what?

I'm not saying this necessarily applies to you cos I don't know you from Adam but perceived futility in the face of stuff like this is often a defence mechanism. Feelings of hopelessness don't come from nowhere, they're learnt and as always the question should be where did they come from and who is served by them. Probably not you but idk. In general this topic reminds me a lot of Mark Fisher and capitalist realism. Maybe people know the quote "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism". It feels like you could swap out capitalism with racism there and it would apply to a lot of the people who don't like the kneeling. But I think it's important to understand that racism and specifically white supremacy are not eternal facts of life. They have a basis in material reality and they emerge at a given point in history based upon conditions created by humanity and changeable by us, collectively. Sure it's vast but the struggle against it isn't futile. Even if it was though is that reason to just accept something? If you're motivated by a clear sense of what is just or unjust then the utility or futility of an action becomes secondary. I think also focusing on the outcome of an action rather than the process can cause feelings of hopelessness. Engaging in political struggle changes people, creates new people. Whether a cause succeeds or fails is not the only thing to consider.

Do people get that the focus on taking the knee or statues or whatever other empty gesture is at the centre of the media cycle this week isn't coming from the actual movements themselves? If you're somebody who thinks of themselves as against racism but these acts have turned you off whatever group or movement perpetrated them then you've fallen for the exact idealistic trap the ruling class wants you to fall for. The media selects the framing of these stories in order to move the conversation away from the actual material conditions relevant to whatever the issue is and block the potential for change. I don't particularly like statues of long dead colonisers and I'm ambivalent about footballers taking the knee but neither has any material effect on policy or the lives of marginalised people. That's what campaigners and activists want to be focusing on but the media forces the culture war angle and you end up wasting time debating the merits of gestures. It's a ploy to divide us further. Most people engaged in these arguments don't even have a decent grasp on what racism is, letalone an understanding of colonialism, but the opportunity for education and solidarity is lost because of the media outrage generator.

Do you remember the content? Genuinely interested. I went to school in the 90s/00s and, while I'm sure it was touched upon, I don't remember any serious education on it. There was certainly nothing on racism as anything other than a random existing fact, irrational prejudice that some people have and is bad but is basically a fact of life which would eventually fade away via education. It wasn't until I was an adult that I came into contact with any explanations of racism that saw it as structural, related to power and wielded with purpose rather than just being driven by irrational hatred.

There are some extremely worrying suggestions in this thread which ignore the function and purpose of racism. Britain always reduces this shit to gestures and misses the real point. The UK has spent the last couple of years hugely expanding the scope of it's restrictive powers in preparation for the mid-term future when shit really starts hitting the fan - the increase in racist rhetoric is largely about having ready made scapegoats for what's coming so that the government can cling to power. And in response to racists on social media, spurred on by that very political establishment and the client media class, the suggestion is making it easier for the state ID people from their social accounts AND and increase police power to respond to language deemed inappropriate? Not that the racism hasn't been abhorrent of course but ****, if you answer to it is straight out of the home secretary's 'big book of authoritarian policy ideas' then you're missing the point. We fight racists together. It's a responsibility we all share and not something that you can ever expect the state to deal with

So it's only home fans there tonight right? Vardy to rediscover where the goal is and stand, grinning and bathed in boos, as bottles and coins rain down around him, having just completed a hat trick?

Yeah we're shit but I recken we might be good for at least another. Maybe it's the rain but it feels like De Gea has an error in him tonight

I would settle for no punishment, as long as there's a government review that ends with a 50+1 rule being imposed to stop them just trying again in a few years. I realise that's pie in the sky though. I'm sure now this has crumbled the Tories' will to actually do anything will evaporate too

This is fascinating to watch and obviously it's brilliant that it's crumbling but you just know they're going to sweep this under the rug in terms of punishment. There'll be a small face-saving fines, maybe a transfer ban, nothing that really makes any lasting difference.

Interesting to hear Marcus Bean on football weekly predicting that the players won't care about being banned from international competition

anyone else getting zero work done today?

Actually kinda hilarious to think how instantly the balance of power in international football would be completely different. I wonder who the biggest winners and losers would be

The problem if the 6 do go would obviously be the financial and talent knock on drains to the rest of the clubs. But assuming all that could be mitigated (highly questionable I know) how great would a league that was so much more of an equal competition be?! Maybe with some new regulations to actually discourage new super clubs from forming, wage and transfer caps etc. That league would be infinitely more enjoyable and exciting, even if the technical standard of the football on display took a bit of a hit.

The only thing that stops this is a strike, players and club workers. Paralyse the clubs ability to compete and their value vanishes. ****, Man United are listed on the NYSE, watch their value implode. Unfortunately I can't see there being the political will in the PFA to make it happen. 30 years of anti-union and anti-strike legislation have seen to that.

It's even more ridiculous when you consider the very real possibility of an independent Scotland some time within the next decade

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." This bloke gets it

I'd switch my my closest local team, Union Berlin. It's only my childhood in Leicestershire (and my less than excellent German skills) that has kept me supporting English football from a far.

Surely Mourinho's sacking must be connected to this. He's always seen himself as separate from the ruling clique of football. Would love to see him come out all guns blazing against this

I don't know much about the PFA, how political they are. I assume not very. A shame as they could stop this in a second with a strike. Imagine the beautiful scenes of players and fans joining a picket and blocking entry to the grounds. All that value that the money men are trying to protect evaporates pretty quick once the players decide they're not going to cooperate. I know they're absurdly wealthy but they are still waged workers when you get down to brass tacks.

That's one way to be rewarded yes. Just like if you're a starting a mobile phone company you'll try to be technologically innovative and create something that is better than the competition. But it's also the hardest and least secure way to succeed. When you're big enough and rich enough you no longer have an economic imperative to succeed that way because you can just use your wealth and power to rig the game to your benefit. That's why 30 years of neoliberalism have left us not with a dynamic marketplace of small companies jostling for position by creating out of need but rather giant monopolies who secure their position by just buying up competition and exerting influence where they need to. Obviously sport as a field can't completely monopolise because you need at least one other team to compete against so I see your point ini that regard, but the motivation behind this move is absolutely compatible with and born from the laws of competition which underpin capitalism.

I think there are a few important points to highlight here. First that once you allow a sport to be run as a business under capitalist conditions, a key contradiction inevitably arises between sporting competition and economic competition. There's no reform or adjustment to the system that resolves that contradiction, privileging profit is baked into the system as the central tenet. You see it in whatever field of life capitalism extends itself to. Healthcare, housing, education. It doesn't matter how important or morally just the original purpose is, once capitalism gets it, it's secondary to profit. These plans are 100% going ahead. If not this iteration of them then another a little further down the line. Because you can't defeat this in just one field. It's also important to note that this is already happening and we're no better that these clubs now trying to take it further. The football we enjoy in the UK and Europe is based on colonial domination and the hoovering up of talent from the global south to our benefit. I'm not in Leicester any more but if you are, you've basically won the lottery that you can be a football fan and experience your local team playing at this level. Everything that's wonderful about football, the social cohesion, the sense of community, the connection to your roots and place, you still get to experience that but most places don't and that is a tragedy because sport can be such a powerful force for good in peoples lives. We should be aiming for a world where everybody gets that. Capitalism has been killing football for years and this is just the next phase of it. If you're mad about this then I urge you to read more, grasp the wider implications and then use this as your motivation to join the wider struggle against capital as a whole. I realise that might sound absurd particularly if you're not a political person. But everybody needs a wedge issue to wake them up and realise that they as a collective have agency to demand change. If this is that for you then don't ignore it.

Manifesting one of those hilarious cock ups that Ederson makes every now and again

Jamie redknapp is such a ****

Tense as hell but unless you're one of about four teams in the world this is just abiut the only sensible way to play again man city. We're restricting their shooting chances for all this possession at least

How ****ing great is it that finally we have players stepping up with goals to fill the gaps when Vardy hits a dry spell

We always struggle with transitions out of defence when we don't have tielemans in a deeper role. Its hard to see where a goal is coming from when there's no creative link moving things forwards