I have just read the most upsetting piece of news-ok not most upsetting bas it is quite high up there. I am a huge Arsenal fan, have been so for the past couple of years, have watched them go from the top of the Barclays Premiership league to number 7!!! I was even confused the other day since I support both Real Madrid and Arsenal and they were playing each other in the Champions League, and I ended up cheering for Arsenal!!!!But today while surfing through BBC news, I was blown away when I read Israel Seeking Goal with Arsenal. It goes on to tell us how Arsenal has signed a two-year, £ 350,000 deal to promote Israel as a tourist attraction!!! I mean honestly...then it goes on to say how Arsenal got permission from the officials in the United Arab Emirates, whose national airline bought the naming rights to the new stadium. The humor of what is being said hit me in the next sentence, when it says-like a footnote-that the UAE does not have diplomatic relations with Israel...la2 balla!!! Bas the UAE is more than happy to-in effect-co-sponsor a walking, goal shotting, advertisment for people to go and visit Israel...how could this every be justified?
I am angry with my team for even considering doing this, and for such little money (I mean for fucks sake, at least ask for a bit more), but for an ARAB country to actually allow this to happen on something that they have sponsored!!! I mean Emiriates airlines has pretty much paid for the new Arsenal Stadium, do they not have enough power or maybe more to the point-guts to say NO...you will not help get tourism for a country that is occupying another country-and not just ANY country but an Arab one at that!!!!!
"We think football is a great product and we think it will assist Israel become a more popular destination," Mr Kieth Edelman, Arsenal's managing director said. I went to the Israeli Minsitry of Tourism to check out what it has to say about it. In Press Release you find a link to a Word document...reading it made me want to rip each and every photo that I have of Thierry...and bury my head in a pillow and cry-ok exaggeration bas you get my point-according to the agreement, Israel becomes Arsenal's official and exclusive travel destination. The country's tourism ministry joins sponsors like NIKE, Thomas Cook and Emirates Airlines. "Israel will become known as a preferred travel destination amongst millions of people in Britain, Europe and the world," says Tourism Minister Avraham Hirchson.
I really wonder what the slogan will be...any ideas?????
Well, serves you right if you are dumb enough to "support" a football team in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what really is it that you are supporting? It is the players? No. Because if all these players played for, say, Man U, you won't suddenly start supporting them.
Is it their style of play? Hardly, because that will change as the management, and ownership changes.
Fundamentally, football clubs are amoral. So, often their actions will be considered imoral, in which case it puts their supporters to shame (think of all the thugs that play in the English premier division - but still their sheep-like supporters bleet approvingly). But that's what you get when you invest so much emotion in something amoral.