A recent provocative opinion piece in the (London) Times challenges the reader.
Will Lloyd writes of how footballers, formerly subjects of incessant and blistering tabloid headlines about their poor behaviour and values, found their way out through embracing and propagating politics. But, he suggests, it was more importantly a route for PR agents, company salesmen and political campaigners to push their own agendas by marketing and rebranding the players.
“Footballers had not become more socially conscious overnight. With hindsight, you could see this was a sentimental narrative. Rather, the PR industry realised, in culturally progressive times, there were ways to entwine social justice and sport, the better to have clients like Rashford act as a pipeline for the sale of expensive apparel and branded content. Simon Oliveira, a long-term adviser to David Beckham, described Roc Nation’s immaculate work with Rashford as “genius”. He sensed what most of the public and press could not. This was business, not activism. A fresh way to market footballers, and to bank millions doing so.
“At the World Cup in Qatar the sentimental narrative ends. The notion that footballers are more than entertainers, and that football can change the world for the better, is going to its grave.”
It is an excoriating piece and whatever your views on all of its points is worth a read. You can find a link here; Qatar ruins footballers’ claims to be activists | Comment | The Times
