“I am a man of peace and I would like peace all over the world. He hurts my heart to see civilians and children who lose their lives. But we make a job and we have a duty to play. But I hope you find a solution. Not only a Gaza, But for all the other wars that hurt my heart ». Rino Gattuso, neo of the national team coach, has not only training and ranking problems. Let’s hope. Two close races, Friday in Bergamo with Estonia, on Monday in Debracen, Hungary, on the border with Romania, against Israel. Delicate race with the Israelis, not football. Tensions are others. And then in October, on the 14th in Italy in Udine, things will get even more complicated because the mayor of Udine, Alberto Felice De Toni, who leads a center -left majority, in an interview with the “Messaggero Veneto” the game with the Isaraelians does not want to play: “We do not foment the controversies but it is not the case …” he explains, his idea is to postpone and then “recover” to avoid any problems of public order also counting on the support of 20 thousand signatures collected by an online petition launched by “possible” to ask for the stop to the match.
Difficult to separate sports and politics. Practically impossible. Estructuring the countries in war from sports competitions is recurring practice, from Russia to Israel in the last cases. “The suspension of Israel from all international sports competitions is a due act and responsibility not a gesture of revenge …”. A few weeks ago the managers of the sports policies of the Democratic Party who promised themselves together with 44 dem parliamentarians of the appeal to the International Olympic Committee, the President of the Coni and the President of the FIGC to make themselves spokesperson, at CIO, FIFA and UEFA of the suspension of Israel from Sport from Sport.
Will be. But beyond the positions, the sentences, the necessary sockets of distance From the atrocities of wars, of deaths, children killed remains, as always happens when a country is “excluded” by sport, a great sense of bitterness, as if an opportunity was lost, as if a last glimpse was closed, as if hope was lost. They all lose in these cases.
Loses the sport that cannot pacify Because he cannot call himself out of conflicts, hatred, history. He loses the policy that renounces the oldest mediation tool between peoples, forgive federations, athletes. It can be discussed indefinitely on the meaning of the symbols, if they have value or if it would be more effective or more right to make the Israelis (but also the Russians) participate or exclude competitions, competitions, worlds, games … certainly yes but the symbolism of sport has a high value that is not only form but also substance and each act or action is an act of politics.
With sport, another policy is made and in a certain sense another war is also. Athletes are a symbol for what they do and, for better or for worse, they are brought for example and emulated. The fascist regimes in Italy and Germany presented them as warriors of the nation. Sports companies were a symbol in the years of the Cold War, “challenges” between capitalist and communist systems. The challenge of Ping Pong between the USA and China preceding the historical visit of President Richard Nixon to Beijing was a symbol. The fists raised with the black gloves of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos were a symbol of the fight against racism on the podium of the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. And it could be continued.
Sport in history has often been used by rulers and dictators as a tool for celebrating powerof strength and alleged military and not only military superiority and Pierre de Coubertin himself, founder of modern Olympics, considered him as a means of promoting military discipline in French youth. They were Iran-USA political challenges at the World Cup in France 1998 and that between Argentina and England in June 1986, at the Aztec stadium of Mexico City that regulated the accounts after the English blitz at the Malvinas. Eun’s absolute political symbol is Diego Maradona’s goal: “The hand de dios”. Sport and politics intertwine, clash, face but follow common destinies that often open new paths, open prospects, “pacify”. Perhaps for all this there should be no doubt whether to play or not Italy-Israel in Udine.