The Naming Rights Thread

[kmk]

The British monarchy and successive Governments haven’t had any problems making billion pound deals with the Qataris.

Qatar own huge amounts of property and companies in the UK.

 

[Amo]

The British monarchy and successive Governments haven’t had any problems making billion pound deals with the Qataris.

Qatar own huge amounts of property and companies in the UK.

Again, this is a Spurs fan forum not a UK government fan forum but let's assume we have an equal stake in both:

The British government faces public judgement and accountability on its actions. And governments everywhere have to have relations with other governments and non-state actors they may not agree with.

That's their job and burden. I can understand why the UK doesn't press the USA further on its democratic slide even if I wish it would. I can understand why it doesn't kick up more of a fuss towards the Hong Kong situation even though I know it wouldn't be wise or strategically sound to do so.

I can appreciate the geopolitical balancing act that goes into the government's Mid East calculations and relationships even though I both vehemently disagree with said strategy and also lament the role the government had in establishing/dictating the conditions within which it now operates.

There's a huge difference between private actors having relations with states and states having relations with each other.

Say the Afghan government reaches a peace deal with the Taliban in the coming months, it does not follow that we also absolve private citizens that cooperated with them for personal gain or ideogical ones (ditto IRA, FARK, PKK, et al). Legally? Maybe. But we're not debating legal constraints on Spurs sponsorship deals, are we?

Odd position to hold: "The British government has relations with almost every single state on earth and therefore no one else can be criticised for benefiting from any of those states."

Let me know if I've misinterpreted it. That's likely, too.

 

[Trix]

If you want to be an apologist for a brutal dictatorship that’s using it’s oil wealth to sportswash its atrocities

Is it though? I mean if that's their plan it's clearly a failure. It's in fact having the exact opposite affect imo. The more they seem to do through sport the more the problematic issues seem to get brought into the public eye.

 

[Stamford]

The false equivalences in here are ludicrous “Joe Lewis isn’t exactly whiter than white.”

No shit. But he’s not an actual dictator with the blood of thousands on his hands is he.

We live in the UK let's not take the moral high ground. Our history is a joke

 

[KILLA_SIN]

When, in 2221, Qatar is still grappling with the institutional racism stemming from its historical embrace of slavery two centuries prior, and when descendents of those workers grapple with systemic discrimination instead of being literal slaves that have to sleep in the hallway of their country's Doha embassy for months because they're refused exit visas by their owners and are now criminals, I'll extend the same critiques of America today towards them.

Until then, your outrageous conflation of those two things is typical of the do-gooder liberal racism those of us who aren't guilt-ridden Western white folks have to face nearly every day when our experiences of actually living under these regimes is ignored and belittled by trite comparisons with the USA of all places.

You may not realise it, but telling people the "USA is just as bad as you have it" isn't just spectacularly ignorant, it's actually cruel. Tell that to someone so desperate as to go knee-deep into debt getting to Qatar/UAE, chasing a non-existent salaried position only to be greeted with unpaid/poorly paid manual labour on billion-dollar record-breaking high-rises. Tell them America is just as bad. Tell them they shouldn't bother going there.

I can't argue against your points they are all valid but on the flip side, none of these workers that enter Qatar to get a job would ever probably be granted any means of entering the UK or US and prob not wanted here or there either. Desperate people take risks any risk to better themselves, what the alternative stay in India, Bangladesh, Pak, Sri Lanka, They are all desperate to get out.

 

[stov]

wow, what a dick.

Apparently this is offensive and I've been told off for trolling. Turning into coys isn't it.

 

[Tucker]

Is it though? I mean if that's their plan it's clearly a failure. It's in fact having the exact opposite affect imo. The more they seem to do through sport the more the problematic issues seem to get brought into the public eye.

I think on the whole the fact that they have all these interests in foreign countries, successful airlines and what have you is what gives them that slight air of respectability meaning big business and governments are more likely to deal with them. It doesn’t get past a lot of the general public, but it definitely has a benefit to them.

 

[Tucker]

We live in the UK let's not take the moral high ground. Our history is a joke

This is bonkers logic. So we shouldn’t oppose horrific human rights abuses because Britain has done some bad shit in history. Guess we wasted our time opposing the Nazis and the USSR then, should have kept out of it given what Queen Elizabeth the first did to all those Catholics. ??‍

Forgive me if I’m more concerned with people being oppressed and worked to death in Qatar in the present day than I am about what Britain did in yesteryear.

 

[KILLA_SIN]

This is bonkers logic. So we shouldn’t oppose horrific human rights abuses because Britain has done some bad shit in history. Guess we wasted our time opposing the Nazis and the USSR then, should have kept out of it given what Queen Elizabeth the first did to all those Catholics. ??‍

Forgive me if I’m more concerned with people being oppressed and worked to death in Qatar in the present day than I am about what Britain did in yesteryear.

What Britain did in yesteryear still has an impact on the countries that these people are leaving to go to places like Quatar

 

[wiggo24]

We live in the UK let's not take the moral high ground. Our history is a joke

Yes, but we're not currently killing people who are essentially slaves in order to build our stadiums are we? And women and gay people have legal rights the last time I checked.

There is a huge difference between the rights of minority groups in England and Qatar right now, stating otherwise is just ridiculous. Are we not allowed to criticise the concentration camps in China right now because our history is bad? Should we criticise the American police force for their behaviour or can we not because our history is bad?

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to have moral reservations about having a state which renders homosexuality illegal and has a male guardianship law sponsor our stadium, no matter what the UK might have done over the last few Centuries.

We can acknowledge our role in it, as @KILLA_SIN does above, whilst still maintaining the right to criticise/feel uneasy about their potential links to this club.

 

[cider spurs]

Feck me...and there was dumbass me thinking this thread was going to be about who'd maybe secure naming rights for the stadium.

Nope...My bad, it's the 'Name Calling' thread.

 

[Tucker]

What Britain did in yesteryear still has an impact on the countries that these people are leaving to go to places like Quatar

No doubt, just as any other event in history has an effect on what’s going on today, that’s literally how time and history works. But countering criticism of Qatar by saying “what about Henry the 8th, or British actions in India in the 19th century.” Is utterly ludicrous. We can’t change what has happened in history, we can change what happens now.

 

[McFlash]

Of course not but if you're gonna take a stand. Take a stand.

I don't believe that me not watching a football match is going to make the slightest difference to the Qatar regime.

 

[KILLA_SIN]

No doubt, just as any other event in history has an effect on what’s going on today, that’s literally how time and history works. But countering criticism of Qatar by saying “what about Henry the 8th, or British actions in India in the 19th century.” Is utterly ludicrous. We can’t change what has happened in history, we can change what happens now.

But unless the UK is going to offer a huge amount of Visas to give people a different opportunity with different working conditions then people are going to take whatever opportunity is available to them despite the risks. So unless there is an alternative being offered it's all a bit pointless.

 

[Stamford]

This is bonkers logic. So we shouldn’t oppose horrific human rights abuses because Britain has done some bad shit in history. Guess we wasted our time opposing the Nazis and the USSR then, should have kept out of it given what Queen Elizabeth the first did to all those Catholics. ??‍

Forgive me if I’m more concerned with people being oppressed and worked to death in Qatar in the present day than I am about what Britain did in yesteryear.

Thats quite a jump you made, well done. I said we shouldn't take the moral high ground not that it shouldn't be opposed. Britain have done far worse than Qatar and its not all in the past either. Look at their treatment of the windrush generation and how some of them have met untimely death let alone the immigration policies.

 

[Tucker]

Thats quite a jump you made, well done. I said we shouldn't take the moral high ground not that it shouldn't be opposed. Britain have done far worse than Qatar and its not all in the past either. Look at their treatment of the windrush generation and how some of them have met untimely death let alone the immigration policies.

If you know anything about my posts on this site, you’ll know I have been hugely critical of the Tories treatment of the wind rush generation, but that’s incomparable with the kind of shit that goes on in Qatar. It’s ridiculous to try and equate the two.

 

[sausage]

No doubt, just as any other event in history has an effect on what’s going on today, that’s literally how time and history works. But countering criticism of Qatar by saying “what about Henry the 8th, or British actions in India in the 19th century.” Is utterly ludicrous. We can’t change what has happened in history, we can change what happens now.

I am no global politics expert, but I'm pretty sure there's not a single country on the planet that hasn't done some questionable stuff in the past. Survival of the fittest, maybe, but appropriateness for that epoch indeed.

The issue is that 21st Century countries shouldn't be acting like 18th Century ones, and people shouldn't be almost validating them.

It's as insane as justifying hiring someone who is an outward racist today by saying that the company hired racist and homophobic people in the 50's.

 

[leelee]

I don't believe that me not watching a football match is going to make the slightest difference to the Qatar regime.

Likewise, Spurs declining Qatar Airways offer doesn't make any difference either. The club accepting a lower offer than Qatar's for naming rights is just cutting off our nose to spite our face.

If we take a 'moral' stand we lose millions in revenue while Qatar Airways go and sponsor another ground. Its business.

Doesn't really help anyone and the one who suffers most is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club because we're fighting a losing battle against clubs who have more spending power than us.

 

[KILLA_SIN]

The issue is that 21st Century countries shouldn't be acting like 18th Century ones, and people shouldn't be almost validating them.

Maybe some countries are where they are now because of those things they did a couple of hundred years ago to give them a head start.

 

[Amo]

But unless the UK is going to offer a huge amount of Visas to give people a different opportunity with different working conditions then people are going to take whatever opportunity is available to them despite the risks. So unless there is an alternative being offered it's all a bit pointless.

That's not the discussion at hand, though. I long for a borderless world but what's that got to do with what Qatar is doing.

And the point about migrant workers taking a risk by going to Qatar because they can't get get the West? Are we blaming the victims now for the miscalculated gamble or are we deflecting the blame from Qatar's actual actions to someone else's inaction?

Not sure what your intent is in highlighting what others are not doing when the discussion is on what Qatar (only discussed because they're rumoured to be sponsoring us, unlike the UK or USA or the East India Trading Company or whatever) is actually doing right now.