Typical FIFA, too scared to do something, just symbolic punishments to calm the storm. A joke.
FIFA charge Shaqiri and Xhaka for goal celebrations
- Thread starter K2K
- Start date
No politics........but Iran's football team still faces sanctions because of the nation. 
So, Serbian manager who wants to send Felix Byrch in Hague (cause only Serbs are send there, cry me a river, cry me a river) isn't even charged.
A bit of a surprise to be fair.
A bit of a surprise to be fair.
What should be done then?
He got fine of 5k, same as moron in charge of FA. Whole FA got punished for 54k, for crowd behavior. Not sure is there anyone else.
Should have been more.
Totally agree that forcing FA to invest those money would have been better than just fining Serbian FA. But Fifa loves its money.
Too scared to do something about two blokes making a gesture with their hands to replicate a bird? That is actually on the flag of an actual country (which FIFA recognizes no less)?
It's all a bit silly if you ask me.
Some guy in Kosovo opened yesterday an account in GoFundMe for people to donate money to pay the fines for Xhaka, Shaqiri and Lichsteiner. Already 12k+ dollars given, so likely the target will be fulfilled within tomorrow. Most likely they won't accept it, so instead if will go for some charity.
Funny though (and yes, I made a small donation).
Funny though (and yes, I made a small donation).
I am Kosovan/Albanian, living at the moment in Switzerland. So you can understand my PoV. And for obvious reasons, I am supporting Switzerland in this World Cup.
Just saw that your location is Winterthur, are you swiss?
Here is the link: https://www.gofundme.com/xhaka-shaqiri-and-lichststeriner
14k+ already donated.
A gofundme for multimillionaires OMFG
More like a solidarity gesture from Swiss and Albanian people. There is no way that Swiss FA is going to accept this donation (unless they are trolling, which they won't do) so in the end these money will go to some charity of choice from Swiss FA.A gofundme for multimillionaires OMFG
Regardless of the merits of either ethnic groups claims to the territory and regardless of the obvious and understandable personal reasons for their gestures, it shouldn't really be difficult for anyone to understand why FIFA would disapprove of players intentionally trying to inflame opposition players and fans over a seriously fraught, ongoing political situation, where low level violence is still ongoing and near-total ethnic segregation is in place, under armed supervision by international peacekeepers, for Christ's sake.
Yes, Shaqiri and Xhaka have their reasons for feeling the way they feel. Yes, the abuse they received from fans is out of order. No, it is not sensible to use a sporting event as a vehicle for making an inflammatory point about it, and along with Shaqiri having the Kosovo flag stitched into his boots, it seems to have been premeditated, which makes it harder for FIFA to chalk it off as the heat of the moment.
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I agree in principle to keep politics out of football, but these guys and the treatment of Albanians generally was despicable.
My ex was taken out of Albania in similar circumstances. As a 10 year old she was seeing people get shot dead in front of her. Gun armouries were being raided and companies where decent people worked were constantly under attack.
These guys didn't show any political disrespect by representing the Albanian flag they just showed appreciation for where they came from and a made a statement they won't be put down like dogs.
I say let it slide and allow those uneducated to be educated in the struggles.
My ex was taken out of Albania in similar circumstances. As a 10 year old she was seeing people get shot dead in front of her. Gun armouries were being raided and companies where decent people worked were constantly under attack.
These guys didn't show any political disrespect by representing the Albanian flag they just showed appreciation for where they came from and a made a statement they won't be put down like dogs.
I say let it slide and allow those uneducated to be educated in the struggles.
What a stupid, manufactured controversy. I get that it riles some people up. But these were the same people chanting for their deaths and wearing T-shirts with a heinous war criminal emblazoned on them. Just move on to the next game. Nothing terrible happened on the pitch. A ban would have been insane. I can't believe people in here were calling for it.
Fifa deciding to take action sure makes the opinion of the people who where calling for the players to be punished yesterday seem less ridiculous. Since that's exactly what's happening.
Agree with this. I don't think there is anything bad in this particular gesture. Too much ado about nothing. This and other stupid rules like that players still get yellow card for taking down their t-shirt celebrating a goal - pathetic that it happens in 2018
What the Serbian fans did was terrible, I don't think anyone would defend that. But that doesn't make it ok to react and engage with them, it's not gonna lead to anything good. It can just escalate things, which it probably did, since fights broke out between Serbs and Albanians after the match. If there was no punishment, they would just do it again.
Agreed. but this is Fifa. No politics in football unless it is multiple sanctions against Iran or giving world cups to Qatar!
Serious question: Is Anelka Albanian too? He used to always do the eagle.
Would have broken anyway.
Nope, he is not.
To be fair, eagle with 2 heads is hardly an Albanian symbol. Ironically, Serbia has it in its flag too.
Which makes it even more ridiculous (that FIFA fines them) since half of us didn't even care for the eagle until told by others on here.
Yeah, apparently the Swiss have nothing against it.
https://www.google.se/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1JJ096
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M53r9BKsmsI
Maybe, we don't know that. You have to agree that what they did can potentially escalate things. Especially because it's seen by so many people.
24 hours later and over 25k raised. Those three guys ain't getting any poorer.
Every critique was that 'it might have been disrespectful toward Serbians, not against Swiss'. And in youtube video, half of them did not have any critique.
First time at work today after the match, and no one there mentioned being 'offended' from them.
Fair play, mate
Yeah I know that is what's been criticized. Why does it even matter though? You said the people had nothing against it, but they clearly do.
What I said was that people here were claiming that it was disrespectful toward Switzerland, and I said that Swiss people I know didn't feel offended, and from the media, most were supporting.
You also had in post Blick as one of those who criticized, but actually Blick had in the first page the photo, and they were asking their readers to send the photos with eagle.
Most of Swiss seem to be supporting, some finding it unneeded or disrespectful towards Serbia, but hardly anyone is finding it disrespectful towards Switzerland.
What's the problem again? Nationalist making nationalist symbol to other nationalist people in a nationalist country?
People who say no politics in football are just being lazy IMO instead of analyzing each situation individually. How the feck are Serbians offended by the celebrations when they were the perpetrators in the first place? That's basically like Germans being offended at Holocaust memorial.
That face is very punchable.
As a Kosovan Albanian, I don't like that analogy in the first place, neither I do the mentioning of genocide in Kosovo (in Bosna it is different). The Holocaust analogies really don't serve and are offending to the Jews. On the other hand, there were really massive war crimes, mostly from Serbia in the war of Kosovo.
Saying that, I genuinely do not see why on Earth that should be offending. It is hardly a symbol of war of Kosovo, it is hardly the symbol of Greater Albania, or some other myth. It is the symbol of Albanians (among others), and it is is in the flag of Albania, which among others it happens to be also in Belgrade, is Albanian's embassy. And in recent years, the relations between Serbia and the Republic of Albania have actually been quite good. If he had made the symbol of Kosovo (how on Earth can you do that in the first place), I could have understood the reaction, but that hardly wasn't the case.
Now fans and Serbian politicians getting offended is quite understandable considering that they love to be offended and finding the gesture provocative, but apparently Kolarov got offended too. He went as far as to call the Swiss players primitive, and to say that we aren't like them. Which kind of proves that he is a goldfish.
This happened after Serbia scored against Albania, in Albania:
Now the three finger sign originally wasn't meant to be a nationalist symbol (it is just the Holy trinity) but it had been used intensively from Serbian paramilitaries during Yugoslavian wars, so a lot of people might find it offensive. However, unlike in this case, no one really mentioned it, fans didn't throw things at the players, and Albanian's president didn't cry and say 'they hate us, but we are good people and we do not have anyone', neither players complained, neither Albanian manager wanted to send referee or someone in Hague.
I'm sorry if the use of the analogy is inappropriate.As a Kosovan Albanian, I don't like that analogy in the first place, neither I do the mentioning of genocide in Kosovo (in Bosna it is different). The Holocaust analogies really don't serve and are offending to the Jews. On the other hand, there were really massive war crimes, mostly from Serbia in the war of Kosovo.
Saying that, I genuinely do not see why on Earth that should be offending. It is hardly a symbol of war of Kosovo, it is hardly the symbol of Greater Albania, or some other myth. It is the symbol of Albanians (among others), and it is is in the flag of Albania, which among others it happens to be also in Belgrade, is Albanian's embassy. And in recent years, the relations between Serbia and the Republic of Albania have actually been quite good. If he had made the symbol of Kosovo (how on Earth can you do that in the first place), I could have understood the reaction, but that hardly wasn't the case.
Now fans and Serbian politicians getting offended is quite understandable considering that they love to be offended and finding the gesture provocative, but apparently Kolarov got offended too. He went as far as to call the Swiss players primitive, and to say that we aren't like them. Which kind of proves that he is a goldfish.
This happened after Serbia scored against Albania, in Albania:
Now the three finger sign originally wasn't meant to be a nationalist symbol (it is just the Holy trinity) but it had been used intensively from Serbian paramilitaries during Yugoslavian wars, so a lot of people might find it offensive. However, unlike in this case, no one really mentioned it, fans didn't throw things at the players, and Albanian's president didn't cry and say 'they hate us, but we are good people and we do not have anyone', neither players complained, neither Albanian manager wanted to send referee or someone in Hague.
I think it relativizes things. There were 6 million Jews killed in Holocaus, while there were around 10k Albanian civils killed in Kosovan war. The ratio is 600 to 1.
It has been used by Albanian politicians (similar to how Serbian politicians use the word terrorist for Albanians) to score political points but in both cases it doesn't really reflect the reality. There was apartheid, an ethnic cleansing and massive war crimes, but definitely no genocide (that term as far as I know was born to describe Holocaust). On Srebrenica (Bosna) on the other hand, I would say that was a genocide (8k Bosnan males were massacred within a few days).
Anyway, back to eagle. Rita Ora and Dua Lipa offending Serbia:
Send them to Hague ASAP.
Provoking the opposition was not a classy thing to do but punished sounds so butt hurt
You were naming the people who came out in support of their actions. I answered, implying that not everyone in Switzerland feels the same. Whether they say it's because of it being provocative or offensive to the Swiss is irrelevant. There was still controversy about it among the people.
Why do you think "the caf warriors" on here are mentioning the fact that they think it could be offensive to the country they're playing for? They are not invested in this case, it's just common sense.
My favorite part about this thread and the martchday thread when it initially happened is the non Swiss people getting upset on behalf of Swiss people.
Swiss posters, media, minister of sport: things like this are fine, we don’t mind if they have an attachment to their home country
Redcafe posters from other countries: this is so disrespectful to Switzerland omg they should just play for Albania
Swiss posters, media, minister of sport: things like this are fine, we don’t mind if they have an attachment to their home country
Redcafe posters from other countries: this is so disrespectful to Switzerland omg they should just play for Albania
You seem to be a knowledgeable and otherwise sensible poster but you're bias is shining through here, going to great lengths to prove that it wasn't meant to provoke. The Swiss think it is, ok not all of them, I get it. Fifa clearly does and even every Swede I spoke to thinks it is.
Artists making the sign in a setting probably completely separate from anything related to the conflict. There is a slight difference to doing it after being abused by Serbian fans, playing against Serbia.Anyway, back to eagle. Rita Ora and Dua Lipa offending Serbia:
Send them to Hague ASAP.
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Why my bias is shining? I just said that making an eagle gesture isn't or shouldn't be disrespectful, unless you get offended by existence of Albanians (which mind you, a lot of Serbian people do). I also posted a pic when Tosic did their equivalent sign on a match vs Albania in Albania, and no one really had a problem with it, and no one complained.
FIFA are a bit stupid at times, and the incident generated too much controversy (from Serbian part) so they had to look like they are doing something.
It just shows that it isn't a provocative thing. A lot of Albanians (or people with Albanian origin like the two mentioned singers) do it all the time. It isn't showing the middle finger to other people, neither a Nazi salute to get offended from.
Are you laughing with me or at me...?