Former Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has taken a swipe at teams embarking on political demonstrations at the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
“When you go to a World Cup you know you must not lose the first game,” said the 73-year-old, saying teams with World Cup experience such as holders France won their opening matches.
Wenger then added: “And the teams as well who were mentally ready, who had the mindset to focus on the competition and not on political demonstrations.”
Since the world cup commenced, some teams have been showing support to the LGBTQ community and also prot4esting against the treatment of migrant workers by Qatar.
England back LGBTQ
Under Gareth Southgate’s stewardship, England have consistently taken a strong stand against racism.
The Three Lions defied boos from their own fans at the start of Euro 2020 to take the knee against racial discrimination.
And Southgate said it was “highly unlikely” they would avoid talking about non-sporting matters during the tournament.
“We have always spoken about issues we think should be talked about, particularly ones we think we can affect,” he added.
“We have spoken in the same way other nations have spoken about this tournament and the human rights challenges. We’ve been very clear with our standpoint on that.
“We would also like to focus primarily on football. For every player, every coach, everybody travelling to a World Cup, this is the carnival of football.
“This is the thing you work for your whole life so you don’t want that to be diminished by everything else that’s going on around it currently. But we recognise that we are going to be in that situation and we’ve got to deal with it.”