Big Pharaoh has posted some of the Arab reactions to Paintsil’s Israeli flag waving. Needless to say, many Arabs are not happy about it.
“I ask every Arab and Muslim who has zeal for his religion to boycott all kinds of Ghanaian products even if they were necessary for the daily life” (Big Pharaoh: ummm, can you name me 1 Ghanaian product??)
The backlash has been so intense that the Ghanaian Football Association has issued an apology.
The Ghanaian Football Association apologised on Monday after one of its players waved an Israeli flag to celebrate their 2-0 World Cup win against the Czech Republic.Team spokesman Randy Abbey said it was important to point out that the Ghanaian FA was not trying to take sides in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.Defender John Paintsil was very popular in Israel where he plays for Hapoel Tel Aviv and had wanted to acknowledge the Israeli fans who had travelled to Germany to support him, Abbey said.“He is obviously unaware of the implications of what he did. He’s unaware of international politics. We apologise to anybody who was offended and we promise that it will never happen again.“He did not act out of malice for the Arab people or in support of Israel. He was naive… we don’t need to punish him.”—-“We are not in support or against Israel or the Arab nations. We are here to do football, we are not here to do politics.”
Meanwhile, here is an interesting glimpse into Ghanaian opinion on the matter.
