Politics and sport

[Coxy]

Yet another issue with politics affecting sport.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/stor ... 89,00.html

Seriously, most of us would agree that the Israeli invasion of Gaza was disgusting, and their policy of wholesale slaughter of civilians under the guise of "collateral damage" is obscene, but sport is not the avenue for governments to have their opinion known.

This girl deserves to play, she's had no convictions of any kind, she's a fine citizen, her only crime is that she's Israeli. That's fucked.

I hope, like South Africa during apartheid, any middle eastern nation that discriminates against Israelis should be banned from hosting international sporting events. That'll hurt the United Arab Emirates which fancy themselves as a location for various sports - golf, motor racing, rugby, soccer, tennis, cricket...

 

[The Brizz]

I completely agree dude. I am against the way both sides of the Gaza conflict have acted and it horrible enough without bringing the conflict into the sporting world. The UAE should be stripped of the event this year and next because that is disgusting behaviour against a person who has done nothing wrong. I hope the WTA really take away the events tour status it is a political stunt at its worst.

 

[The Brizz]

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=755301

Weak as piss from the WTA! A $US200,000 fine is a drop in the ocean for the UAE, they should have stripped them of status for this crap.

 

[Coxy]

Clearly you and I are the only ones on this forum that are concerned about the treachery and bigotry of the muslim world in sport........

 

[Hamm.0]

LOLZ!

Batman and Robin; freeing BHQ from the horror of Islam since 2008!

 

[Ari Gold]

Definitely a disgraceful punishment. Not even a drop in the hat for the U.A.E. Has Peer made any comments in the media? Will be interesting to see if Dudi Sela tries to get in the men's event.

As for Politics in sport, the only thing worse IMO is religion in sport, and here we have both [icon_thumbs_do

 

[Coxy]

Read an article on cricinfo about the implications for the ICC, who have set up shop in Dubai and who have Israel as an associate member.

The point was raised that the ICC is likely to stage some of its bigger events in the UAE as a result, inculding World Cup qualifier tournaments. If Israel happen to do well and qualify, and it's based in Dubai, what are they going to do?

Also interesting is that a member of the ICC board is Israeli, but gets around the UAE's bigotry by travelling on a South African passport.

 

[The Brizz]

Will be interesting, I just hate how sportsmen and women who as a general rule have no political opinion or certainly not one of public knowledge can be mistreated because of where they are from. The UAE who are trying hard to buy sporting events of all kinds should have really been slammed for this.

 

[mrslong]

When I saw the title of this I thought it would be a gripe about bickering Mums & Dads and junior footy/cricket/netball/softball clubs.

 

[Fozz]

Money talks, morals walk.

 

[Flutterby]

I don't know all the details and It's not really politics but over here in the UK at the moment all the talk is about this Texan (USA) billionaire, somebody Stanford, who signed and agreement with the ECB to run a tournament where I think every player got like £1mil (or something equally insane) and all the counties were getting some extreme amounts of money as well. Anyway this guy has now been charged by the FBI for fraud over his business dealings. So the English cricket are all divided about if the members of the ECB who signed the deal should now be sacked and some of the counties are saying that they aren't going to take their portion of the money because it's tainted etc. It doesn't seem to me that anyone from the ECB did anything wrong, they've just associated their sport with an undesirable person. Seriously the carry on over here is ridiculous.

 

[Coxy]

English? Carrying on? Never!

There's been undesirables pouring money into rugby league for a long time in Australia too, at least in the 70s and 80s (wonder if any of Underbelly will touch on it?). South Sydney were one of the big beneficiaries of it apparently. Lots of dirty dealings going on.

 

[Hamm.0]

No doubt Redfern will have some links to dirty money.......................

 

[Fozz]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123532630416442781.html

DUBAI -- The United Arab Emirates said Sunday it will spend $10 billion to bail out the once-highflying emirate of Dubai, whose huge construction and financial-sector expansion plans became a symbol of boom times, and now of a world-wide downturn.

The GFC is hitting Dubai hard.

To quote a great scholar..."Ha ha"

 

[Coxy]

They should sell part of the airport to China to house half their population........