Culture

In a Word . . . Frost

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Jul 17 2021 - 00:00

The Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) has expressed astonishment at recent correspondence from Britain's Lord Frost rejecting the result of the Euro2020 final last month and insisting on a replay.

He also said that England's Football Association (FA) is to withdraw from Uefa as it wishes to negotiate its own relationship with football associations around the world and not be bound by Uefa rules. It believes this will also mean significant savings which can help with funding the National Health Service.

David George Hamilton Frost, chief Brexit negotiator for the Boris Johnson Government and created a life peer last September, has been called in by the FA to lead its breakaway from Uefa and arrange a replay of the Euro2020 final which England lost to Italy in a penalty shootout.

In his letter to Uefa, Lord Frost pointed out that the England team which met Italy was “not representative of our green and pleasant land” but “included the sons of ‘black African piccaninnies with watermelon smiles and Muslim mothers who go around looking like letter boxes’, as our prime minister once described these people. They are also given to gesture politics, such as taking the knee.

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“Further, four of the current England side are of Irish background, with some having played underage for that country which has never been other than a source of deep and ongoing distress to England for over 800 years.”

He said: “We believe we should be allowed field a team of proper Englishmen for a real Euro 2020 final and not as happened in Wembley on July 11th.”

The situation “is now urgent”, he said. “The FA and Uefa have a huge, and very direct, interest in finding solutions here. But we need constructive and ambitious discussions with Uefa which deal with the actual reality. To simply say ‘the result of the final must stand’ is to take a theological approach that is frozen in time and does not deal with the reality that now exists,” he said.

“We look to find solutions. If that is not possible, we will of course have to consider all our options,” he said.

That, he insisted, was “not idle talk. An Englishman’s word is his bond and is never given lightly.”

Frost, from Old English forst, frost for "a freezing, frozen precipitation", (derived from Old High German).

inaword@irishtimes.com

Football AssociationUnion Of European Football AssociationsBoris JohnsonDavid George HamiltonLord Frost