When football and politics intersect, we often get chucked back into a moral maze. And how we come out of it often depends on our perceptions and biases.
Consider events last week, when Serbia lost to Spain in a friendly.
When Sinisa Mihajlovic, the Serbia coach, discovered that Adem Ljajic, the Fiorentina midfielder, did not sing the national anthem before the match, he dropped him from the squad.
One of the first things Mihajlovic did when he was appointed last month was to write up a “contract” for the national team players. Among the requirements was singing the national anthem. “I told them to read the contract and to sign it if they agreed,” he said. “If they didn’t agree, they could pack their bags and leave. They all signed it. [Not abiding by the contract] is something I cannot and will not tolerate.”
Ljajic said he had “personal reasons” for not singing the anthem and that he had no plans to change his mind. He did not elaborate, though many soon did on his behalf.
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Ljajic is a Muslim from the Sandzak region of Serbia, an ethnically mixed area straddling the border with Montenegro. Given the recent bloody break-up of the former Yugoslavia, one could see how he might not want to sing the anthem, Boze Pravde, which contains a line asking God to “protect and cherish” the “Serbian race”.
Was Mihajlovic, so often depicted as a cartoonish villain for his relationship with the Serbian nationalist Arkan and for some indiscretions as a player, clearly trying to indoctrinate the 20-year-old Ljajic into nasty ultra-nationalism, forcing him to trample all over his Muslim roots along the way? Serbian fascism at its worst. Or was it?
By the end of last week, even as Ljajic was keeping mum, his father, Sahmir, apologised for his son’s gesture, adding that he did not sing simply “because he did not know the lyrics”.
Others pointed out that Ljajic can be lazy, self-centred and disrespectful. Maybe he just could not be bothered to sing. After all, this was the same Ljajic who, two months ago, when playing for Fiorentina, wound up Delio Rossi, the Fiorentina coach, so much that Rossi physically attacked him.
And, of course, this is the same Ljajic whom Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, declined to sign — possibly because of his temperament — in 2009, after tracking him for several years.
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So maybe it was nothing more than an undisciplined young hothead disrespecting his coach and his team-mates?
The truth, possibly, is somewhere in between. But it does raise the question of whether a coach has a right to demand that his players sing the anthem. And if you accept that singing the anthem is not a political statement but merely an exercise in team-building, then the answer is “yes”. And if you regard singing the anthem as a political statement, then surely the very fact of playing for a national team — including wearing their colours and parading under their flag — is equally political in nature.
If you have a problem with it, you don’t play, or you play for another country. (Incidentally, in Ljajic’s case, his father insists that his son is a “patriotic Serb” and reminded the media that he turned down the opportunity to play for other former Yugoslav republics.) Of course, just because a coach has a right to demand something does not mean it is the right thing to do. Roy Hodgson could demand that his players march out on the pitch wearing Mickey Mouse ears, but it would probably be counterproductive.
Ultimately, a national team coach’s first duty is to his employer and, by extension, to the fans. He is not there to teach moral, ethical or patriotic lessons.
The funny thing is, of course, that because most anthems were written years ago, they tend to be products of a different, more violent time. And sometimes the worthwhile lesson is that you can embrace your nation without embracing the lyrics of a song that might be imperialist, bloody or simply foolish.
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In August 2010, Laurent Blanc, the newly invested France coach, distributed the lyrics of La Marseillaise to his players and told them to sing it loudly before each match. Of course, because Blanc is a “good guy” and not a Mihajlovic-type hate figure, few batted an eyelid. One of the dissenting voices, however, was that of Michel Platini, now the Uefa president, but once both player and coach of the France national side. He said that he would not have complied with Blanc’s request.
“I love France as much as anyone, but I’ve never sung La Marseillaise,” he told the French magazine So Foot. “It’s a warrior song and it has nothing to do with the game of football. Our adversaries aren’t coming to slit the throats of our women and our children . . . they just want to win the ball.”
The bottom line? It does not really matter whether Ljajic’s reasons were noble or spurious. The point is he agreed to do something and he did not follow through.
As for whether what he was asked to do was worthwhile or not, that is not the point: we are asked to do stupid things every single day. That’s life.