“Food comes before morals”

Home game – The football talk

“Heimspiel” provides points of view and arguments and explores the most important topics of football from a Swiss perspective: controversial, committed, humorous. Every Thursday on blue Zoom on free TV from 9 p.m. Or here as a podcast.

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Sports stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer are reluctant to make statements about the war in Ukraine and have therefore been criticized in some places. Are they justified in being expected to fly the flag publicly?

Beni Thurnheer thinks so. As a superstar, you enjoy so many privileges that “showing humanity” is part of the overall package. He doesn’t expect the stars to go ahead and trigger big actions. «But they take a stand on all sports shoes, holiday destinations, energy bars and so on. Then they have to take a stand on what’s happening in the world.” It doesn’t suit him that they would hold back as soon as they feared financial damage. Elsewhere Thurnheer says appropriately: “Eating comes before morality.”

With reference to Thurnheer’s statements, sports marketing expert Hans-Willy Brockes protects Roger Federer and Co. “I would never condemn it if an athlete doesn’t now ‘confess his colour’ and doesn’t sit on the train of symbols, but weighs it up sensibly.”