The FIFA Poppy Racism Row.

Britain along with several other countries uses the poppy flower as a symbol to commemorate those killed in war especially the first world war. This is because when fighting ended across the fields of the western front (northern France and Belgium) thousands of these blood red flowers started to grow wild from the ground where millions of men had died.

As the England football team were playing a friendly against Spain on the day after Armistice Day (11/11/11) and the day before Remembrance Sunday (13/11/11) the English football association asked the sports world governing body FIFA if the players could wear poppies on their shirts. FIFA refused because the rules forbid the wearing of any political symbols because I'm sure Britain wouldn't be happy if the USA team turned up to a game wearing symbols celebrating their war of Independence and the USA wouldn't be happy if Iran turned up to a game celebrating their 1979 revolution. Sadly Britain didn't see it this way and everyone including the Prime Minister and Prince William launched into personal attacks on FIFA and it's President Sepp Blatter.

What they failed to realise is that while here in Britain the poppy is a rather benign image elsewhere in the world it's still highly controversial. For example in Afghanistan the Taliban use proceeds from the sale of opium poppies to fund their current war against British troops. So forcing British troops to wear a picture of what's essentially killing them just makes them look stupid. Similarly poppies were used by Jews in Palestine to mock British soldiers who were protecting Arabs for Jewish terrorist attacks. So the poppy can also be seen as a symbol that celebrates the formation of the state of Israel.

The main current controversy about the poppy though concerns Turkey and Syria. Before it became a world war the first world war started out as a regional conflict between the Austrian-Hungarian Empire containing what is now Armenia and the Ottoman Empire containing what is now Turkey and Syria. In 1915 between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Turkish forces. The Armenians claim this to be a genocide while the Turks deny it. As modern Turkey has grown into a regional power broker people, led by the USA, have used the issue as a way to put pressure on Turkey. So by making such a fuss about the poppies Britain appears to have been trying to force Turkey to prove it's commitment to human rights by getting tough on what is now an US/Qatari armed insurgency in Syria. Personally I don't think that's got any place in football.

Today (17/11/11) the FIFA President has rather generously suggested that racists should be allowed to escape formal punishment provided they're prepared to apologise and shake hands. Britain responded by launching another round of personal attacks on Sepp Blatter so I guess someone's still really sore about that 2018 World Cup bid.