Yesterday, France lifted the Football World Cup for the second time in history. France outclassed Croatia in an electrifying final. By defeating Croatia 4-2, France has become the only sixth nation to lift the World Cup more than once. The journey of France in the FIFA world cup 2018 has been very smooth. France won all its matches except one where they played a goalless draw with Denmark. France, despite winning their first two group games against Australia 2-0 and Peru 1-0, received flak for not showing their best performance. France started getting prominence only after registering a 4-3 victory against Argentina in the round of 16. In the quarter-finals, France vanquished Uruguay 2-0 and defeated one of the tournament’s favorite, Belgium 1-0 in the Semi-Final. Their victory march continued in the high voltage final match also and defeated underdogs Croatia 4-2 and clinched the 2018 FIFA world cup.
The French victory also attracted attention of some people for some other reasons. Out of 23 players in the French world cup champion team, no less than 16 players have African roots including the star player, Kylian Mbappe. Some people joked that France is the ‘last African team’ left in the world cup. According to the Los Angeles Times article, “Sixteen of the 23 players on the team come from families that recently immigrated to France from places like Zaire, Cameroon, Morocco, Angola, Congo or Algeria. Forward Antoine Griezmann, the team’s leading scorer, is half-German and half-Portuguese. Defender Samuel Umtiti, who scored the goal that sent France to the final, was born in Cameroon. Teenage prodigy Kylian Mbappe is part Cameroonian, part Algerian.”
Since the beginning of the tournament, everyone was talking about the huge presence of African-French players in the France football team. The victory of France was politicized by some people to perpetuate their agenda. They claimed that the victory of France is a validation of multiculturalism and of lax immigration policies and how other countries and people of other religions are helping a western nation to clinch the FIFA world cup.
This French team testimony to the country’s diversity. A repudiation of Trump’s attack on immigration in Europe—that “it changes the culture”. Yes. For the better.
— Nicholas Burns (@RNicholasBurns) July 15, 2018
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1018540593897705473
The argument offered by these liberals is problematic and absurd at every level. To begin with, none of the players are illegal immigrants. Immigration through legal channels is always encouraged and welcomed. Huge presence of African-French in the team is the testimony to the fact that there is no xenophobia and racism. They all are now French citizens first. Secondly, what is the point of dragging religion into this; victory is the result of team effort and not because of the huge presence of players belonging to any particular religion. It is weird that a world cup victory has a religion but terrorism has no religion. Presence of 50% Muslim players on the team is a testimony to the fact that there is no Islamophobia. A world cup victory should not be exploited to promote identity politics. Football and politics are two different things. And lastly, the immigration into European countries like France happened mainly due to the ugly colonial history of the country. Are the liberals willing to admit the exploitative colonial past or just paying lip service to diversity and multiculturalism?
By politicizing sports, liberals have further established that they have no coherent arguments for their agenda and now are grasping at straws by making bizarre connections and incoherent correlations. By making stupid statements like these liberals expose themselves and the hollowness of their arguments. Politicizing a sport is one of the most stupid things that one can ever do. But that is expected of these pseudo-intellectuals and arm-chair activists.