Football is not for everyone. We do not all get an equal share of the game: some fans more than others. The red taping of the sport comes in many forms. Calling the game “soccer” makes one a second-class citizen. The soul of a season ticket holder is fundamentally purer than that of a fan who wakes up at 4:30 in the morning to watch the same match thousands of miles away.
We disagree with those statements. Or, at least, I hope we would. We pay lip service to the ideal of “football for everyone,” but do we practice that? If we did, an article from the Premier League entitled “Football is a game for everyone” wouldn’t be necessary. If we truly believed football is for everyone, UEFA wouldn’t feel the need to push an #EqualGame initiative. We feel the need to highlight these causes because there is an unspoken hierarchy at play.
Sometimes, however, it is spoken aloud. Last February, Franck Leboeuf and Christophe Dugarry spoke about Marcelo Bielsa during an episode of Dugarry’s radio show. The two former French internationals are not fans of the Argentine tactician, and flagged Bielsa’s non-observance of social niceties during his time as manager of Marseille. Dugarry wondered if Bielsa’s actions were “a bit autistic.”
What did Dugarry mean by that? One explanation is that he made the statement in earnest, seeking to understand one of football’s most enigmatic characters. Based on the context of the conversation though, it is more likely he was using autism as a shorthand to describe odd, un-social behaviour. Which is, simply put, unkind. Dugarry’s careless comment barely elicited a reaction though. Leeds fans seemed to be the only folks in the English speaking world to pick up on it. Indeed, I heard about it from Jon Mackenzie, a Leeds supporter and Bielsa biographer, in his newsletter (which you should subscribe to, by the way).