Presence of Belarus in international football is validation for a pariah state
Northern Ireland’s tie with eastern European nation can be viewed as a win for president Alexander Lukashenko
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 nobody 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.
