that few dare use nowadays.

During your administration, Mr President, human rights defenders have been persecuted on an unprecedented scale. More defenders have been killed in the last four years than during any previous government. Despite repeated commitments to protect human rights defenders your government has relinquished its responsibility and has preferred to hide behind euphemisms attributing the attacks to “fuerzas oscuras” (“dark forces”) which, it is claimed, can neither be identified, confronted, nor held to account.
The indifference of your government to the plight of those who peacefully seek to protect human rights and the basic principles of democratic society has constituted at best gross irresponsibility and at worst criminal negligence…
The ambivalence of your government towards human rights organizations has allowed and quite possibly encouraged the escalation of attacks against defenders. Despite statements recognizing the legitimacy of their work, the failure of your government to take action against members of the armed forces, in active service and retired, who falsely accuse human rights defenders of links with subversive organizations has sent a clear message that the campaign of extermination will be tolerated…
It is, therefore, the incontrovertible responsibility of states to guarantee the free exercise of the right to promote and defend human rights. States are fundamentally obliged by international law to protect and promote this right, to prevent it from being threatened, restricted or suppressed and to protect the liberties and security of those who exercise it. Your government, Mr President, has singularly failed to fulfil that obligation.[11]

Amnesty International is a human rights NGO, but it is usually very diplomatic in the language used, so the tone of the letter is telling. Those that rehabilitated Samper and praise him despite the fact that he continues to deny the brutal record of his government, are traitors. They have betrayed the defence of human rights. They insult the memory of the victims of Samper’s government and reduce paramilitarism to just one president: Uribe Vélez, despite the role of all presidents’ in paramilitarism being well documented. Rewriting history in this way and cleaning up the image of such a person is an act of corruption.

Here I have laid out a brief presentation of Samper’s record. On the issue of human rights his record is long and includes states of exception that gave special powers to the military, reduced the age of criminal liability to 14, house searches without a warrant, censorship etc. It is also the case in economic terms, the surrender of natural resources, his attempt to introduce a mining code that favoured the multinationals and in passing his own companies.[12] It is a long list, with enough for not one but many books, doctoral theses even. 

Samper as president did everything that the members of the Historic Pact criticise, and despite this, they have him there as one of the stars of the moment. How little historic memory and dignity they have. I hope their reward for grovelling to such a person is worth it. The inclusion of people like him in the Historic Pact’s campaign says a lot about the poverty of their proposals, the lack of audacity and vision.

References

[1] AI (1996) Colombia a deepening human rights crisis. 

[2] Semanario Voz (21/07/2017) Unidad para construir un nuevo país . 

[3] As the witnesses identity was not known the same “witness” would appear in various different processes as if a different person in each case.

[4] Caracol (31/03/2007) Frechette: ‘El gobierno sabía que las Convivir se estaban convirtiendo en paramilitares’. 

[5] Giraldo, J. (2003) El General (r) Rito Alejo del Río: baluarte del paramilitarismo bajo el blindaje de la impunidad. 

[6] AI (1996) Op. Cit. p.4

[7] HRW (1996) Colombia’s Killer Networks. 

[8] AI (18/09/1994) Colombia: Further information: “Disappearances”: President must promulgate draft law against “disappearances” and new concern: Death threats. 

[9] AI (20/04/1998) Colombian Government should tackle pattern of attacks against human rights workers. 

[10] Ibíd.

[11] AI (18/05/1998) Colombia: Open letter to Colombian President Ernesto Samper Pizano. 

[12] Ó Loingsigh, G. (2003) La Estrategia Integral del Paramilitarismo en el Magdalena Medio. p.71 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Rewriting The History Of Colombia 🪶 The Rehabilitation Of Samper

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ While a typical Drogs result, the game was a great one to watch. A roller coaster that started with a down and ended with one - but in between, worth every cent.


In the car on our way to the ground we went through the usual pre-match routine with Jay making his prediction. 2-0 to the home side was how he saw it unfolding. I wasn't so sure. On paper, home advantage against the side at the bottom of the table pointed to only one outcome - three points to Drogheda. But there remained that chivvying thought: two weeks earlier Waterford recorded their first win of the season when they put the Drogs to the sword on their own turf. I went for the draw.

We arrived early, too early in fact so we took our seats higher up the stand so that we could hide better from the sun which as the day extends assails us for longer. It still caught us. That is the one disadvantage of switching to the Windmill Road side of the ground. But Irish weather is of the type where there is no point in complaining because it will change in fifteen minutes anyway. To boot, given the lack of sun shine to bathe these shores, it is not as if it will play havoc with our vision for all the home games. I guess it will be something of a rarity unless there is a god and he is the type the hate theologians worship, one as hateful as themselves, and then he will torment us with heaven fire from the sun for having the temerity not to believe in him or delude ourselves that such a fiend is capable of love.

If the sun had been doing its job properly it would have spared us the sight of a goal just fifteen seconds into the game which left us stunned. A team conceding barely seconds after the kickoff, is not exactly a confidence building measure. The air went out of the Drogheda support base in one single sight of disbelief. In my sixty plus years of attending soccer matches, Tommy Lonergan’s strike is the quickest goal I recall witnessing

Things got worse when the visitors took a 2-0 lead. A poorly defended corner kick easily converted by Kevin Long put Waterford in a commanding position, the absence of Conor Keeley sorely felt. Kevin Doherty, in his technical areas, must be receiving oxygen, I felt, apoplectic with rage he must have been. He later commented that “I don’t remember us being 1-0 down after 15 seconds before.' The fans are hoping it is the one and only time they too will have a memory of it. 


Yet, while there is a dearth of quality in this Drogheda side the same cannot be said for its character. The team soon rallied and stabilised. A Mark Doyle header before the break followed by a Shane Farrell drive after it saw the home side pull level. And when the captain stooped to head home a well placed cross it looked as if the home side was truly home and dry. It wasn't to be but the goal that ended up denying Drogheda all three points four minutes before the end of normal time from the cultured boot of Benny Couto, was of such quality that it was well worth the watching, A twenty yard dipping ball that could perhaps have been better defended but lost none of its beauty because of that.

Drogheda were fortunate that Bohemians did them a favour at Sligo. Had the Bit of Red produced the form that saw them win at Tallaght the Claret and Blue would be second from bottom right now. The Drogs are now in eighth place when a victory would have shuffled them up to sixth. Still, a valuable point gained even if it is the only point Drogheda have taken from the Blues in the past two outings, with the latter notching up four. 

Coach, Kevin Doherty expressed relief after the game that the brief summer sojourn is kicking in, allowing his injury hit side some respite. In recent games the coach has been considerably short of a full deck so has been forced to take to the field with a weak hand and it has shown in some underwhelming performances. 

Time now to play a few aces. 

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Drogs ⚽ Waterford ⚽ Points Shared

Christopher Owens 🔖 As one advances in age, the feelings that we once had toward our teachers should soften.


Barely alive bags of skin and bones animated purely by coffee and a hatred towards your class gradually become human and sympathetic as the years progress. We realise the work they put in and shudder thinking about how we joked about them and their private lives.

Recently, such recollections have been at the front of my mind due to news about potential strikes, burnout and violence in education. It’s clearly a bleak time to be a teacher for a multitude of reasons: parents have outsourced parenting to schools, society undervalues genuine education but still expects its children to be up to standard, endless bureaucracy.

So this is a timely release.

A stand-up comedian and co-host of the Triggernometry podcast, Francis Foster did his time in the trenches as a supply teacher in places like Dagenham and North Wales. Partly traumatised by his time getting punched in the balls by unruly kids and partly rejuvenated thanks to the incredible success of Triggernometry, it’s a book that was close to being shelved: originally listed for release last year, the original publishers developed cold feet due to Foster (and Triggernometry) being well known for having no truck for identity politics and woke culture.

Thankfully, Constable Publishing stepped in and rescued the book, and good on them for doing so as this is a hilarious yet sobering read about the reality of teaching in Britain in the 21st century.

When discussing his time at a secondary school in Hertfordshire, Foster talks about the worst day he had as a teacher:

I had been informed first thing by the head of drama that I was needed to teach her “rather tricky” year 9 group as she was away on a course. She looked at me and uttered the ominous words, ‘You’re going to need your wits about you’.
This is teacher code for ‘you are about to descend into the depths of hell and an hour in this group’s company will make a tour of Afghanistan seem delightful in comparison’.
Year 9 is frequently the worst year group to teach drama to, for a couple of reasons. They’re thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, so they’re in the full unpleasant flush of adolescence. They’re awkward, moody and crippled by insecurity. The last thing they want to do is get up in front of their peers and perform. Secondly, many of them won’t be doing drama for GCSE so they have no emotional investment in the lessons. It’s the most toxic of all combinations.

But things go from bad to worse:

As I entered the gym and looked around, I realised that this entire experience was going to be horrific for everyone concerned. But mainly for me. The group was scattered across the room and it looked like they were enjoying an extension to their break time. They were drinking fizzy drinks, eating crisps and chasing each other round the gym. This was already shaping up to be a disaster.
I inhaled a huge gulp of air deep into my lungs in an effort to create a voice that sounded calm and authoritative. It ended up coming out sounding more like an emasculated squeak.
The kids were taking out the gym equipment, including the pommel horse and the monkey bars. From appearing to be an uncooperative rabble, they seemed to be working well as a group. The apparatus was gradually and effectively being built in front of my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I realised that I would not be teaching a drama lesson. I would be attempting to stop a PE lesson and it was thirty kids against one teacher. The worst thing was, I didn’t know who the well-behaved kids were, I didn’t understand the group dynamics, I didn’t even know their names.

Also, being caught with his zip down probably didn’t help matters.

As you can read, Foster’s style is swift and breezy, akin to hearing a good pub tale. Even when he goes off in tangents that initially doesn’t, you gladly go with it because you trust Foster. Plus it helps that there are plenty of hilarious moments and observations to keep the reader turning the page.

Interestingly, despite the subtitle, there is never a case made for why one should never become a teacher. Sure, the desperate circumstances are made clear, but I didn’t come away thinking that Foster had made a catastrophic mistake going into teaching nor did I think that the profession was beyond saving. Instead, my admiration for teachers grew and it reinforced the necessity of teachers to guide young people into successful personal and professional lives. Similarly, there are hints about having problems involving mean girl pupils and their parents who believe every word their “wee angel”© says but it’s not elaborated on.

With the morale of teachers at an all-time low in 2026, let’s make this the year that we have honest discussions about the future of teaching, and (Un)educated should serve as the basis for such conversations.

Francis Foster, 2026. (Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One. Constable. ISBN-13: ‎978-0349021508

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

(Un)educated 📚 My Life As A Teacher, And Why You Should Never Become One

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Ninety Three

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 1

A Morning Thought @ 3167

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The Dublin government, it seems, has finally moved to introduce legislation enacting the Occupied Territories Bill, indicating it will be in place before the parliamentary summer recess, when those who do very little good will take a holiday in which they will continue to do very little good.

Called the Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026, it falls a long way short of what was both hoped for and needed by campaigners. Ellen Coyne in the Irish Times identified the core failing of what the government seeks to enact:

The Bill that Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee finally brought to Cabinet on Tuesday – after an extremely long delay – is one that arguably now carries more emblematic relevance than practical power . . . At the moment, the proposed legislation would only ban the trade of physical goods between Ireland and the illegally occupied Israeli settlements. Most estimations are that this is an almost negligible amount, which would result in a very weak economic sanction of Israel. The trade of services, which is harder to quantify, is believed to be a much higher figure.

No one should feel guilty for believing on the strength of this Bill that Profit Before Palestinians is the government's catchcry. 

In the Dail, stung by the trenchant opposition to the government's all lip no teeth Bill, a petulant Taoiseach accused People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett of virtue signalling when he called for the Bill to be 70% more expansive than what the government currently proposes. What Micheal Martin was actually doing with his labelling of Boyd Barrett was vice signalling. Instead of opting for what is, for sure, an authentic virtuous position the Fianna Fail leader has chosen to adopt one of vice to placate those international forces who show little concern for the Palestinian people. 

Senator Frances Black, who spoke to us only last week in the Barbican Centre, warned us on the night not to expect too much from this government. She did not mislead us. The Bill is effectively a damp squib from a government which, unlike Spain, is more deferential than defiant towards the forces that constitute the Western hegemonic power bloc. The senator said:

Government still haven’t given any coherent, detailed justification for this beyond short soundbites . . . When the Bill finally hits the floor of the Dáil in the coming weeks I will be working with all opposition parties to table amendments to include services . . . That has been my clear position since 2018 and I will do everything in my power to make it happen . . . The ban should be comprehensive and include all trade, both goods and services.

Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein leader, accused the government of “taking a wrecking ball” to the Occupied Territories Bill as originally proposed by Senator Black, claiming that it had only acted because it had been dragged into doing so. Endorsement of this position is to be found in a Pat Leahy piece for the Irish Times in which he candidly said that the government had been stalling the Bill.

McDonald went further in her stinging but justified rebuke:

This is your response, your approach after 14 Irish citizens on a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza were kidnapped, detained, and brutalised by Israeli forces.

Having watched the videos and images of Israeli Security minister, Ben Givr - in a manner than even Heinreich Himmler refrained from when inspecting prisoners in Nazi concentration camps - mock and degrade the flotilla detainees illegally captured by Israel, Mary Lou McDonold's barb carries potent resonance.

That the Bill has made any progress at all is down to what the Irish Times has described:

the Irish public have started to treat the Bill as a metric of whether or not the Government is doing enough to either oppose Israel or support the people of Palestine.

This is where it sits: the powerful in this society whether in government or the FAI are comfortable doing as little as they can get away with. Our collective task in Drogheda Stands With Palestine, in conjunction with our colleagues throughout this society, is to hold their feet to the fire and make them as uncomfortable as possible while they replace real politics with gesture politics.  Perform the dance of deceit and vice signal as much as they want, we will be here to remind them and everybody else that vice is never a virtue, no matter how nicely it is dressed up.  Having watched the protest at the midweek Ireland-Qatar game, the phrase that leaps to mind when I observe the government's watery proposal is anyone for tennis? 

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

The Soundbite Bill

Labour Heartlands ☭  Written by Paul Knaggs.

The EHRC Code Ends Eight Months of Confusion: But Will Labour Act?

After eight months of delay, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory Code of Practice has been formally laid before Parliament. For every NHS trust, council, charity and quango that has spent years hiding behind confusion, the hiding is over.

The code of practice is not a pamphlet. It is not a recommendation. It is not a consultation exercise or a diversity working group’s output. Laid before Parliament on 21 May 2026, it is statutory guidance, approved by the Secretary of State, carrying the weight of the Equality Act 2010, and grounded in the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers. Courts and tribunals must take it into account. Lawyers must advise their clients by it. Service providers ignore it at their legal peril.

This publication should not require celebration. It should have been obvious from the moment of the Supreme Court judgment more than a year ago. But in a country where obvious things are routinely made obscure when they inconvenience the right people, it is worth stating plainly: “The law has been confirmed . . . ”

Continue @ Labour Heartlands.

Women’s Rights 🪶 EHRC Code Laid Before Parliament, And Reality Finally Enters The Room

Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ On 11th June the World Cup football tournament will be upon us. 

In the good old days a competition I’d be looking forward to. 

Thanks to the parasitical money grabbing bastards who have corrupted the game, making money now far more important than trophies, among many other issues I have this time round I cannot get excited. I have never been a great fan of international football in general but the World Cup and European Championships have always been exceptions. I have fond memories of the World Cup competition dating back to England’s 1966 victory in the final over the then West Germany, winning the game and the tournament 4-2. Commentator, the late great Kenneth Wolstenholme’s voice, “they think its all over, it is now” when Hurst scored England’s fourth goal still resonates today among fans. 

I remember the street parties rather than the football as I was only five years old. I have much clearer memories of the 1970 competition and that brilliant Brazilian team who won the tournament for the third time thus claiming the Jules Rimet trophy, the original World Cup. The team contained class players like the great Jairzinho who scored in every game which is a record still standing. Alongside this wizard were Rivellino and the greatest of all time, Pele. 

One moment which sticks in my memory was when Pele rose to a crossed ball heading downwards to what should have been a certain goal. England’s goalkeeper, Gordon Banks, got down to the ball at his right-hand post to deny Pele with goalkeeping brilliance to match the Brazilian. Brazil beat England 1-0 and went on to claim the trophy. Great days, great football refereed by humans with human frailties all of which played their part in any football match. Today football has been corrupted, morally if not legally (capitalism is a morally corrupt system in general), with daft rules like the stupid ruinous offside rule which very few can make head nor tail of! Then we have the unofficial ‘not allowed to tackle’ rule meaning if a defender looks at a forward then it is a freekick to the forward’s side and a possible sending off for the defender! I do hope this load of crap coupled with the hated VAR does not fuck things up too much but I know it will - guaranteed!!

I have never been a great lover of the international scene because it started encroaching on the league programme. These international breaks make a mockery of what is already a league which is a shadow of the old First Division (and the then set up in general including the Second, Third and Fourth Divisions). When international football was played without interfering with the league it was tolerable and the end of season ‘Home Internationals’ were always something to look forward to. The England v Scotland game at Wembley was one I always waited for because in those days no England fans turned up. In 1977 victorious Scotland fans wrecked Wembley much to the amusement, or so it seemed, of Brian Moore, the ITV commentator, who commented “they came, they saw, they conquered” as the Scots invaded the pitch and proceeded to tear down the goalposts. Apart from the Home Internationals I never really bothered with international football until the World Cup came around.

Since England won the World Cup, deservedly so, in 1966 there appears to have grown a culture which says the trophy belongs to them. This is, of course, bollocks. They won it once with an exceptional team which manager, Alf Ramsey, had put together. Goals from Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, both of West Ham United, in the final won it for England, Hurst getting his hattrick. West Ham fans, with some justification, claimed they won the World Cup as the captain of the team was Bobby Moore also of West Ham United. Leaving the plaudits aside England have won the trophy once and only once. So what gives them the right to anecdotally claim the World Cup as their own? The only national team who could claim this, and did, are Brazil. The very first competition was played in Uruguay and it was they who won the first trophy in 1930, defeating Argentina 4-2. If the World Cup belongs anywhere it has to be South America, not Europe or any country within, and certainly not England. 

These delusions of invincibility have contributed to England’s lack of success in World Cup competition since 1966. They do not have an automatic right to the trophy, and living solely on the 1966 great memory is doing them no favours at all. This competition already corrupted by stupid rules threaded into the game over the decades by people whose sole interests are profit, profit, profit, also have the added accusations against players and people close to the English FA of being unfair and greedy. Observations have been made by fans hoping to make the journey to Mexico, the USA, and Canada for the tournament noting players' potential ticket allocation.

Modern football fans who travel abroad appear to want their home comforts, hotels, food, and amenities unlike the park benches and telephone kiosks used by some of us as accommodation back in the seventies and eighties. The fans today do not expect the players to take the piss out of them off the pitch by taking tickets needed by supporters. On Wednesday 27th May the Irish Daily Mirror could inform their readers of England footballers in the World Cup squad buying “1,000 each for every game”. With 26 players in the squad the maths should tell their own story and it is not a nice one: at least 26,000 tickets for each game swallowed up by players if reports are correct. It is true the players have done nothing against the rules or, more to the point, the letter of the rules. There is also something called the spirit of the rules and these players and FA staff have certainly flown in the face of this spirit. Fans who are making the journey are struggling to get tickets on the open market and reading of these activities England’s players are getting up to must make most supporters sick. Dave Ryan, a 55-year-old Cambridge United supporter, said:

I completely understand that England players and FA staff should have access to tickets for games so family and friends can watch them play – but 1,000 tickets for every game?

With players and FA staff taking this number of tickets little wonder fans, many of whom have spent their lives savings just to get there, are finding it increasingly hard to come across said tickets. It is bad enough the black market, a symptom of capitalism, taking many tickets but the players fans have come to cheer along also swallowing up tickets, perfectly legally, takes the biscuit. Supporters making the trip will pay through the nose for shitty guest house accommodation with even modest hotels upping their prices. Then they face the arduous task of obtaining tickets, and for many the very expensive black market will be their only recourse. So having paid a fortune for accommodation then, if lucky, match tickets and - to coin it all - booze will be vastly overpriced. Do fans still drink alcohol? It was our staple diet! Then having paid a fortune for tickets due in no small part to the shortage of said tickets they find out the England players, the ones the fans came to support, can if they wish purchase at face value up to 1,000 tickets for “every game”. No wonder the fans cannot get tickets, the players have them!

The state of the once great game is dire in general. With unenforceable rules such as the offside legislation, the unofficial ‘thou shalt not tackle’ in the case of defenders, and the cursed VAR we have a bunch of not only clueless imbeciles running the game but also inconsistent hypocrites. This observation applies to the game in general but in this case the international competitions, which there are too many of in my view, they are blatant. UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations) banned Russia from international football, as did other sporting bodies ban them from their fields, over the invasion of their neighbour Ukraine in February 2022. Noteworthy this banning only applies to Russia and not other countries and could be described as ‘anti Slav discrimination’ practiced by two of the governing bodies of International Football. 

The USA have not been banned for their actions in bombing the shit out of Iran while still supposedly in discussions with that country over its nuclear programme. Not a word of protest from those good people running global football about the US kidnapping and bombing of Venezuela and its President and illegally imprisoning said President. And now for the biggest dose of double standards by these hypocrites; Israel still being allowed to compete on a world stage despite their genocide against the Palestinian people and those of the independent nation state of Lebanon - not a fucking word of protest by either FIFA and/or UEFA. At the moment in the twenty-six-counties there is an ongoing argument as to whether the national football team should engage in competition with Israel? 

If the rules were to be applied equally, and not just to Russia, this polemic would not arise because Israel would be banned. The same applies to the USA, host nation or otherwise, regarding the World Cup - they should be banned. These sickening hypocrisies by those who are foolishly entrusted to make the rules are as sick as the game they preside over has become! My critique of what passes for modern football knows no bounds so I’ll leave it at that.    

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

World Cup 2026

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Ninety Two

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