Much against my will I was obliged to watch the first few minutes of the France Uruguay soccer match. The only interesting part was watching the two teams singing and not singing their national anthems.
The Uruguayans gave a lusty performance of their one, which as we all know is called Orientales, la patria o la tumba which translates as “Uruguayans, the Fatherland or Death”. Very rousing.
The extent of my thinking on the French football team is that Irish people should be grateful to the player who spared them the tedium of being in the World Cup and all that it represents. My only other opinion is that you have to have a national anthem it’s hard to do better than the Marseillaise. The French managers went for for it at full throttle when their turn came.
This is not a view shared by several of the French team’s players, of whose names I will go to the grave in ignorance. As the camera panned along each man’s face was shown in microscopic detail as he coped with the added stress of a bit of choral singing before running around a field. One or two strained to remember the words they’d half learned at school, another couple seemed to be making up their own lyrics and several looked quite embarrassed. A couple of the black players just kept their mouths firmly shut.
What possible reason could their be for this?
Are they not contractually obliged to sing?
Were they not paid enough to sing and play?
Are they shy about singing in public? We all know it’s hard enough to do that at weddings or parties so imagine how much more difficult it must be in front of a huge crowd.
Another possible explanation is that for a lot of people living in France La Marseillaise is the anthem of the racists who’ve made their lives miserable and even millionaire footballers draw the line at that sort of thing. It wasn’t quite the Olympic black power salute but it was a very expressive silence.
Liam redux 
Leave a comment