If you’re a government official seeking to police the political opinions of others, you should lose your job, just as this Argentine minister lost his after attempting to speech police the Argentine national soccer team:
Julio Garro — Argentina’s former undersecretary of sport — lost his job on Thursday after he publicly called for Messi to apologize after the Argentinian national team sang a racially insensitive song after winning the Copa America.
Following a 1-0 win over Colombia in the final, midfielder Enzo Fernandez livestreamed himself and teammates singing the song, which makes fun of Black players on the French national team.
Listen, spread the word / They play in France, but they’re all from Angola / How lovely, they will run / They are trans lovers like that f*ck Mbappe / Your mom is Nigerian, your dad is Cameroonian / But on your ID, it says French nationality.
Garro said that by chanting the derogatory lyrics, the team put Argentina in a bad light. Fernandez has already apologized publicly for sharing the footage via social media, but Messi hasn’t addressed it.
“I think the captain of the national team and the AFA president should come out and apologize for this case,” Garro told Argentinian radio Urbano Play. “It is fitting. It leaves us in a bad light with so much glory.”
Argentina president Javier Milei has since issued a statement via social media and confirmed that Garro is no longer in the position. “The president’s office reports that no government can tell what to comment, what to think or what to do to the Argentina national team, world champion and two-time American champion, or to any other citizen,” it read. “For this reason, Julio Garro ceases to be undersecretary of sports of the nation.”
I’m not a fan of free speech. But I’m even less a fan of subjective and ex post facto public thought policing on the basis of Clown World values. Milei did well to immediately can the guy.
Also, the Argentine players are entirely correct. Far too many players on the European “national” teams are foreign nationals. They are called “national” teams, not “paper citizenship” or even “legal resident” teams, after all.