Western Celebrities Cuddle Up To The Kremlin

Hmm, I think the Chechen people need a little pleasure

First, the highly principled football player. Former Dutch great Ruud Gullit is heading for the Russian first division to coach Terek Grozny, a club whose president, by a happy coincidence, is Moscow’s Chechen henchman Ramzan Kadyrov. The unelected, authoritarian President of Chechnya has a big reputation in the Northern Caucacus, though unfortunately it’s mainly for reported human rights abuses. Under his regime, dissenters disappear, opponents are assassinated, women must wear headscarves, and houses belonging to the innocent relatives of insurgents mysteriously burn down in the night. Moscow doesn’t have a problem with this, and neither, it seems, does Gullit.

In fact, he draws an apposite parallel, likening his move to Grozny with the decision of the Dutch team to take part in the 1978 World Cup, hosted by the brutal Argentine military junta. “There was a lot of discussion in 1978, but the Netherlands went then for sport,” Gullit told the Dutch daily De Volkskrant. “This is exactly the same. You will always have people for and against. But I don't want to be involved in politics, I want to concentrate on the sport and give the people there a little pleasure in their lives again.”

How noble of Gullit to think of the pleasure that he can bring to others. Anyone being held in one of Kadyrov’s illegal prisons, where torture is allegedly routine, will look forward to their release so they can nip down to the local stadium and forget their forced confession by watching a suave former European Footballer of the Year shouting out instructions to his team.  

Second, the gnat-brained British model, Naomi Campbell, who has done investigative journalism the service of interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin for GQ magazine.

Blatter Manages To Speak Sense On Human Rights In Qatar

Blatter - has he actually started thinking?

This is going to sound like the kind of thing we’d pretend FIFA President Sepp Blatter uttered in the name of satire. But he actually said it, to CNN. Yes, Blatter managed to address the issue of human rights without shoving his toes in his own maw. On the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, he said: “If the principles of human rights will not be respected, then this could be a problem. We will push Qatar to make sure the World Cup will be played in such conditions that other World Cups have been played and that human rights are respected.”

Let’s hope he’s not talking about Argentina 78. And naturally, the Scepticism Radar at WCHR world headquarters began to howl like a distressed mongoose. Is this just placatory PR to make up for his sad remarks about homosexuals abstaining from sexual activity while at the WC, and his admission to the Zürich-based Sonntagszeitung that he hadn’t even known that homosexuality was illegal in the Gulf state? Or has Sepp been subscribing to our feed and belatedly realised that the governing body’s mission could become more noble than merely making cash from man’s ability to kick a round ball?

Quote of the Day - Russia going totalitarian

Those dictatorship days ain't over

"It's becoming clear we are on the way back to the 1940s and a totalitarian state. How can one sit and watch quietly as it happens?" Marina Rozumovskaya, a Russian school teacher, quoted in The Washington Post while demonstrating in Moscow to prove her legal right to protest, and holding a sign that read "Freedom to political prisoners". 

Rozumovskaya was taking part in one of three simultaneous protests following the arrest of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was arrested Sunday upon leaving a legal demonstration in support of the right to assemble. He was sentenced to 15 days in prison, allegedly for disobeying police officers.

The school teacher avoided arrest, but 19 fellow protestors were not so lucky. "I am not a politician, just a teacher," she added, "I want my pupils to live in a civilized country. I don't want them turning into people without honor and conscience."

World Cup nostalgists will remember that the 1978 competition in Argentina also took place in a totalitarian state. Presumably FIFA is as unruffled about that possibility in 2018 as it was for the tournament  33 years ago.