Uefa, a multi-billion euro monopoly that controls one of the most profitable commodities in Europe and wields the influence of a small nation state, is an unlikely champion of the idea that sport and politics don't mix. European football's organising body doesn't actually believe this, of course. It knows the two things are indivisible, and that this is a large part of the sport's popular appeal.
But it also knows that persisting with the fiction that football takes place in a sterile environment insulated from the world beyond the turnstiles is itself a convenient means of maintaining its most lucrative asset: control. What Uefa really means is: we’ll allow politics, but only on our terms.
To keep up this pretence, however, Uefa must engage in endless contortions. In advance of the current European Championship, it resisted Moscow's attempts to force Ukraine to remove from its players' shirts the outline of a map of Ukraine that includes Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, but ordered the national federation to remove the slogan "Glory to the Heroes" – a rallying cry during 2014 anti-Russia protests in Kiev.
The contradictions in Uefa's position came into sharp relief this week with the debacle over the proposed illumination of the <a class="search" href='javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:"7.1213540", $action:"view", $target:"work"})' polopoly:contentid="7.1213540" polopoly:searchtag="tag_company">Allianz</a> Arena in Munich in the rainbow colours
This recalled the handling of similar complaints by Fifa, world football's governing body. In 2016, Fifa fined England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for displaying poppies during games but the following year, after a furore in Britain, it changed its laws to allow the symbol. In 2016, it fined Ireland almost €5,000 after the national team's shirts bore the official logo of the 1916 centenary. Similar fines were issued against FC Barcelona after fans waved the Estelada flag, which is flown by Catalan nationalists.
The contradictions in Uefa's position came into sharp relief this week with the debacle over the proposed illumination of the Allianz Arena in Munich in the rainbow colours. It being Pride Month, and with Hungary due to play Germany at the stadium last Wednesday, the city's mayor had suggested the gesture as a pointed response to the passing of anti-LGBTI+ legislation by the Hungarian parliament last week. The new law, driven by far-right prime minister Viktor Orban, bans gay people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for under-18s. Uefa refused to grant the request from Munich city council, saying any such action would contravene its regulations as a politically-neutral organisation.
Uefa's problem is that it has made a big play of its stance against anti-gay discrimination. Just days earlier, it had ruled that the German team's captain, Manuel Neuer, had not contravened its rules by wearing a rainbow armband. When its decision drew criticism across Europe this week, the organisation released a statement on Twitter – in which its logo had been rendered in the rainbow colours – saying that the refusal of Munich's request was not political. "On the contrary, the request itself was political, linked to the Hungarian football's team's presence in the stadium for this evening's match with Germany," it wrote.
Not long ago, Uefa fined players for lifting up their shirts to reveal anti-racism slogans; now it proclaims its support for Black Lives Matter and gives players far more latitude to show solidarity on the pitch
In other words, Uefa stands resolutely in support of LGBTQ+ rights but draws the line at offending bigots who seeks to deny those rights. It wants cost-free activism; to luxuriate in the warm balm of a safe corporate branding exercise without having to engage with real-world politics of their adopted cause, which would naturally involve taking sides.
Cost-free is not a mere metaphor. Even though it’s a not-for-profit outfit, one of Uefa’s functions – arguably its chief function – is to make as much money as possible from its showpiece competitions, the Euros and the Champions League. The more it makes, the more it can reinvest in the game.
Like Fifa, its global parent organisation, it pursues that goal with single-minded zeal. Some forms of political activism are bad for business; but with other causes there comes a point, once they have attained mainstream acceptance, when to stand aloof is no longer viable. That’s the point at which football’s ruling bodies get on board. Not long ago, Uefa fined players for lifting up their shirts to reveal anti-racism slogans; now it proclaims its support for Black Lives Matter and gives players far more latitude to show solidarity on the pitch.
Sports has always been inseparable from politics. But public expectations of sports and the organisations that run them are changing. In a world in which Nike and Adidas are driven to take public stances against forced labour in Xinjiang, a world in which sports stars are among the most eloquent campaigners against food poverty or other social injustices, it's untenable to pretend that elite games can float above the fray. Speaking up carries risks. But staying quiet – itself an ideological act, as Uefa showed this week – no longer cuts it.