Now a day, it is not unusual thing to see various countries players play football all around the world; there shouldn’t be border line. To be honest, there are a political border line still exists, especially in the field of sport.  However, football fans were shocked to hear that Arsenal’s Armenian footballer, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, refused to play his the Europe League final, since a venue was Baku, Azerbaijan. Though an organisation, the UEFA, knew that Arsenal would advance to the final, and Arsenal had a player from Armenia where the player’s mother country has been fighting against the venue of the final. It is said to be that the reason why Baku was chosen as a grand final was that the UEFA had received UNOFFICIAL financial support from Baku where the country gets its wealth from natural resources. Not only the UEFA has been criticised by football fans for its political decision, but also the FIFA has been criticised as well for choosing the location of theWorld Cup 2022 in Qatar. the king of Qatar is a huge fan of football and he had done so many financial support against big football club in Europe such as Manchester City, PSG and FC Barcelona, and the king’s main target is to attract people to visit Qatar so that Qatar can control the iron grip of Middle East.
As a football fan, it is tragic to hear that football is used as a political punchline, however, it is also true that those financially rich countries has been supporting the mega clubs to make the game more enjoyable and attractive which is what football fans require them to be and I reckon this is what fans are ambivalent about.