Yesterday the 2011 Women’s World Cup opened in Germany and the first match was between France and Nigeria, and I had a good reason to cheer for France.
For the past two years the Nigerian Football Federation has conducted a witch-hunt to kick women off the national team who were suspected of being gay. And the team’s coach just bragged to the New York Times that she has dealt with “the big problem” of lesbianism.
Of course that is outrageous, but the condemnation of Nigeria is tempered by the fact among the largest benefactors of American soccer is Phillip Anschutz who has literally spent millions fighting to restrict the rights of gays and lesbians in this country.
Nigeria lost by the way…and happily it was a bad weekend for Anschutz and his millions too.



23 Comments





Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Gracious if you were to condemn every rich RWNF that had a financial interest in entertainment or in fact every sport/movie/music event that had a RWNF backing you would be left in a dead silent room playing solitaire.
Glittered, were they? Good.
Anyone who restricts the rights of gays,lesbians or transgendered people should be barred from voting.
Please keep Senor Chavez in your thoughts.Viva Che!
Good morning, pups. Prof. Krugman is off today, so it’s just The Pasty Little Putz. In “160 Million and Counting” he gurgles about abortion and the tragedy of the world’s missing women.
Here he is.
The coffee and tea are ready, the cold drinks are in the fridge, and the biscuits are out of the oven. It sounds like I’m ready to face a new week, but I’m dragging this morning. Maybe a second cup of tea will help. Have a great day.
I’ve never been able to grasp intuitively the rules of soccer (forgot to read the manual).The constant running just tires me just watching it. So not a big fan and now since you educated me about Anschulz you’ve given me a reason to write it off altogether. Thanks. Tennis anyone?
thanks, Marion. and the Putz has done so much to advance women’s right thingees. rrrriighhhht
What’s a RWNF?
I’ve heard about those….. SOCCER Lesbians…
Right Wing Nut Fuck
I guess you didn’t know that every woman that plays sports is a lesbian and every man that plays sports is a manly man.
Nope. I’ve somehow managed to live for fifty one years without knowing that maxim. My life has been wasted!
Equestrian sports are the opposite. Must be the fancy duds.
Thanks.
Figure skating too…but then is that really a sport.
Of course, if they just wore uniforms that would be different.
Beach volleyball. Another “sport”.
And every man who dances, especially ballet, is gay, too. /s
Aye gavotte!
Anschutz is also responsible for those Foundation for a Better Life inspirational billboards. Every time I pass one, I have to fight off a desire to shoot a paintball at it.
I knew they’d killed off a lot of girl fetuses, this was mentioned in the 90′s, an abortion clinic on nearly every corner in Indian cities and sane men arguing that there wouldn’t be wives for the boys growing up then. I guess it’s happened now.
Totally crazy, unbalanced society as it is to elevate the most violent gender to supreme status. And so like the witch-burnings of the 14th to the 17th century ( 300 years!).
Many feminist scholars think that was when wimmin’s trust in each other was finally broken, under torture they accused every female they knew.
Now look at what we’ve got.
I’m so glad NYC stuck it in their faces about the Gay. But, I fear, it will take a much longer time ( which I don’t think we have) to gender equality back. The propaganda of male superiority to wimmin has been so deep that nobody even seems to notice it.
We’re moving backwards from the height of feminist awareness in the 70′s and now, wimmin are under attack everywhere again.
If Bachmann should win the presidency, I figure that it would be most likely her who would initiate the witch trials again…she’s such a dangerous person; so unnatural!
As a former coach of girls U19 and an adult women’s team in the Bay Area Women’s Soccer League, it’s depressing that the coach, and evidently, the Nigerian Football Association, have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into changing their hateful and narrow-minded view of gay players…
But if that’s the case, so be it. FIFA, the governing body for world soccer, despite their problems with top-end officials taking bribes for voting for awarding venues for tournaments, has been fairly forthright about dealing with racism in the sport. Now, it’s time for them to step up and do the same thing with this archaic and vicious mindset.
“You’ve given me a reason to write it off altogether.”
That would be sad. The sport is designed for the people (and kids) who are playing it. One of the best aspects is that once a match starts, the input of the coaches is limited. If they make pests of themselves by ranting and yelling from the sideline, the ref can deal with it, and should.
Far more than any other pasttime, soccer is the world’s sport.
Tennis suffers from the elitist aspect, and relatively few poor adults and children get into it. Soccer, on the other hand, is THE Abraham Lincoln sport: by, for, and of, the people.
I know it has an elitist rep but I learned at a public park through the Police Athletic League . My coach was an African American cop/coach who played golf with my Dad. My folks never paid a dime for my summers of fun through that league. The Williams sisters btw also learned on public courts in Compton. So quite a few folks from cities have learned the excellent game of tennis.
On the other hand, I now watch my nieces pay to play soccer through their private league.