Belarus are in Belfast to play Northern Ireland on Friday night. Should we be ok with that?

Presence of Belarus in international football is validation for a pariah state and waving through their presence on the international stage entails tacit endorsement of manifold horrors

MESSAGE: Legia fans present a banner aimed at Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko during last week's Conference League game against Dinamo Minsk in Warsaw. Pic: Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto

THE banner in Legia Warsaw’s near-empty away section said more than any action on a football pitch could. Down below, Dinamo Minsk were falling to a 4-0 defeat against the home side in last week’s Conference League fixture but no one really cared. “Voices silenced but must not be forgotten,” it read, the slogan continuing beneath an image of Belarus repurposed to depict hands grasping at prison cell bars. “Free all the political prisoners.” 

Afterwards, token attempts by exiled Belarusian media to engage Dinamo’s players in non-football conversation were stonewalled. The stakes were too high, the potential for retribution too great; everyone knew that really. Back across the border the away side went: another empty sham of a sporting institution representing little beyond the government of a pariah state.