Dear Sepp Blatter and FIFA,
You f****** hypocrites. A couple of weeks ago you sent the Nigerian Football Federation an ultimatum: un-ban your international football team, or we will ban them for you.
“We would like to underline the dire effects a suspension could have on the future of Nigerian football. It would mean that no Nigerian team of any sorts (including clubs) could have any international contacts […] We consider that this governmental decision would only completely isolate Nigerian football and could thus stall reforms and further development and improvement of Nigerian football for a long time.” FIFA Letter, July 2.
I understand why you would want to make this kind of statement–you don’t want politics “interfering” with football. Fine–you have the right to ban individual national teams from your competitions or sanctioned events. Actually, this is probably the right thing to do given the circumstances.
But you know what’s not the right f****** thing to do? Totally ignore the fact that the crazy North Korean regime tortured its players and coach after the World Cup. Seriously? You’ll send out a harshly worded letter to Nigeria for banning its own team in disgrace and then stay mute when a country tortures and imprisons its own players? Are you s******* me?
OK, I understand that you don’t want to get involved with a deranged ruler who probably has nuclear weapons. No really, I get it–you’re pathetic cowards. FIFA has shown a chronic hypocrisy throughout its’ existence and, at times, has gone out of its way to avoid any sort of action on any subject that might be remotely “controversial” (I don’t see what’s controversial about banning a country for torturing players, though).
I don’t know why this hasn’t gotten more coverage, honestly–it’s like the Henry handball fiasco plus the awful World Cup reffing thrown into one (plus some horrible violence). I would tell the sports media to get its shit together, but my guess is that all the soccer writers (except a select few) are just too drunk from their post-World Cup one-person orgies to care.
Or maybe it’s about race; maybe it’s because we’ve seen this bulls*** so much from North Korea that we’ve been desensitized to it. South Korean commenters did say that “in the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who performed badly were sent to prison camps.” This time only the coach was sent to a forced-labor camp.
It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that FIFA, the only international organization that could really do something (and I do mean that as a middle finger to our weak UN) has been totally mute. Cowards.
Hope this clears things up for you, f***wads.
With absolute, utter contempt,
Gabe Lezra