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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparky-moon on 2026-02-04 17:32:25+00:00.
Original Title: [Nick Miller] There’s an instinct to accuse Pep Guardiola of double standards when he talks about Gaza, Sudan or anything else, because of who he works for. It’s understandable, but at least he’s speaking out about something.
Guardiola is such an intense, obsessive man that it’s sometimes easy to think of him being hyper-focused on football, only vaguely aware of the outside world. So it’s always interesting when he reminds us, semi-regularly, that he isn’t.
Maybe it’s unfair to criticise those managers who don’t speak on other things: lord knows, you can’t excessively blame someone for seeking a quiet life, and it doesn’t help to harangue people for not speaking about topics they’re not well versed enough in.
Guardiola should be lauded for speaking up, but there is a spectre hanging over this, and something that is inevitably brought up whenever he says anything of this nature. Ultimately, Guardiola works for Abu Dhabi. You’ll either know all about this already, or you can do your own research, but for the sake of brevity, we can just say here that it’s a state whose Amnesty International page makes for pretty spicy reading.
It’s undoubtedly not great that Guardiola, a man with a moral compass, has been happy to work for his Abu Dhabi bosses for almost a decade. His position has been basically ironclad for most of that time, so he is in a strong position to speak up against the dictatorship of his ultimate employers.
His answers on this topic in the past have been unsatisfactory, to say the least. In 2018, after he was fined by the Football Association for wearing a yellow ribbon in support of Catalan independence, he was asked by the journalist Rob Harris about the conditions and lack of democracy in Abu Dhabi. “Every country decides the way they want to live for themselves,” he replied.
Does it represent moral cowardice, or unpleasant inconsistency, to speak mainly about things that aren’t likely to present any tangible consequences for him? Maybe. Probably. But there’s inconsistency everywhere. Most people are inconsistent. Most people have probably had moments of moral cowardice. Should that preclude us from talking about moral issues? I would say no.
It would be better, preferable, great even, if Guardiola did speak out against Abu Dhabi. But he’s speaking about something. He’s speaking about Palestine, about Sudan, about ICE, and for someone in his position to do that is welcome. The rest doesn’t negate that.