Nobody was taking any lessons on sport and politics from John Fashanu today

John Fashanu appears on GMB


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Former footballer John Fashanu didn’t get the response he was expecting today when he told Good Morning Britain (GMB) viewers that sport and politics should stay separate.

Fashanu appeared on the morning television show amid the ongoing row about World Cup 2022 host Qatar. In particular, around Qatar’s vile anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar.

Yet just like Tory MP James Cleverley earlier this week, Fashanu insisted that the rules and regulations of the host nation should be followed:

No lessons

However, Twitter users didn’t seem to agree. More than one pointed out that Fashanu should know better, given that his own brother Justin – the first openly gay footballer – took his own life:

Fashanu was branded a ‘disgrace’. Author Shola Mos-Shogbamimu said standing against inhumanity was not merely politics:

Late brother

And Peter Fearns seemed to think that Fashanu’s views were in line with a man who, it was claimed, ostracised his own brother:

Just last month Fashanu told the Daily Mirror:

If anyone was to blame for what happened it was me. I shunned my brother. If I was like that with him, what was everyone else like?

Fashanu also said:

how I treated him and how his tragic death which was suicide prompted by me, I would say, I am disappointed with myself, that’s one of the biggest disappointments, if i could change the clock, reverse the clock it would be wonderful.

In fact, feelings were even stronger in some quarters, one Twitter user said:

Qatar

Fashanu seemed very certain when he told the interviewers:

Politics and football, we try to keep them away from each other because if politics goes into football – which is what is happening – the politics go up and up and up and then eventually they will win. So I’m just very disappointed.

Yet it is clear to any right-thinking person that sport and politics are never separate. Those who try to claim they should be, or even can be, are doing themselves a profound disservice when they come out with the kind of bullshit John Fashanu did today.

The row over holding the World Cup in Qatar is likely to roll on for the whole tournament – as it should.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Good Morning Britain

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  • Show Comments

    1. I’m as sick as a parrot with all these racist, white supremacist attacks on the Qatar world cup. A country that has refugees abused in ‘prisons’ and drowning in the Channel; which murdered nearly 2million Iraqis in an invasion based upon a tissue of lies, which was complicit in torture and kidnapping, including torturing prisoners to death in both Afghanistan and Iraq has no moral stature to criticise any other country in the world. Stop telling Qataris how to run their country.

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