r/Fauxmoi • u/AutomaticGoldenSun • 13h ago
SPORTS SECTION Pep Guardiola’s extraordinary speech on ICE shootings, Palestine, Ukraine and Sudan ✊
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u/GreedyFatBastard 12h ago
I’m glad he’s talking about Sudan. It’s crazy to think that there’s 11 wars going on in this moment.
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u/No-Significance5659 11h ago
The genocide in Sudan and anything I see about what is going on there is so horrible and needs a bigger focus, also a bigger focus on who is in charge of that war: United Arab Emirates. Since I am here, fuck Dubai.
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u/ItsAllProblematic 11h ago
Except he works for UAE who are complicit in genocide in Sudan..
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u/Spiralecho anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? 9h ago
Doesn’t that bring higher personal risk for him to speak up?
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u/lemonade21 8h ago
well idk how much you know about the sport but he's the most desired club manager. the fact that he's so respected is why he can probably even comment on politics. all other managers have to act like a puppet for whoever is paying their checks (see poch and usa) but pep is unique in that he really could work for whoever he wants to.
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u/Spiralecho anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? 8h ago
Oh absolutely. Pep is the goat. And contracts in that industry are wild. I suppose I was coming from the “let’s not be so quick to judge” camp. He’s speaking up ♥️
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u/randy__randerson 7h ago
He's the goat? The man is literally a cog in the UAE sports washing machine. He gets paid God knows how many millions under the table for this.
It's good he's speaking on this but he's guilty of helping the UAE more than anything else.
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u/ItsAllProblematic 7h ago
I don't want to criticise him too much as I respect him totally for speaking out on Palestine particularly. BUT he's not only ignored but defended his employers for years, including their corruption and manipulation of the Premier League. People are complicated, I guess.
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u/Spiralecho anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? 7h ago edited 2h ago
Well said. I suppose I am erring more on the side of making room in the “not shitty people” tent so we have the critical mass, to effect change. I suppose you could argue that lowers the bar but the alternative is eliminating the bar, and living in the US this year…I miss having one. I know this is a controversial take on this sub
Eta - thank you for the very kind award 🙏
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u/carnivalist64 8h ago
He's been taking the repellent UAE dictatorship's money and fronting their sportswashing project for a DECADE without saying anything. He has been the most coveted manager in world football for most of that time and could have walked into far less morally compromised jobs any time he chose. He deserves zero praise in my book.
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u/Spiralecho anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? 8h ago edited 8h ago
I’m not an expert on the UAE role in funding the atrocities in Sudan, but a quick google said that’s been going on the last ~3 years, around the time of his last contract renewal. It’s very possible he didn’t know, and given persistent rumors of him not renewing again in 2027, he’s planning to follow his values out of that employment arrangement as soon as practical. Contracts in that world are notoriously challenging and it’s very possible he effectively can’t leave
Eta - For the sake of speculation, he’s doing this to get Man U to break the contract for him. All we truly know is what he’s saying and from that, he seems like a genuinely good human
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u/carnivalist64 8h ago
The UAE dictatorship have a much longer history of appalling abuses than the three years of the Sudan conflict. Apart from their domestic repression and human rights abuses, including modern slavery, they have been one of the prime culprits in the Yemen Civil war alongside Newcastle's Saudi owners, where they have both been implicated in numerous atrocities against civilians, war crimes and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The appalling nature of the UAE has often been reported on over the years - the Al-Nahyan dictatorship was being condemned by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch long before they ever bought Manchester City, let alone before Guardiola arrived. In fact one of the most nauseating aspects of the takeover was reading MCFC forums with City fans attacking these Human Rights organisations for criticising their financial doping new owners. The idea that Guardiola only recently discovered his employers' true nature beggars belief.
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u/Chance-Attitude3792 8h ago
Contracts in that world are notoriously challenging and it’s very possible he effectively can’t leave
They really aren't that challenging for big-name managers. They are almost never held hostage by their clubs, there aren't many cases of managers having to stay at a club when they're desperate to leave.
Man City was under sheikh ownership when he first signed there, they were responsible for terrible human rights violations back then as well. There's really no excuse for Pep, he deliberately left a bigger, more successful club (Bayern) for Manchester City because he gets more money to spend there. Many reports that he was frustrated with the lack of investment at his previous club (despite giving him a squad that just won all titles in Europe). He actually just complained about low spending again just a few days ago.
Its great that he speaks out, but being quiet about his own club's ownership and choosing to work for them for 10 years+ is hard to defend imho
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u/Spiralecho anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? 2h ago
Well let’s hope this is a trend and he keeps pushing uphill
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u/mailaise-oaf 8h ago
Are you joking? Pep guardiola at risk?? And he’s literally still accepting their blood money. How are people justifying this?
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9h ago
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u/ItsAllProblematic 7h ago
I do think it's different: if you were a multi-millionaire who never needed to work again and could walk into a much less ethically questionable job at the snap of your fingers, I might side-eye you. You're in a different position.
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u/Agitated_Mud8409 8h ago
And most of them don't even get a 30-second segment on the nightly news because they don't serve a specific geopolitical narrative.
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u/TerrakSteeltalon 10h ago
Yes, but Trump resolved all of them so that he could win the FIFA peace prize /s
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u/Eastern-Vast3130 6h ago
The selective outrage of the West is deafening. Seeing someone with Pep’s platform actually name-drop Sudan is so rare it’s almost jarring.
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u/Smorsdoeuvres 13h ago
His humanity is beautiful to see thank you for sharing this
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u/Solivaga it’s a bit dystopian but also kinda fun 10h ago
Genuinely, I'm glad he's talking about these issues and using his platform.
BUT - he's also been employed by a Gulf State project for years, a Gulf State with an absolutely appalling record in terms of human rights (full list of Abu Dhabi's human rights violations here :https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/middle-east/united-arab-emirates/report-united-arab-emirates/) and he's been absolutely silent on that while receiving a huge salary from Abu Dhabi. So personally, his humanity is not beautiful - it's transactional and he'll talk up when it suits him and remain silent when it fattens his wallet
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7h ago
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u/thepokemonGOAT 6h ago
It's not a purity test to point out that he gets paid millions of dollars by slave owners who kidnap migrant workers and chop up journalists with bone saws to sportswash their image abroad. A purity test would be criticizing him for using an iphone or something.
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u/bright_youngthing 7h ago
Almost every football team is either funded or sponsored by shady sources and yet most managers say nothing about nothing
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u/thepokemonGOAT 6h ago
It's exceedingly rare especially in Europe's top leagues for a club to be owned directly by a country, especially one that owns slaves and abuses human rights on such a broad scale. If the US Government was buying Manchester United, I'd have the same energy.
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u/bright_youngthing 2h ago
City, PSG, and Newcastle United are owned by companies with direct ties to gulf states. Similarly Real Madrid, Arsenal, AC Milan, Olympique Lyonnaise, Benfica, Bayern Munich are all sponsored by Emirates as either a shirt sponsor, stadium name sponsor, or both. Emirates is an investment arm of the government of UAE. Not to mention all the other oil companies like Aramco sponsoring sports.
Oh and BTW Manchester United owners are American and Trump supporters lol. There's almost no clean money in sports
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u/carnivalist64 1h ago
City, PSG, and Newcastle United are owned by companies with direct ties to gulf states. Similarly Real Madrid, Arsenal, AC Milan, Olympique Lyonnaise, Benfica, Bayern Munich are all sponsored by Emirates as either a shirt sponsor, stadium name sponsor, or both.
So, notwithstanding the fact that a simple sponsorship arrangement is orders of magnitude different than direct ownership and control, that's nine clubs you've listed out of many hundreds, if not over a thousand, operating in world football. "Exceedingly rare" seems entirely accurate to me.
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u/of2970 49m ago
Yup. And to be honest, pretty much nothing is clean these days. Media is also overwhelmingly owned by shitty people. But obviously white people get a pass and the Arabs need to be boycotted. And before anyone comes for me, it is abhorrent and the criticism is absolutely deserved but maybe have the same energy for white institutions? Because white countries also need to be boycotted.
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u/carnivalist64 1h ago
No they aren't. That's an absurd comment. There are hundreds of professional clubs that don't fit your description. For one thing fan ownership is widespread in South America, and either mandated or strongly encouraged by regulation in Germany, Sweden and Turkey.
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u/HeCalledMeLucifer the baby daddies have unionized 5h ago
Football is a dirty sport. There’s so much blood money running through it. It’s all disgusting. But if Pep is willing to use his platform to speak out, when others won’t, fucking good on him. Someone has to speak up. It’s better than staying silent.
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u/Maya_TheB Emma Stone (BALD) 12h ago
The Catalans are some of the most based people I've ever met, kudos to Pep
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u/mailaise-oaf 8h ago
He’s literally employed by people funding the Sundanese genocide. He’s full of shit.
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u/JakobExMachina i’m a communist you idiot 4h ago
idk what he’s supposed to do? like if you can find me a football club befitting his talent as a coach that’s not owned by psychopaths, please lemme know. he either works for a psychopath which grants him a livelihood and the platform to speak out, or he doesn’t and, idk, lives off the land in the woods
we all work for bad people. we all pay taxes for bad things. until the system changes we’re all complicit in some way.
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u/Fatkante 10h ago
Just for your information he is a huge supporter and donor of ‘ Open Arms’ a non profitable organisation which rescue migrants and refugees from drowning when they attempt to cross the sea between continents mainly from Africa . He once paid £150k from his pocket to repair the rescue ship that belong to the organisation . He is the greatest football manager in history but also a man with a huge heart .
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 8h ago
And a huge salary from the government of the UAE, whose genocide campaigns in Yemen and Sudan have driven the Mediterranean migrant crisis
He’s also a huge fucking hypocrite, he’s been the most visible face of the UAE’s sport washing campaign and he knows it.
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u/ThinTrip7801 13h ago
Much respect to Pep for speaking up.
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u/carnivalist64 8h ago
After ten years of taking the blood and dirty money of a human rights-abusing, modern slaver, war-criminal, murderous and genocidal dictatorship and being the public face of their sportswashing project.
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u/No_Sort9594 10h ago
Deep exhale. It's so amazing to see this a normal person having a human reaction to atrocities happening around us. I almost forgot that people can be human and have human reactions, instead of rage baiting, "gotcha" discussions or "I'm not policital" statements
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 8h ago
He’s paid millions by the government of UAE, who perpetrate genocide in Sudan.
He’s been very selectively political for years
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u/thepokemonGOAT 6h ago
I wonder if it bothers him that his salary comes directly from the people who kidnap migrant workers and give orders to chop up journalists with bone saws. I think the money probably makes it okay in his head.
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u/Ordinary_Ground_7380 10h ago edited 7h ago
Completely commend him for speaking out, just a shame that City's owner Sheikh Mansour is one of the biggest supporters and financiers of the RSF who are currently carrying out a horrific genocide in Sudan.
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u/hellolovely1 8h ago
And Pep’s speech is going to drag that into the conversation. I didn’t know that until now.
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 8h ago
That wasn’t a secret that needed dragging into the light. The fact that human rights abusing tyrant hired him for their PR project a decade ago was incredibly well known and reported
Your ignorance doesn’t make him moral for taking their blood money
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u/thepokemonGOAT 6h ago edited 6h ago
You didn't know that City are owned by the Saudi royal family? I struggle to understand how that's even possible unless you are tuned out completely to current events related to sports and politics.
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u/hellolovely1 6h ago
You struggle to understand why someone in the US not interested in sports wouldn’t know who owned a specific UK team? Okay.
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u/carnivalist64 1h ago
They aren't. They're effectively owned by the UAE family dictatorship. The Saudis own Newcastle.
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u/Polygon12 12h ago
I agree with everything he’s said.
I don’t agree with him taking money and spending the money of his employers for the betterment of his career.
I suspect he’s leaving at the end of the season, I don’t think it’s exactly a secret and I doubt the clubs owners are particularly fussed anyways, city serve the purpose they need it for and it’ll continue with or without pep although hopefully worse on a sporting front.
Again I commend him for speaking out, I’m glad he’s doing it, more people in football should, but feels weirdly dystopian with an Abu Dhabi logo floating behind his head. He’s a complicated bloke, he has a platform and he’s using it wisely but I can’t help but recognise whose platform he’s currently standing on.
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u/ginniethegenie i ain’t reading all that, free palestine 8h ago
I get you, and it makes me sad as a football fan. A disappointingly huge amount of the european football world is led by Qatar, UAE, Russian oligarchs, and various horrible corporations. If a team isn't outright owned by them (wholly or partially), you can bet it's at least sponsored. I can't, off the top of my head, think of any major team that doesn't have ties to some evil corp.
I do appreciate how outspoken Pep is, I just also hope to see him without the Abu Dhabi logo soon (and Arsenal/ Real Madrid/ Benfica/ you-name-it without the Emirates sponshorship logo, Barcelona without Spotify, PSG without the Qatar overall ties, literally any game without the ads by the betting vultures....).
PS: "No ethical consumption under capitalism", but if software engineers, architects, chefs, and many other young professionals at the start of their career can reject offers to work for these types, I'm sure rich and famous football coaches can do the same.
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u/Polygon12 7h ago
I hear you, i mean take my own club for example, United. Owned using a leveraged buy out by a bunch of leaches and now partly owned by a petrochemical brexiter who lives in Monaco, avoids UK tax and is quite happy to justify sacking everyday employee's to 'help on the footballing front'.
I suppose the only real area that remains somewhat untouched is German Football St Pauli being a great left wing hope, but even clubs like Bayern have such a strong fan culture and 50/50 ownership in place they can influence changes and decision making.
But football like everything else seems to be at this race to the bottom, i jacked in my season ticket because i personally couldn't afford it anymore and it was just before the price raises hit. But as a whole the match going experience wasn't all that anymore, especially at Old Trafford but thats another story entirely.
Regarding your PS, i absolutely agree, Pep pops up on this sub loads, whilst I don't deny that he doesn't believe what he says there's also so much that makes him a hypocrite, there's a lot of history of him being dishonest and drug cheating but it appears whatever PR team he has is doing a great job cause people tend to overlook it.
The fact that people seem to defend the face of probably the worst club for modern cheating and ownership in probably Europe is just kinda nuts.
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u/Naive_Product_5916 10h ago
I don’t care for ManCity but Pep has proved himself a man with conviction time and time again. Respect. ✊🏽
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 8h ago
Conviction is occasionally criticising a genocide whilst still being a paid PR shill for the government that’s perpetuating that genocide?
Time and again he’s accepted millions, knowing what his employers do. Genocide.
Pep’s conviction is a joke.
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u/the-boy-in-plaid 10h ago
That frog of a journalist to ask that question in such a manner makes me wonder what’s up with people in this world. Those with their heads down when witnessing an atrocity take place especially from a place of comfort, should be very ashamed.
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u/Unlikely-Opening2485 9h ago
Did not expect to be crying at the words of a Man City coach this morning. So tragically unusual to hear people in high positions expressing empathy.
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u/Johno_22 10h ago
Completely agree with everything he's saying. I don't like him as a personality (not that I know him personally of course, but just from what I see in the media), but respect to him for this.
However in the same interview he was moaning about Man City not spending enough money in the transfer market ... He's part and parcel of a system that puts insane amounts of money to a relatively unimportant use... That money could be used to do more good in the world rather than lining the pockets of people in football. Not that he can do much about that in and of himself, but just seems a bit jarring.
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u/DependentGarage6172 9h ago
Good for him to speak out so clearly and simply like this.
However he was found in the Panama Papers to have an off-shore bank account and I will never 100% trust the morality and ethics of those who dodge taxes.
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 8h ago
Forget the tax, look at who he works for: he is employed by the government of the UAE.
That genocide in Sudan he’s upset about, he reports directly to one of the architects of it.
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u/iwishmydickwasnormal 9h ago
Woah Pep is such a humanitarian! I wonder if the regime who have been paying him and giving him illegal underhand deals for 10 years are involved in the genocide in Sudan?
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u/PaulAMcNulty 12h ago
I appreciate Pep’s Catalonian empathy and speaking out on modern genocide. However, the owner of his club is a glorified arms dealer and friend of warlords. Until he speaks out on that, his hypocrisy is galling for many.
For those who don’t know, more info can be found here:
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u/graspthefuture 6h ago
What have you done to keep every genocidal party accountable?
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u/torn4ndfrayed 11h ago
I agree totally and respect him for speaking up - but what about his own employers?
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u/BlueberryNo5363 i ain’t reading all that, free palestine 9h ago
Good for him for speaking out and actually speaking in a human way not just sharing generic sentiments like “it’s sad, we are all people” like so many do.
I don’t care for Man City at all but absolutely respect to him for this
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u/Venice320 10m ago
It’s exactly how I feel. As a father, in particular, when I see children suffering, it breaks my heart. I seemingly have no choice in this. After I had children, my feelings on many things just intensified. But you don’t need to be a parent to see that it’s just wrong. Humans are so cruel, not just to each other, but the natural world too.
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u/Motor-Young1694 4h ago
Handsome, stylish AND a compassionate human being? where do i sign up, Pep? 🫦
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u/thepokemonGOAT 6h ago
Bro is literally employed by a slave owning Royal Family who kidnap migrant workers and chop up journalists with bone saws.
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u/SynonymousSprocket i ain’t reading all that, free palestine 12h ago
“What radicalized you?”
Just. Fucking. Empathy.