This was the week that finally broke English football’s finely calibrated position as the great projector of messages – sympathy in tragedies, allyship with causes, No Room For Racism, various tributes - and by the end the thought had occurred that perhaps we had asked too much of it.
Come Saturday evening only Crystal Palace of the 20 Premier League clubs had called Hamas’ murder of more than 1,000 Israelis – including foreign nationals and among them British citizens – an act of terrorism. Only Chelsea had called out antisemitism. What was not done, the lighting of Wembley arch, the absent words in statements, was as important as what was. The corporate policy not to take a position was finally exposed to the conflict where not taking a position is not an option – or at least, neutrality also means something too.
For the avoidance of doubt, the murder in southern Israel was a barbaric and unconscionable act of terrorism. The loss of life of Palestinians now and then – a story of grief and bloodshed that continues by the minute in Gaza – a tragedy of unthinkable dimensions. But the football pages are not the place to unpack 75 – or indeed 5,000 - years of Middle East history. We might do well to get as far as next weekend in English football.
Then, with the impeccable timing football so often specialises in, is the second part of the Premier League’s No Room For Racism, weekend. A laudable aim – but what does it mean now if one is not prepared even to raise the notion of antisemitism, on the occasion of the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust?
The Premier League itself took six days over a statement. The clubs waited for its lead. Many of those clubs feel that unlike institutions such as government, the Royal family or the Metropolitan Police, they do not have the necessary specialist departments to conduct what they think is beginning to amount to foreign policy. The corporate view is that it takes time to formulate these things.
The problem is that having commemorated earthquakes, train crashes, floods and the deaths of many football luminaries, those six days felt like a long time. When it came to the big words –terrorism, antisemitism – so many clubs, the Premier League, the Football Association just seemed unable to force them out of their throats.
English football has also wondered why, privately, the likes of cricket and rugby union – both currently holding World Cup tournaments – do not come under the same scrutiny. It is something to do with profile, but it is also bigger than that. English football has come to be expected, unrealistically perhaps, to contribute to changing the world, and to reflect back upon its devotees the right answer. It found that just too hard this week.
The question it naturally posed was whether football’s new class of investors was lifting a silent hand in the background – with Abu Dhabi, and Saudi money so fundamental to ownership, shirt and stadium sponsorship and broadcast contracts. The message back was that it had never been a consideration in any of the discussions.
Nevertheless, as Saudi’s leadership stepped back, over the course of the week, from a normalisation of diplomatic relations with Israel, there was a sense that in the future much bigger pressures could be brought to bear on the Premier League. Could there have been a trace of that affecting the Qatari bid for Manchester United from Sheikh Jassim, with early reports suggesting that is now at an end?
The clubs have spent the last two decades being sold or refinanced in the ever more ferocious battle to get a slice of the biggest sporting show on earth. Middle Eastern nation state ownership. Private equity families from the US. Private equity bros from the US. A network of investment and funding that we are assured is all duly approved and regulated. What it might mean in the future for the way these great social institutions respond to crises – no-one is quite sure.
At the two clubs arguably most closely aligned with Britain’s Jewish community, located in proximity to the country’s biggest Jewish population in North London, there has been a reluctance to enter the debate. At Tottenham, home to the only Israeli footballer in the Premier League, Manor Solomon, there was no public word of support for the player from his club. The chairman of a Spurs trust set up to help former players resigned over the club’s “lack of moral clarity” in what was a coruscating statement criticising the club’s stance.
At Arsenal, Oleksandr Zinchenko took a personal decision to lock his Instagram account after a post in support of Israel. The Jewish fans’ group affiliated with Arsenal, Jewish Gooners, said the delay “from the world of football” meant that “whatever happens now … Jewish and Israeli football fans know that when it really mattered, we were not supported”.
The Jewish Gooners did, on Thursday, repost Arsenal’s statement, after a meeting during the week with the club. Although the other side of the coin might be the club’s previous decision not to back Mesut Ozil over his stance on the Chinese oppression of Muslim Uighurs.
Arsenal have chosen in the past not to use, in public statements, the word “terrorism”, which is at least a degree of consistency, although sometimes only one word will do. The words felt too heavy for most of them. The clubs, like the FA, will say that ultimately there is a core business for them and that is to get people in and out of football stadiums safely. Everything else has to take its place further back in the queue. But what those security issues were – that was never voiced this week.
Come next weekend, players will be mandated to wear black armbands in line with the Premier League’s statement on Israel-Gaza. Even that, some wonder, might be a problem for some individuals. The question of precisely what those armbands represent, or the timing of those armbands in a conflict decades’ old.
As the great 21st century soft power tool of UK plc, the Premier League has tried its best. Many would say that it never sought to be a political entity and that status was thrust upon it, yet this time there was so much left unsaid that next time, it will be even harder.
