Uplifting shirt-story writers
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By Ilkka Karisto
The crisis in Gaza has also shown up at football’s Africa Cup of Nations, the finals of which are currently being played in Ghana.
Just over a week ago, Egypt’s midfielder substitute Mohamed Aboutrika celebrated his two goals against Sudan by pulling his shirt up over his head to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the message “Sympathize With Gaza”.
This was not the first time, nor surely the last occasion when a footballer makes politics with his T-shirt after wheeling away when scoring a goal.
The most famous such incident is probably that by Robbie Fowler in a European Cup Winners’ Cup match in 1997.
The then Liverpool striker and Anfield icon displayed an undershirt bearing a message of support for 500 sacked Merseyside dockworkers.
Fowler was fined 2,000 Swiss francs for his antics by UEFA, while Aboutrika escaped with a yellow card from the referee and a stiff talking-to.
The Finnish national team will be starting out in September on another qualifying campaign in search of championship glory, under their new coach Stuart Baxter. Will we see shirt politics from the goalscorers?
Might Alexei Eremenko Jr. take a shirtly stand on the collective bargaining agreements or the crisis over the chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party?
Not very likely.
However, Sami Hyypiä, the stalwart Liverpool central defender, whose birthplace is in the Kymi Valley, might come out and demand the re-opening of the Voikkaa paper mill shut down by UPM, and ex-Kosovar Shefki Kuqi could conceivably call with his undershirt for an independent Kosovo - the personal is, of course, also political.
Such appeals could also be injected with a healthy dose of self-irony.
The team’s injury-prone captain Jari Litmanen, for instance, could sport a “Fair P(l)ay on Disability Pensions!” motif, while the T-shirt slogan of Mika Väyrynen, who has of late been warming the bench for his team PSV Eindhoven, could be the pithy one-worder “Work!”
Naturally the small worry in all this, especially for those who recall Finland’s five 0-0 draws in the recent Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, is that in order to do the shirt-removing stuff, someone first has to score a goal.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.2.2008
ILKKA KARISTO / Helsingin Sanomat
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| 5.2.2008 - THIS WEEK |
 Uplifting shirt-story writers |
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