The English Premier League’s Identity Relegation Battle

The English Premier League has decided that when it comes to the identity championship, religion is facing a relegation battle.

Having already decided that religious motifs were offside in the league, the good people in the diversity and inclusion department of the league determined that all captains of all sides should wear a rainbow armband this past week in Premier League matches.

And religious diversity? Struggling to gather any meaningful possession and is constantly being fouled whenever it gets near the ball.

And the obvious happened.  Yet again! You would think that sports would have learned this lesson by now, but apparently not.

Some of the most diverse people in the Premier League teams, the Muslim captain of Ipswich, Sam Morsy, and the Ivory Coast – and Christian captain of Crystal Palace – Marc Guehi, decided to be yet more diverse again!

Morsy simply didn’t wear the armband, so he escaped censure for not making an obvious religious statement, though clearly he refused on religious grounds. And Guehi? What was his sin, er crime?  He wrote “I love Jesus” on the armband for one match, and “Jesus loves you” for the next match.

What was that? Gays go to hell? Nope. Just the most obvious statement that the Bible would teach about humanity. But that crossed the boundary.

So cue hissy fit. Cue hissy fit for those whose love of diversity is skin deep. Actual diversity of thinking? Not gonna happen. Actually understanding that for billions around the world who are deeply religious, the cult of constant LGBTQ+ worship and affirmation simply does not fly? Never.

And it has become cultish in all the worst ways. You need to be an ally and affirm to stay on the right side of its adherents. Heretics are banished. Or made an example of.

Of course this just shows how hopelessly out of touch the modern boffins of English football are. How craven they are to the new forms of colonial imperialism. Sure we can’t invade your countries any longer, but we still wish to colonise you.

You see, when it comes to diversity, the luvvies who run English football just love that street food those Ivory Coast types produce for those gentrified markets in their local areas. Just love it.

But actually diversity? Actually holding a deep difference of opinion and practice to the colonists? Well, darling, we did have to leave your countries and allow you some autonomy, but that only goes so far!

Now I’m all for diversity in English football, don’t get me wrong. I remember the days of the old First Division as it was, when the only diversity was whether central defenders – white, no nonsense central defenders, – would get tanked before the match or only afterwards.

Oh, and whether the centre forward was allowed to get a perm (look it up youngsters). That seemed to be all the rage.

But cast a glance at the old photos of the upper levels of English football and it was solidly white. Well, not solidly, there were some black players, you know, but as commentators liked to nod sagely to each other, “They just don’t have the same discipline.” (yes they really used to say that). Oh, and there was the banana throwing from the terraces too.

And then globalisation happened to football. Even English football. And foreign players flooded in and changed the whole landscape. And suddenly stunning looking men from every part of the planet descended on the grimmer cities of England to ply their trade and earn money for families back home.

The fact that the modern, progressive mind just does not get it when it comes to actual diversity, can be seen in this comment from the online journal, First Post, which states with zero irony (not even in the replay):

The biggest question here, however, is religious beliefs may forbid its practitioners from certain things, but given it was a combined awareness mark for LGBTQ+  inclusion. a move that symbolised inclusivity and equality, something we all believe in, was it really so difficult to endorse it?

Where to begin?  First up “awareness”? Really? Is there anyone in Planet Western World who isn’t heartily aware of this movement? Anyone? It has become beyond parasitic. We’re so aware that we’re getting sick of it. Not that most of us say. We just silently vote.

Yet woke isn’t dead as some claim, it’s just settled into the very fabric of our culture as to be invisible. It’s the new air we breathe.

And inclusivity and diversity? Well, enough said about that already in this article. The fact that it’s “something we all believe in” is a risible statement. It shows just how much of an empty slogan that statement is. It’s like saying we all believe in food.

And was it really so difficult to endorse it? Yes, of course, it is. If the good people at First Post were remotely aware of the deep differences people hold about all sorts of things. But as I said, colonial attitudes are hard to break.

Fortunately there are plenty in the media who realise this sort of attitude is off-side. So we have these wise words from Martin Samuel in The Times:

Gesture politics, much of it, because statements are undermined once the individual has no choice. When rainbow armbands, or laces, or corner flags were first introduced, the message was new and carried some power. Now? The only stories that follow rainbow weekends in football are the ones concerning the refuseniks.

Damned gesture politics. Who can parade their righteousness the best? Who can demonstrate to the crowd how on-side they are?  Who can come away with a win that sends the fanbase home happy?

The good news though, is that the referees at the FA have just consulted VAR, and have now determined that Guehi has no case to answer. Which is just as well, because this was also just reported in The Times

Marc Guéhi has escaped FA disciplinary action despite defying a reminder about religious messages on his captain’s armband, while it has emerged that Manchester United’s Noussair Mazraoui refused to take part in a show of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Turns out the English Premier League might just be more diverse than it actually wants to be. Maybe the good old days of whites-only, permed hair and casual racism (as opposed to the deeply entrenched religious racism on display now), were far better.

But rest assured, as the good and the righteous of the FA sit around discussing the mess they made for themselves, they will, like the football hooligans from days of yore, be scorning flinging faux-intellectual, morally vacuous bananas at the (mainly) black and foreign players who refuse to play their game their way.

Personally I’m longing for the day when such public parades of identity-virtue are themselves relegated and end up languishing in non-league status where they belong.