Football has become an (arguably) unpleasant showcase for all sorts of people and entities you’d rather not have dominating the so-called beautiful game.
Saudi Arabia and Newcastle are the latest to take advantage of this blazing opportunity for ‘sportswashing.’ Big brands like Nike and Adidas present an image of the game peopled by gleaming superstars whose supposed moral qualities more than match their athletic skills.
Belgium’s top league is hardly the Premiership or La Liga but the top four teams are playing off this weekend and current champions Club Brugge, in second place behind Union Saint-Gilloise, has taken to the airwaves, extolling its ‘farmers’ as the players are known (‘peasants’ to their opponents.)
Built around a game of patience.
Bob Madou, chief business officer of Club Brugges, says: “The Farmer plays a card game in his local pub. Not against someone else, but against himself. Patience. This is also how we want to kick off the Champions’ play-offs. We only look at ourselves with confidence in our own abilities.”
Agency is Belgium’s Mutant.
