Naismith stoops to head home and complete a great move

3-2. Another game, another glorious failure for Scotland’s national football team. Losing bravely seems to be what we do best. Well, some of the time at least. The less said about the recent dismal defeat in Prague, the better.

Of course there is no shame in losing by such a narrow margin to the reigning European and World champions. Before the match, Scotland manager Craig Levein had described this Spanish side as “the toughest opponents we’ve ever faced” in Scotland’s history. It would be silly of me to mention the much tougher historical battles and wars fought against English invaders, because he was obviously just talking about football.

No-one apart from the most deluded of optimists could really have expected much more from the game. At kick-off, I had decided I was going to remain emotionally detached and just try to enjoy watching masters such as David Villa and Andrés Iniesta at work. You can compare and contrast my mood then compared with the moment when Gerard Piqué put through his own net to level the scores at 2-2. I was absolutely elated. It’s a real shame that we were unable to hold out for a draw, but the performance will be more important than the result, by restoring some belief and hopefully encouraging Levein to confine his 4-6-0 formation to the dustbin of history.

Prior to the match, I joined with several other members of the Basque Solidarity Campaign to help raise awareness of the dark side of the Spanish state. We also had the objective of building support for the Basque independence movement in general and the plight of political prisoners in particular. We were able to hand out hundreds of leaflets and engage with many members of the public. Hopefully this activity will be the launchpad for a continuous program of solidarity actions throughout the year.

This is really important because, at a time when sporting triumphs have brought Spain international attention, many people in Europe are seemingly unaware of the situation in Euskal Herria (the Basque-language name for their 7-province homeland). While there has been a concerted effort to promote the concept of a New Spain – where all the constituent regions and nations are able to celebrate their identity and enjoy equality under the rojigualda – the Francoist policies of internment, torture and extraordinary rendition remain in place.

Scottish-Basque solidarity

Despite ETA’s ceasefire announcement, which declared an end to armed struggle and commitment to peaceful methods (confirming in words what has been happening in practice for a good while now), the Spanish PSOE government continues to use a false terrorist threat as an excuse for arresting pro-independence activists, often detaining them in the south of Spain or even North Africa. Their ‘crime’ is to campaign for an independent socialist republic. The punishment is often long periods in jail, under conditions which have changed little since Spain’s transition from fascism to democracy.

Sporting events can sometimes be difficult places to raise awareness of international problems. A lot of fans don’t want to be distracted from simply supporting their team and enjoying the occasion with friends and family. Despite this, we received some really positive responses. Many people seemed supportive or interested. When I said “stop Spanish oppression against the Basques”, there was a lot of “quite right” and “aye mate, definitely”. One guy, sticking his thumb up, shouted back at me “…and the Catalans!” There was a crowd of young Celtic fans hanging around the ground (I suspect they were looking for a way to sneak in!) who all happily took leaflets from us and seemed to have some prior knowledge of the Basque liberation struggle.

However, to leave it there would not tell the full story. Apart from the standard number of people who aren’t interested in any politics, there seemed to be a significant amount of people who just did not know what we were referring to. I think some people deemed us misguided for printing pictures of Spanish police wielding huge coshes, masked up in balaclavas. After all, surely democratic EU-member states don’t do that kind of thing. But this one does. “The Basques?” some asked, apparently genuinely not knowing that these people even existed.

Freedom for the Basque people!

For this, I do not blame the fans. The Spanish state propaganda machine has been at pains to suppress information getting out about their repressive practices, and to stop people from knowing about the mass struggle for an independent Basque homeland. They have cynically taken advantage of the post-9/11 ‘War On Terror’ to ratchet up repression against the pro-independence Left. For such practices, they have even been critcised by Amnesty International, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the media in Spain or allied states such as France (which currently controls 3 of the Basque provinces) and Britain. With our media collaborating in covering-up the crimes of the Spanish state, it becomes all the more important for those of us in Scotland who are for human rights, peace, independence and socialism to break the media embargo and let people know what’s going on.

Watch this space for further updates on what’s happening over there and what we’re doing over here. Meanwhile, I hope we can build on our recent success in establishing deeper links between the movements for self-determination and socialism in Euskal Herria and Scotland. Let’s not be divided just because it was a Basque striker who killed our hopes last night!

A National Health Service. A welfare state. Letting 18 year olds get legally bevvied.  Not bombing countries that haven’t attacked you. There’s a lot of things which are quite popular around the world which the United States hasn’t quite got into yet. But the biggest international phenomenon to go straight over the heads of Americans right now is the World Cup. It’s not exactly surprising given that Americans don’t even call football by it’s right name; they call it “Soccer” cos they already nicked the word football for their own version, which has nothing to do with actual football, kind of like how their Republican Party has fuck all to do with actual Republicanism.

Still each to their own, it’s not like many/any other countries are interested in American Football is it? Surely we can just leave it at that, and enjoy the relaxing and unending serenade of the vuvuzuela while Americans try to make sense of their own insane, overhyped, Michael Bay-directed, body-armour version of football? Unfortunately, some US nutters -- as previously featured in Leftfield -- go beyond leaving it at a simple sporting disagreement. They’ve  seen the true nature of “Soccer” --  another part of the World Socialist Conspiracy to dominate  and undermine traditional American sporting events. Check this guy out,

You can see that Barack Osama Homo Bin Laden, to give him his full Presidential title, managed to get the United States into the World Cup because he wants to discourage Americans from using their arms, as you obviously can’t use your hands in football (unless you’re part of the French/Uruguayan team).

Is it possible for this man to be any more awesome?

And it’s not just mentals on youtube who have declared war on football -- other people on the Right in the US media have attacked it as a “poor man’s sport” and said “baseball fans don’t riot”. Fair point but then again 13 year old Brazilian kids are unlikely to methodically mow down their fellow classmates in school with an M-16 assault rifle either.

A lot of American disinterest in football is because it’s quite different from other US sports like American football, baseball, basketball etc in that there is much less ’scoring’. The last US Superbowl result was 31 -- 17 to the New Orleans Colts over the Indianapolis Colts, while the last World Cup Final result was a 1-1 draw between Italy and France which Italy won 5 -- 3 on penalties.

Other opposition to football is based on the structure of the sport being less advertising friendly than mainstream US sports. The Superbowl in the United States is notorious for being among if not the most expensive television spot in the world -- a 30 second TV ad during this years superbowl will cost in the region of $2.6 million.

In football however you can’t squeeze a lot of adverts in 90 minutes with only a short break after 45 minutes (and even then a lot of that space is taken up by Alan Hansen desperately trying to find some way to kill himself with his own shoelaces in despair at the England squad). The last time the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994 they tried to break the game into quarters to make it more advertiser friendly, before being told to fuck off by FIFA.

There is a nastier edge to some opposition to football in the US though, which has it’s base in racism and prejudice against the working people throughout the world who support it. Conservatives in  the US have attacked football as being part of the “browning” of America due to it’s widespread support among hispanics in the states, along with accusing football of being founded by Indians who used a head as a ball. There is also an association of football with Europe, which US conservatives believe is hell because it has a welfare state, Labour parties and nationalised healthcare.  Also the riots associated with football are not as widespread as in US sports, which gives some right-wingers the opportunity to smear football as being intrinsically associated with hooliganism and criminality.

You get some of those arguments in the UK as well which go on to this day, over the Hillsborough Disaster, where a Tory minister repeated the slur that it was due to Liverpool’s predominantly working class support acting as hooligans that led to the deaths, and not incompetent police.

The reason why some Conservatives in the US dislike and slander football is because of the nature of the game -- anyone can play it if you have the skill for it.  You don’t need expensive gear and equipment for it -- as one of the nutters in an earlier video said, it’s a sport poor people can enjoy, all you need is 11 folk and a ball and not lots of athletic equipment. You don’t need to have a knowledge of extensive regulations (bar the offisde rule). And you don’t even need to have a lot of space for the basics of it. You can master the basics of football in a school playground, then take it to a stadium. Put simply football is one of the easiest sports for people around the world who aren’t rich to pick up and enjoy.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

You can see that when you look at the results of which teams have won the World Cup in it’s history -- 7 teams have picked up the trophy, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, France, West Germany and England (and even then the English cheated). While 4 out of the 7 countries that have picked up the trophy are developed Western countries, the other 3 are teams from the poorer global south. Brazil has picked up the trophy more times than any other country in the world despite the money the west has available to spend on education and sport.  And anti-imperialist Chavez supporter Maradonna is correctly recognised as one of the best football players in the history of the sport, for his stunning, magnificent and inspired handball against England followed by an acceptable second goal later on which unfortunately was still well within the technical rules of the game. Socialist intellectual and popstar John Barnes is bang on when he says that England will not win the World Cup until they adopt Socialism -- just compare the individualistic, Thatcherite millionaires of the Premier League with the austere, cooperative and hardworking German football team. No contest.

You can’t buy the skills to be good at football. You can’t be at an advantage from having a western diet that allows you to bulk up and ram through your opposing team or from have the money to buy the helmets or education you need to understand it all. It’s instinctive, demands self-sacrifice, commitment, vision and hope when you’re losing, and teamwork. That’s why football is socialist and the nutter right-wingers in the USA are right to hate it!

Here are some of the best moments in football Socialists have enjoyed over the years,

Scotland’s national sweetheart Diego Maradonna strikes a blow against English Imperialism.

James McFadden knocks one past the Zodiac-obsessed Domenech’s handballing cheats.

St Mirren’s Germanic destruction of Celtic.

Oh what could have been.

Today sees the launch of the 2010 football world cup in South Africa. It’s great news for football fans, and we’re playing our part with a world cup raffle (comment if you’d like to get a ticket!) and South Africa night for the final (watch this space for details.)

But great as it might be for us on the other side of the world to get a month of football to watch, the real costs of the tournament for South Africa are getting hidden amongst the excitement.

Over the next month we’re going to be bringing you a series of articles about South Africa, its history and long political struggles for democracy and socialism that are far from over.

Twenty years ago, holding the world cup in South Africa would have been unthinkable. The world at large refused to allow South Africa to participate in most major sporting events because of Apartheid, the state enforced system of extreme racial segregation and oppression.

But with the fall of Apartheid in the early 90s, the world’s media told us South Africa’s problems were solved. There was democracy, and a government elected by the black majority was finally in power.

Since then however, South African governments have turned away from the left wing ideas that inspired many in the struggle against Apartheid, and looked to global capitalism to solve South Africa’s problems.

The result has been that the majority of South Africans continue to live below the poverty lines, with millions of homeless and low rates of access to clean water or electricity. The average male life expectancy is just 49, and there are unemployment rates of 40%.

While so much has been spent on the world cup, the government still does not provide thousands with a proper home

The government has made the world cup an important part of its economic strategy, and has spent $4.1 billion on hosting the event, more than any other country before it. A series of brand new stadia have been built, driving an economic bubble in the construction industry. However, now that the work is done, the real question is, how much will South Africa actually benefit from the world cup?

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