I think Switzerland is one of the few countries we British haven’t tried to invade so far. That may or may not be correct. But either way, we’re going to have to invade it now.
Fifa has been accused of taking leave of its senses over disciplinary action against the Welsh and Northern Irish football associations after supporters wore poppies in the stands during matches two weeks ago.
Football’s governing body had already charged England and Scotland for a series of alleged offences connected to Armistice Day, including a lone bugler sounding the Last Post at Wembley Stadium and players wearing armbands embroidered with poppies.
The latest disciplinary action goes a step further, however, and threatens to impose fines.
Wales and Northern Ireland had decided that their players should not wear poppies on their shirts or armbands to ensure that they complied with Fifa regulations — instead they wore plain black armbands.
Fans, however, paid their own tributes, and a member of the armed forces held a bunch of poppies in the stadium.
Yes, fans wore poppies.
Not that we’ve got anything against the Swiss, of course not, it’s just that they’re harbouring a pestilential nest of perfidy which needs to be wiped out.
Action this day I’m afraid.
I say we dust off, and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Lausanne, I thought.
Not that it matters.
That’s so self evidently fucking bonkers that I assumed you were joking.
Big — that’s EUFA.
Nyon, in Vaud, rather than Lausanne.
Sorry autocorrect again. BIF not big.
FIFA’s is surprisingly underwhelming, basically an anonymous building in a field on top of a hill outside Zurich. You really expect the HQ of a major worldwide institution with its own president and everything to have an HQ with a sense of grandure.
P.S. The joke that got FIFA’s head of communications fired: Qu: the FIFA president, general secretary and head of communications are in a car; who is driving? Ans: The police.
On the top of a hill in a field you say. So we just a Tomahawk then? No collateral to worry about.
Ironman – “FIFA’s is surprisingly underwhelming, basically an anonymous building in a field on top of a hill outside Zurich.”
Bet their private Swiss banks are frickin’ gorgeous.
Don’t go to all that trouble, just wait at the border and we will give them to you.
The pleasure will be all ours.
Grandure. I like it.
Normally I’d go with the nuke from orbit option, but this kind of thing needs doing up close and personal, so they know what’s happening and why.
FIFA are quite happy with the “Kick racism out of football” campaign, which is hardly less political or laudable than football supporters wearing poppies.
Still, this can be sorted out by the respective FAs signing a contract with the British Legion, who would pay £1 to put the poppies on the shirts, thus becoming a sponsor and hence perfectly acceptable to FIFA.
Is grandure related to ordure, just in bigger quantities?
What Rob said. Or whatever the fine FIFA levy to the Home Countries be paid directly to the British Legion.
We invaded Afghanistan because they were harbouring people we wanted. So the justification for invading Switzerland is clear.
How about FIFexit? Then we’ll be free to play football with any country, on free and fair terms, without having to pay £squillions to those unelected bureaucrats on the continent.
Just send over a selection of ‘football fans’. They aren’t Vikings, but the effect is much the same!
United Passions deserves a sequel. Tim Roth as Sepp Blatter in… Fifa Has Fallen.
Who the hell thinks the Act of Remembrance is political?
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them” – how is that politics?
The British Legion sells poppies to fund care for disabled ex-soldiers (I’m not sure whether still restricted to war wounds or whether other disabled ex-doldiers qualify). Next thing FIFA will retrospectively ban St Peter for healing a cripple.
Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed, I am annoyed.
I thought the furore over this was completely overblown. There were poppy wreaths laid before the match, poppy sellers outside, 2 minutes of silence at the match, a giant poppy on the screen etc etc. The dead were properly remembered – don’t see why not having a bloody poppy armband meant the dead were disrespected? It all smacked a bit of virtue-signalling from the outraged talking heads.
Saying that, I’d still support the invasion of Switzerland as 1) I love Chocolate and I assume there would be a good supply in the war spoils, and 2) FIFA is a rotten organisation whose destruction would not be mourned by me.
I used to live in Zurich, not far from FIFA.
Christ is Zurich fucking boring.
Nice idea in theory – unfortunately in practice every Swiss male is armed with a military rifle, and all their bridges and tunnels are mined. Swiss military doctrine is to fuck off to the mountains and fight a guerrilla war. To win we’d need to nuke the place, and that loses us all the chocolate.
Am I the only person who thinks that its FIFA’s rules so if the FA don’t like it they should leave and start their own world football body with rules they agree with?
And I know its poppies, and its remembrance day etc etc, but its always easy to bend the rules for a popular case, the trouble comes when someone else wants something you don’t find so palatable. What happens when England play Saudi Arabia and they want to have Al Qaeda day (or some other country wanting to celebrate something we might not find acceptable)?
BraveFart
Yout weren’t that siliver haired Scots guy who came to the wedding in a kilt last year were you? Up at that barn place on the hill near FIFA’s HQ.
Are they banning national anthems, usually pretty political, the Welsh anthem translated has this as a verse
‘Though the enemy have trampled my country underfoot,
The old language of the Welsh knows no retreat,
The spirit is not hindered by the treacherous hand’
And I think we all know who it’s referring to
I can sort of see FIFA thinking they have some say over what the players wear, but under what interpretation of their remit do they think they should be controlling what the fans wear?
@BNiC
Pretty mild compared with La Marseillaise:
Let our enemies’ impure blood flood our fields
BniC – “Are they banning national anthems, usually pretty political”
Maybe they will force everyone to copy the Spanish and just hum along while pretending they don’t know the words.