The politics of football

Football fever has gripped one and all during these weeks and, irrespective of our backgrounds, for the last few days we shall all be glued to our TV screens in the four corners of the world.

With all eyes focused on the South African World Cup, few have noticed the results of a very minor football tournament, which was held a few weeks ago or so in Gozo. The levels of footballing skills demonstrated in this tournament were nothing to write home about, but the political message forthcoming from this basically unnoticed competition should not at all be underestimated.

In fact, the name of this tournament, called the World Cup of "Peoples Without a Nation", sends out a very strong political connotation. Many of us have heard the nationalist cry of those peoples that define themselves as "Nations without a State". These are the Catalans, the Scots, the Welsh, the Corsicans, the Basques, the Galicians etc, all people who have a long tradition, with regard to a common culture, language and literature. In politics, they have united under the banner of the European Free Alliance and indeed command a certain amount of respect in the European Parliament, where they form a common political grouping with the European Green Party.

The so-called Peoples Without a Nation, is instead a very unique concept. The football tournament held in Gozo had six participants: Kurdistan, Occitania, Provence, The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Gozo and Padania. The only non-European participant, Kurdistan, is one that could really lay claim to a particular and specific identity. With a common language, literature and centuries of history - despite the diaspora - the millions of Kurds living in areas controlled by Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey do have a reasonable claim to self-determination.

Occitania and Provence also have a long history of common language, literature and culture.

The other three European participants, instead, are simply playing about with history in order to put themselves momentarily in the limelight. The "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies", made up of Sicily and Naples, did really exist in the past and lasted until the 19th century under the leadership of the Bourbon Kings.

But today there is absolutely no common link between the Sicilians and the Neapolitans who, despite having had a common past, are two different peoples living in totally different realities and speaking different dialects. If anything, the real unifying factor between them is that they both form part of the Republic of Italy and share common problems with other regions in the beleaguered south of Italy.

The real excuse for the participation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in this supposed World Cup was to show off its fake local passports and currency, the resurrected ducat!

As for the Gozitans, defining themselves as "people without a nation" is a real joke, a travesty of history. The 30,000 inhabitants of the sister island of Malta have always benefited from a certain amount of autonomy as from the Middle Ages onwards. In the course of the last century they used to elect their own Civic Council. Today, the planning of the island's policies is the responsibility of the Ministry of Gozo.

It might be true that the present Ministry of Gozo, run by Giovanna Debono, has been so intent on ensuring control on anything that goes on in the island, from the most important to the most trivial, that she is jokingly called the "Queen of Gozo". Her grip on the island's affairs seems to be so strong that an apparent attempt by Prime Minister Gonzi to assign her other ministerial duties in a recent reshuffle failed miserably.

But this is as far as it goes: The idea that the Gozitans are yearning for some sort of independence is simply fruit of a very fertile fantasy. By participating in, and hosting, the so-called World Cup of the Peoples Without a Nation, the Gozitan footballing authorities, or whoever accepted the invitation, have fallen for a political trap set by the wily Umberto Bossi, of Italian Lega Nord fame.

Indeed, this supposed football competition is nothing but a ploy concocted by this important northern Italian political party, whose statute states, at article 1, that the first objective of the party is independence from Italy and the setting up of a new state, Padania. This whole football charade is indeed financed by the Lega Nord (a very rich party, thanks also to political party funding generously forked out by Italian taxpayers!) and, of course, when the money is available, it becomes easy to attract pseudo independentists like the Gozitans or the Reign of the two Sicilies to take part.

By hosting this tournament, the Gozitans who organised it made the political statement that they want independence from Malta. Have Minister Giovanna Debono and Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said given their approval to this secessionist football tournament? Do Labour's Justyne Caruana and Anton Refalo agree with it? What was Prime Minister Gonzi's reaction?

The big joke is that Padania is also a fruit of historical manipulation. There is no unifying factor in the Veneto-Lombardy region while the number of different dialects spoken in these two regions of Italy runs into double digits. The Italian Lega Nord is supposedly working for a change in the style of Italian politics. It would seem, however, that nepotism is one of its mainstays: Umberto Bossi's 22-year-old son, Renzo, is the coach and manager of the Padania team. On the basis of what sporting merits one does not really know.

Mr Bossi's son, who failed his "A" levels ("maturità" in Italian) twice, is such a "phenomenon" that in the recent regional elections he was placed in a prominent position in his daddy's party electoral list in Lombardy and so he ended up being elected as a regional MP. To crown it all, guess who won this Peoples Without a Nations World Cup? Of course, it had to be the team led by Renzo Bossi!

The Padania team is now therefore world champion of Peoples Without a Nation. Of course, the population in so-called Padania continues to fully participate in Italian republican institutions. In the meantime, Umberto Bossi, son Renzo and bella compagnia keep on suffering for their nationless people and championing their rights... while of course enjoying the attractive political salaries paid out by their "hated" Italian dominators.

Prof. Cassola is EU and International Affairs Spokesman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.