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A few days before the start of the European Championship, one of the main topics of conversation was who should kneel before the match and who should not kneel. The BLM movement, which was moving from the United States to Western Europe, made it almost mandatory for sports team players to kneel in ritual before a game, signaling their protest against racism. This would be fine in principle in countries of ex-colonizers, slave owners, and slave traders, but most of the continent has nothing to do with that.
each other’s enemies
We Central Europe have generally afflicted each other throughout history, and we have only heard of black people in the form of Moorish pirates, or thieves who throw swords at the Crusaders in the Holy Land, and nutmeg besieging Spanish cities (the Muslims).
We encountered the “African-European” race only in the twentieth century, first in the arts and then in the form of African students. We usually get along well with them.
If we had a problem with someone, it was not about the Africans, but the Russians, or the French, or the Germans, for example, and sometimes ourselves.
Of course, the situation is different with the formerly colonial countries of Western Europe, which have reason to atone for it, but this is not a sport but a politics.
The habit of ringing from America has opponents in England, such as Wilfried Zaha, a Crystal Palace player of Ivory Coast origin:
It is an empty gesture that does nothing to reduce racism in sports or in life in general
Zaha once said.
Then comes the European Football Championship 2020, which is now taking place. English/Western cards in recent days have been mostly concerned with who gets to kneel before the game and who doesn’t.
The Croats will likely not kneel at Wembley on Sunday, despite the ‘good example’ the England team set in the first game. The question about the reaction of the English public, when he whistled for the kneeling team before the last two matches with the Austrians and Romanian.
What does the Croatian Football Federation say?
The confusion around the knee—not to mention the tohuvabohu—finally prompted HLSZ to block further speculation in the form of a statement.
According to the letter, HLSZ draws attention to the fact that players have the right to choose how they deal with the problem of racism and discrimination.
A Croatian Federation statement said that before the match against Belgium, the Croatian players decided to show their respect in a cautious stance, whether in the fight against racism and discrimination or kneeling in the ranks of the Belgian players.
Respect for kneeling is not essential among the Croatian people, and more importantly, the Croatian national team players during their career prove through their actions and behavior that race or skin color does not matter to them at all.
Even the media supports it
HLSZ advertising is supported even by the “advanced and enlightened” part of the Croatian media space, such as Index.hr, which is closely related to this, and its reading camp.
According to the index’s mini poll, 80 percent of readers agree with the position of the Croatian Football Federation and support the players of the national team.
This time the Croats are more interested in whether or not they can surprise the English on Sunday. The English are more likely, but the Croats can’t tell…
But the Croatian national team is not the only one who did not kneel before the start of the UEFA matches. The teams of Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary (Russia + Visegrad 4) did not do the same, while Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, Macedonia, Spain, Sweden and Germany did not suspend, but did not kneel. recent matches.
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