Just as political enthusiasts found themselves casually deploying the lexicon of international trade after the Brexit vote, so football supporters are having to brush up on their international relations. After becoming familiar with the internecine struggles of the Arabian gulf these past few weeks, attention now turns to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and the implications for a showpiece final next week.
At base, it’s a question of safety. Henrikh Mkhitaryan will not travel with his Arsenal teammates to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the Europa League final because – as an Armenian – he believes he will not be safe in the city. Azerbaijan customarily refuses entry to Armenian nationals and while its Football Association (and Uefa) insist “Micki” is welcome and every necessary preparation has been taken to protect him, neither the player nor his club are inclined to accept this argument. As a result, he is staying in London and rightly so. No game of football is worth endangering a person’s safety. To suggest, as the Azerbaijani ambassador to the UK has done, that the midfielder is playing politics with his decision is an inexcusable provocation.
Football matches with political consequences are hardly a new phenomenon. In 1936, 85,000 people helped to spread a positive image of Hitler’s Germany across the world as they watched Italy beat Austria in the gold medal match of that year’s Olympics. In 1978, it was considered appropriate to hold the World Cup in a country, Argentina, then ruled by a military junta responsible for the disappearance of tens of thousands of its own citizens. By way of counterpoint, the emergence of a South Africa national team in the early 1990s served as an effective cultural tool to further the dismantling of apartheid.
In the modern age, however, football has gone on to acquire a sociopolitical status far greater than that which it had in the past. In today’s world, particularly at the elite level, it is almost more difficult to find a match that has no political subtext. Wolves v Bournemouth? It’s the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative against Russian expatriate cash. Liverpool v Newcastle? The international synergistic conglomerate v the bargain basement retailer. Manchester City v Manchester United? Less a city divided than two polarised principles on the accumulation of debt.
It may be everywhere but, to this point, football clubs have generally been inclined to play down their roles as political actors. After all, it’s not as if they are actually making deliberate interventions in society. Oh, except when they’re Jürgen Klopp talking (one assumes with the blessing of his employer) about the pernicious effects of Brexit. Or they are Chelsea running their own campaign against antisemitism. Or they are the Premier League launching an educational programme, Primary Stars, across 10,000 schools in England.
These are political actions and they have been made possible, even necessitated, by football’s increased prominence in society. That prominence, of course, also brings extra scrutiny and it has become obvious to see where the game falls short both in a political and a moral sense. Quite often, these failings seem to go hand in hand with the presence of large amounts of money.
The decision not only to award Baku the Europa League final but to allow Azerbaijan to host four matches during Euro 2020 is seen by some to be not unrelated to the potential revenues to be made from the oil-rich country. Accusations regarding the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to another petrostate, Qatar, meanwhile allege straightforward corruption, which Qatar has denied.
To read the details of the disputed allegations made against Manchester City in Uefa’s ongoing FFP investigation against the club, or to browse plans for a reformed Champions League that would be tantamount to a closed shop, it is difficult to feel hopeful that football will rise to the occasion of this political moment. But the scrutiny is not about to go away either.
Smart clubs, compassionate football people, would do well to think about how the soft power they possess could be used to make things better, things beyond their own bottom line. The issue of Arsenal’s big day out in Baku will certainly not be the last of its kind.