Last week, Match for Hope – a charity football match featuring football legends and popular content creators – took place in Qatar. FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development and renowned former Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger returned to manage one of the teams, while Mauricio Pochettino, coach of the US Men’s National Football Team, coached the other.
Besides being broadcast online, the match was broadcast on television via (Qatari-owned) BeIN Sports to tens of millions of people around the world.
According to the organizers, its goal is to “raise funds for essential education to children and young people most in need, particularly in regions affected by conflicts, disasters, or poverty.”
Donations last year went towards quality education for disadvantaged young people across the “Middle East, Asia and Africa”. Not surprisingly, this included the non-country of “Palestine”, and did not include Israel. The event is Qatari after all.
For the same reason, I guess it is not surprising that this disturbing vision from the end of the game – featuring the commentators and a popular “content creator” called Chunkz – occurred and was shared far and wide by the Israel-haters of the world:
This kind of talk has no place in sports, let alone a charity match. But for me, what was worse than some YouTuber called Chunkz (real name Amin Mohamed) showing his true colors like this was the commentators joining in.
Expecially the female, since she is somewhat of a mainstream celebrity (the guy is just some Somali-English YouTuber).
Her name is Nella Rose, and she is a media personality, based in the UK, who started online (where she has millions of followers) but has since built a career in television. She has presented Catfish UK, as well as the red carpet event at the Brit Awards, began fronting the Channel 4 digital series Tapped Out in 2023, co-hosts the Channel 4 series Boss Pitches, appeared as a contestant on the 23rd series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! , appeared on The Pink courtroom as a judge, and co-hosted BBC Radio 1Xtra podcast Pressed before leaving for “personal reasons.”
Rose has had her fair share of controversy. In 2020, she issued an apology to her fans for “unacceptable” tweets she posted as a teenager, including posts about black girls and Somali people. And she was heavily criticized for her behavior on I’m a Celeb.
But to me, this is next level.
No doubt, her conduct was more than fine for her Qatari employers, but I wonder whether her UK television employers feel the same way. Not to mention the legendary footballers and coaches who took part, especially Arsene Wenger who is on record as opposing the politicization of sports.
