Have to laugh at the stick Lineker and Gary Neville get on social media/Twitter
- Thread starter Flood
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Chris_Boro
Well-known member
Ultimately his main job is football but I do get the problems he places himself into by going to Qatar and he never answered the questions put too him very well at all. Money?
However you can drill it down to pretty much everyone if you so wish, is everyone who watches the world cup condoning their regime or just watching a football match?
Or are any companies out there working with the Qatar authorities to showcase the world cup also condoning them whilst doing so? That would then include the BBC that pays Hislop, would that now make him a hypocrite? Probably not but will to some.
It's like how some Newcastle fans I've spoke to believed if you worked for Sports Direct then you couldn't be a Newcastle fan but now believe that being a Newcastle fan isn't condoning their new owners.
Ultimately the fault with all of this lays with one of the most corrupt organisations in the world, FIFA. Qatar should never have been in the running nevermind winning the right to host a world cup.
Back to Nevile, it now comes down to what he does say when he's out there as he's publicly stated he will use his platform to raise the issues out there while working on Qatari TV.
Alzi
Well-known member
There’s no chance Qatar will let him raise anything and I imagine part of the agreement is that he’ll promote them in a”positive light” just like Beckham.
newyddion
Well-known member
I like Gary Neville.. he raises some important points. His choice to go to Qatar tho..
The irony is that a lot of the people complaining about the Garys airing their political views (whilst simultaneously engaging with those views via boneheaded 'criticism') will be unaware that sites which amplify their chosen politics - such as the Daily Mail - will quietly censor any below-the-line leftie comments on their sites.
But actually, that is a verifiable fact. Leave voters are less educated, as numerous surveys attest
Flood
Well-known member
FIFA shouldn't have chosen Qatar, nor held the last WC in Russia - we know FIFA are a bent organisation (Platini/Blatter bribes etc). Do we boycott it as viewers? will we still watch it - of course we will.
I understand Neville wants to be a part of it, same with every other broadcaster/commentators - will the players boycott it?
Should the UK Government stop selling arms to Saudi based on their human rights abuses? Think thats more of an issue than holding a football tournament..
I understand Neville wants to be a part of it, same with every other broadcaster/commentators - will the players boycott it?
Should the UK Government stop selling arms to Saudi based on their human rights abuses? Think thats more of an issue than holding a football tournament..
The problem I have with people like Lineker and Neville is that while I agree with their messages, mostly, I don't agree with them being hypocrites. Lineker is a massive tax avoider and Neville is heading out to Qatar, all for money. Same way people like Lewis Hamilton and Prince a Harry get criticised for their preaching about climate change while being massive users of private jets.
Always seems to be "Do as I say, not as I do" which is easy to spout from a position of luxury.
Always seems to be "Do as I say, not as I do" which is easy to spout from a position of luxury.
I must admit I didn't care he did it there, not least for the fact that, sadly, he may well have been reflecting the political outlook of the guy paying his wages. As someone who found those views repellent, it just made me long for his removal as coach of my football team. Saying there is a proper time and a place to extemporise on political matters is to inadvertently fall into the same argument people are trying to refute with respect to the Garys: they should stick to football, stay in their lane. They shouldn't, and nor should Warnock have. My attitude is 'Go ahead, Neil, confirm what I thought about you, why I never liked you'.
Glover_elbow
Well-known member
I have to say I don't like lineker at all he comes across a smug self-righteous preacher. Neville I like but on this occasion he's made a massive mistake taking the dollar.
I did read the article and I found it persuasive. That said, I agree with your basic point: foundational knowledge and skills are vital to a full iteration of 'higher level' skills; hence, yes, the views of those with no understanding of economics, history etc ARE less worthy than the views of those who have that perspective.
The reason I found the article persuasive is that the 'learning through creating' model is slowly being leeched out of education (if it ever really existed) in favour of a too-prescriptive hierarchical model which prioritises lower-order skills and is content (for all but the elite) to stop right there. There is precious little freedom to explore or create in education any more.
When I was 20 and picked up a guitar for the first time. I was shown two or three chords and within a week I was writing songs. Naturally, they were terrible; however, over the next few years I added more chords, more skill and reached a point where some were pretty good. This permitted me to hang out with one or two genuine musos, which quickly put me in my place. I realised I had no idea how to change key - or even what a key was. Not being able to draw on, say, a palette of useful bridging chords, meant my transitions were often clunky; I was still essentially clutching in the dark for inspiration, and that's probably why I never made it as a songwriter. Which is right? Plenty of people have made it with my limited set of skills, but most haven't. Similarly, if I'd never just picked up the axe and had a bash but instead sat in some boring music lesson where I'd transcribed and learned musical theory, I'd probably never have even hit a chord; I'd have missed out on a helluva lot of fun.
The essential problem is one of a pervasive culture of anti-intellectualism in this country that is exploited by a cynical political class, people like Gove with his 'had enough of experts'. It was Gove who, as Education Secretary, introduced an 'updated' curriculum which made GCSEs allegedly more "rigorous", eliminating 'softer' modes of assessment such as coursework and introducing (e.g.) the teaching of 'fronted adverbials' to 9 year olds. It was also responsible for my being able to get a full-time job that involves forcing would-be hairdressers who have failed their English GCSEs to do Imaginative Writing and analyse random nineteenth century texts. The national success rate for this endeavour is around 30%, and many will take and retake four of five times and still leave without their GCSE. It is an end point of educational futility, one man's vanity project.
What education should really be about, first and foremost, is engendering (and retaining) within children a love of learning, because if this love is retained, it eventually translates into a love and appreciation for the wider culture and its heritage. You love the poem long before you learn it contains things called fronted adverbials. Without this love, this loam if you like, the wider culture remains an alien imposed thing which does not belong to you and to which you do not belong. Fundamentally, this love begins, as the article says, through exploring, creating - and also being listened to.
Moreover, it takes place within an emotional context. Far too many children arrive at school in a traumatised state - through poverty, dysfunctional family structures - whereupon school, primarily secondary school, traumatises them further! It is important to understand that the recent trend towards more discipline, more uniform, more rote learning and (basically) terror in the classroom, is the advance front in the Culture War: a direct and conscious assault on the liberal permissive culture that the Right believes was embedded by comprehensive education. Education should not be expected to solve social ills, but nor should it add to them.
The key hierarchy in education is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. To many children arrive in school with their basic survival/safety/love needs compromised. To expect 'self actualisation' in this context is absurd.
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Fair play, fella. I will be, much as I detest the authoritarian theocratic regimes of the Gulf. It's the World Cup, innit. In the realm of the petrodollar and the hypocritical co-habitations its influence engenders, the football fan's desire to watch the game's greatest tournament is not even a regrettable footnote.
What Neville and Lineker should do, rather than deny fans their always illuminating opinions on the game we all love, is donate their fees to organisations promoting gay rights in Muslim countries, reparations for migrant worker deaths etc
Jonny Ingbar
Well-known member
It's a little unfair to criticise Linekar or Neville for going to cover the WC I think, its their job and to refuse would most likely jeopardise that.
It's the media exposure that allows them to call out such issues and without their TV roles they wouldn't have that platform, so it would almost certainly counter productive.
It's the media exposure that allows them to call out such issues and without their TV roles they wouldn't have that platform, so it would almost certainly counter productive.
TeaCider
Well-known member
He's not going with the BBC, ITV or Sky.
He's going over to work for beIN Sports, Qatar's broadcaster.
He wasn't contracted to do it and fulfilling obligations, he's made the decision to go and work for their media.
Easy to have principles when you're already a multi-millionaire.
They'd have garnered a lot more respect if they'd have refused to go.
As others have said both have them are politically vocal when it suits them.
Smacks of hypocricy to me.
Jonny Ingbar
Well-known member
Didn't know that, but I think the principle still remains.