Celtic is a sick team, so was/is Rangers. Too many trolls on this topic..........

Why Does This Guy Use Capitals For Every Word, It's Unsettling

Not really...

there must have been a misunderstanding. i was never trying to say it wasn't "political" - it clearly was. my point is that i dont agree with the arbitrariness of which political / religious symbols are acceptable and which are not. a few examples:

what about the estelada and ikurrina? clearly political. so ban them, right? ok, i guess you're in favour of that anyway...

but let's make it a little more interesting:
what about the countless irish flags that celtic fans fly - partly due to their heritage but also in support of the irish diaspora? political, right? so ban them as well?

now what about the rainbow flag? clearly a political symbol! anti racism banners? also political messages!
no one thinks about banning those. well, at least not openly and not in the civilised world, right? why? because most reasonable and intelligent people can easily get behind the message - so the real problem is not being political but WHAT you support or who might feel offended by it.

generally speaking i agree with the idea that politics should not be part of a football match but punishing celtic for what has started as a positive message in support of palestine and against oppression (something celtic fans especially relate strongly to) is stupid and only "escalated" like that as an act of disobedience towards UEFA's despotism.
i mean it's just not like the celtic fans created anti israel or anti jewish banners - if that were the case i'd definitely say they should be punished...

This post was edited by fender on Aug 18 2016 02:54pm

Again +1

dafuq is this topic

dont really see the problem, there was no offensive material shown, why would anyone give a fuck

and if someone is triggered by the peaceful waving of a flag, this person has serious problems

The ikurriña and the estelada are different things. The first one is the basque flag... it represents the basque region, culture, people, etc, there's nothing wrong with that. The estelada is the flag of the catalan separatist movement, which is purely political and thus unacceptable. If it was the catalan flag (it's just like the red-yellow stripes, without the blue triangle and the star), then it would be ok, just like the ikurriña.

You can't compare anti-racist or anti-homophobic flags with other flags that have a political message because these are related to football related issues. We all know there are many players that have been abused by fans because of their race and/or sexual preferences; it's mostly an issue in Eastern Europe, but there are occasional incidents every now and then in every single league. Racism is an issue in football and as such it's acceptable to address it inside the stadium, the crimes against humanity Israel carries out in Palestine are not a football related issue and as such should be addressed somewhere else.

sorry, but to say the anti racism and anti homophobia messages and flags are only football related and therefore acceptable is a bit of a cop-out. sure, racism in football has been (and still is) an issue - and again, i think it's a good thing to fight against discrimination. but the point here is that those are still political messages that are intended to (and fortunately do) go well beyond football, let's be honest here. with the anti homophobia it becomes even more obvious since that has basically been a non issue in football, so claiming the rainbow flags address a purely football related topic is even more obviously false than it is concerning racism.

and regarding the ikurrina and the estelada you just delivered the perfect example of how individual interpretation of particular symbol leads to judging about their acceptability. just because you want to believe that the ikurrina only stands for the region, culture and people, that doesn't mean the separatists who use it as symbol for their independence don't have a political message...

again, try to see the bigger picture here: my point is that hiding behind the "no political messages" excuse to silence unwanted messages (even though they are anti discriminatory!) while at the same time allowing other positive political messages is just somewhat dishonest and just as political as the message itself...

do you think, as a spaniard, that catalan flag on barca-real game is a provocation and should be banned?
because they are obviously stating that they support catalan independence, and by uefa criteria that is a political message and therefore should be banned, and barcelona should be fined for it.. and i never heard that they got fined for catalan flags, while celtic got fined for palestine's

You have to differentiate between the catalan flag (also known as "senyera") and the separatist flag (also known as "estelada", which is the one UEFA banns). The first one is the flag official catalan flag, and it represents the catalan region aswell as its people and culture; this has been the catalan flag for centuries and it dates back to the Middle Ages. The second one isn't official, and it represents the separatist movement; this flag was created at the begining of the 20th century, shortly after the cuban independece war (notice how it's very similar to Cuba's flag) to lead a movement that would demand the rest of Spain to grant them independence. Here are the 2 flags:





The first one I find ok. It's not a political flag and the people that wave it aren't necessarily separatists. I have a catalan friend who took it to a CL final Barça played against Man Utd, because he's proud to be catalan... but at the same time he's very proud to be spanish and doesn't support the separatist movement (in fact he hates it ). The second one is a purely political flag; it's only used by separatists and it's the only one that clearly states a support for catalan independence. I do think that flag should be banned inside stadia (they can wave it in political meetings if they want, I just don't want politics to be brought into football).

I don't think the first flag is a provocation in any case, but as for the second one... it's tricky. The flag itself isn't the problem, but there are many people who wouldn't take flag to the stadium if it wasn't going to annoy the opposition. I'm personally not bothered by the flag itself, it's just that I don't think it's the right place for that kind of stuff.

In a similar fashion there are people who take spanish flags from the fascist era into stadia (usually right wing ultras), and some who take spanish republican flags (usually left wing ultras). I don't think those should be allowed either, as the message is clearly political.




Fashanu was abused by the crowds for being gay, and there are certainly many football players that haven't dared to come out during their carreers due to fear of being bullied, so homophobia is definitely an issue (just not big as racism, of course). And I never said these discrimination were only football related, I said that they are an issue in football (of course they're also an issue in many other parts of life) and that because of that it was acceptable to address the issue in a football stadium.

When it comes to purely political issues that are in no way related to football, I think they should be kept outside the stadia. Even if the intentions behind the political message is noble or I personally agree with it (such as the case in this topic).

This post was edited by zarkadon on Aug 18 2016 07:21pm