There's clearly a difference between Zaha, Berahino etc. and Zanuzaj. Wilshere (who suffers from the Taarabt syndrome of most people misspelling his name) was taken out of context. Accusations of racism are unhelpful.
mmmm ?? Direct quotes off his twitter page & BBC interview: Should foreign players be allowed to play for England, and in my opinion I don't think they should. We have to remember what we are. We are English. Wonder what Kevin Pietersen, Mo Farah, Manu Tuilagi, Raheem Sterling think of those comments
"Sterling grew up in the Maverley area of Kingston, Jamaica and was raised by his grandmother.[30] At the age of five he emigrated to London, England with his mother.[3] Once arrived, he attended Copland High School in Wembley, North West London" "Born in Somalia, on 23 March 1983,[15] Farah spent the early years of his childhood in Djibouti with his twin brother.[16] He later moved to Britain at the age of 8 years old to join his father, speaking barely a word of English.[16][17] He has a British father, Mukhtar Farah, who was born in England and grew up in Hounslow, London" If you ask Wilshere if Raheem Sterling is English, he will probably say "yeah, course he is". You listen to Mo Farah speak and you think "He's English" And this is the point, it's not about those people who have grown up here and developed in this country but were just not born here, it's about the governing bodies of organisations taking advantage of loopholes and rulings that allow them to cherry pick the best players to represent their country who have only been in the country 5 mins. It doesn't mean that you expect the England starting 11 to be 11 white Anglo Saxon males and the German side to purely be blond, blue eyed Germanic types, it's not about what colour, race, religion you are, it's about whether you should be classed as English in terms of a global inter-country competition and whether it means anything any more.
Strings, I agree with you. Those are not my words they are Wilshere's words. You can put whatever interpretation you want on them, but the words, remain Wilshere's. He didnt need to make them, maybe a journalist coaxed them out of him, but he said them, and they remain offensive to me.
But what is it that Wilshere actually said that you found offensive? That article is a page long, but a lot of it is not what Wilshere is quoted as saying, but other comments from Gareth Southgate and then the author's own commentary. He said only English people should play for England, he stated that English players had a different approach to the game that was less technical but more aggressive than Spanish players and that they were braver. He might be pointing out cultural differences between footballing nations but surely there is a difference between recognizing that there are cultural differences and being racist?
This: Should foreign players be allowed to play for England, and in my opinion I don't think they should. We have to remember what we are. We are English.
How on earth is that wrong !!! The PC world gone mad yet again. If anyone finds that offensive grow a pair of balls and man up.
OK, so IMO..... In that sentence he is merely stating that the England team represents the English on the world stage and therefore there should be English players playing for England. He goes on to say that if he went over to Spain for 5 years, that would not make him Spanish and he would not want to play for Spain. Has patriotism and pride in your own country become racism? Otherwise, scrap the World Cup and lets just stick with the Champions League. .
I know, its hilarious. You should be English to represent England = racist is insane. If someone disagrees with that then we might as well turn them into club sides with anyone being allowed to play. Didn't we have someone represent Canada despite never having set foot in the country, that's the most blatant example of the rules being wrong.
I think you are looking at two sentence and getting them slightly out of context: "I wasn't referring to Januzaj," he said. "The question was should foreign players be allowed to play for England, and in my opinion I don't think they should. He is a great player. I wish he was English." and "We have to remember what we are. We are English. We tackle hard, are tough on the pitch and are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and you think technical but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard." I think this changes the perceived meaning of "We are English" completely. We would need to see the interview to be sure.
Funny thing is, there is absolutely nothing 'English' about St George or his cross. As for Wilshere, I'm not entirely sure he meant it in that way. I think perhaps he was trying to say, essentially, that an overseas player signed by a club doesn't simply become English after playing for them for the required amount of years. Players like Sterling, Zaha and so forth who came here as small children and have been raised in this country are, in my opinion, English, regardless of their colour etc. I don't think this really applies to this lad, nor to players like Arteta and Malunia (sic) who have been touted as possible England players in the past.
Let's be honest, this really is a no brainer. This young man would be nuts to play for England. He has a much better chance of winning the world cup or Euro champs with Belgium than with England. We English live on meagre past glories and the truth is England as a national side is ****. End of.
I am more worried that he thinks 'tackling hard' and being 'brave' is going to win us anything, as these Johnny Foreigners cheerfully pass us to death. I haven't seen the whole interview but seems like another half educated over paid young man struggling to express himself clearly. None of the following results would surprise me for the Montenegro and Poland matches - 1-0, 0-0, 1-1, 0-1.
Another fact with young Mr Januzaj is that he has had one very good game, against a bottom of the league team. Let wait and see what this kid is made of when playing a top 8 team. All this talk of suddenly playing for England is ludicrous based on one match. Talk should first be about playing at under-21 level. If he cannot command a regular starting place for his club what right would he have starting an international.
