The Diversity World Cup (and what it means for nations)

[00:00:00]So, the World Cup has kicked off, and there's been quite a change in football teams over the years. It's almost as if they're being produced by Netflix because all the white characters are being replaced. So, this is the England team in 1996.

[00:00:13]Look at that.

[00:00:15]That's the England I remember. And this is the England team in 2026. It looks like the cover of a university prospectus. It's much more diverse, which By which I mean there's hardly any white people, which I think is great, obviously, because diversity is a strength, but that's quite a change in just 30 years. I mean, to go from this to this in 30 years.

[00:00:37]It's lucky that replacement theory, the idea that migrants are replacing Britain's population, is a conspiracy theory because looking at the changes in these photos, I'd think that maybe there has been a replacement. Maybe there maybe there has been quite a rapid increase in the number of migrants in those few decades. You don't look at me.

[00:00:53]I don't push conspiracy theories. I I believe everything that BBC Verify tells me. This is like watching Brideshead Revisited and then watching Bridgerton.

[00:01:01]But it got me thinking, which football teams most closely match the racial profile of their country?

[00:01:07]And is football in danger of becoming like the Olympics, where we just find out which country has got the best Africans? Unless it's a sport like yachting or that one where the horse goes on tippy-toe because it thinks it's better than all the other horses. Cuz in those sports, the person is essentially ballast.

[00:01:24]Anyway, let's look at the teams in the World Cup. Here's the Japanese team, and they look reassuringly Japanese.

[00:01:30]Japanese fans have also been praised for cleaning up the stadium at the end of the matches. Japan's an incredibly pleasant, high-trust society where people do things like that. I don't know how they manage it, really, without being strengthened by diversity, but somehow they do. Imagine how much better Japan will be when they fill themselves with men from the Horn of Africa. Here's the Uzbekistan team, and yep, they all look like they're from the Mongolian plains to me, but then what did you Uzbek them to look like? There's a little bit of Chinese, a little bit of step Asian, a little bit of Russian. Yep.

[00:02:03]That checks out.

[00:02:05]Here's France. Yeah, France has been pretty enriched. You know what's weird about this? There's so many North Africans in France and I can't see any North African faces in that lineup, you know, Algerians, Moroccans. And there's one white guy, one white guy.

[00:02:18]One original Pascal who looks like the French people in my school book.

[00:02:23]Où est la bibliothèque?

[00:02:26]He's the only one who's going to be ask ask ask him that. Here's Qatar. This is an interesting mix. I'm sensing they might have used some money to build this team because they got loads of money.

[00:02:36]They don't spend it all on pushing radical Islamism in London.

[00:02:40]I think they spent some money getting players from other countries.

[00:02:42]Interestingly, there is one white guy there at the back.

[00:02:46]Just that one white guy. Like that random white guy who ran away and joined ISIS.

[00:02:50]Here's Spain. They're an interesting looking bunch. This is the first lineup I've seen that it doesn't look like a football team, but looks like the lineup for an open mic night, an open mic comedy night. This looks like the poster for a bad comedy night run downstairs in a restaurant in Kentish Town.

[00:03:05]Look at that one here.

[00:03:08]That one there. Can we zoom in on that one?

[00:03:12]Genuinely looks like looks like a kind of looks like a drag queen that hasn't put his wig on.

[00:03:18]RuPaul. Here is the Democratic Republic of the Congo and their football team. I hope they're sponsored by UmBongo.

[00:03:25]Wouldn't that be amazing? What a great advert that would be if they got that out of the hydration break or whatever they call it. Interestingly, some of these people don't look like they're from the Congo. Some of these people look a bit lighter.

[00:03:36]Some of them do like they look like they're from the Congo. The Congo is the first place I've seen that's black and is getting diversity brought to it by in the form of lighter colored people.

[00:03:47]Might happen to us one day.

[00:03:48]And here's Portugal. I thought the Portuguese team might be a bit more diversified than this because I think a lot of people from South America can move to Portugal. Look at this guy's hair. Look how thick and lustrous that hair is. It's like a hat. But would that not slow you down on the pitch? It doesn't look very aerodynamic. You'd get out of breath dragging that thing around on your head. Beautiful bonnet. Bonnet doesn't need to go to Turkey. Doesn't need to Although sometimes people grow hair like that to hide their male pattern baldness. If that guy does need to go to Turkey, tell him to get in touch with me. I've got a code.

[00:04:20]Here's Haiti. And yeah, they look pretty Haitian.

[00:04:23]Uh they're Caribbean black guys with a maybe a bit of French and Spanish influence. Is that what happens in Haiti? I wouldn't expect them to have many white guys cuz uh I think they slaughtered and expelled all the actual white guys, the Europeans. And then Haiti discovered that sometimes you need a few Europeans to do some of the fiddly things like run a functioning country.

[00:04:41]Scotland beat them, by the way. Maybe there could be some sort of exchange set up where food from obese Scottish people get sent to starving people in Haiti.

[00:04:48]And they don't need to eat those uh those mud biscuits.

[00:04:51]Here's the Jordanian team.

[00:04:53]And yeah, they look Jordanian. Every single one of them looks like they might call you my friend or bossman.

[00:04:58]I'm pretty sure that one cut my hair yesterday.

[00:05:01]I don't even know any national stereotypes about Jordan except the country was nearly destroyed when it accepted Palestinian refugees. Here's the Australian team. Only one mullet though.

[00:05:12]Only one mullet there at the back.

[00:05:14]Unless some of them are hiding their mullets.

[00:05:16]Uh sorry, guys.

[00:05:19]Must try harder.

[00:05:20]Only one mullet and no Aborigines. It's not good enough. Although they do call themselves the Socceroos, which is very Australian. That's like the the Scottish football team calling them the calling themselves the McSocceroos.

[00:05:32]There's only one black guy.

[00:05:34]There's only one black guy. It's like watching a an action movie from the 1980s. He's probably going to get picked off by a sliding tackle in the first 30 minutes of the match and leave Sylvester Stallone to go on and defeat the boss.

[00:05:45]No, you leave me here, man. You go on.

[00:05:48]You go on. You have watched all of them.

[00:05:50]Uh here is the Here's the Norwegian team, and they have dressed up like Vikings. Although, I think they're a couple of decades too late for this. Top flight footballers used to have a reputation for being a bit a bit Viking, a bit pillagy a while back, and now they all seem to be very sensible. Good for them.

[00:06:07]And look at the Scotland team.

[00:06:09]I'm going to have to dock them a point for not having any gingers, unless one of them's ginger and has dyed his hair brown, which would make him trans-ginger. But apart from that, they largely look like the sort of men you would see if you tried to invade Scotland in the 15th century. I'm surprised Humza Yousaf hasn't come out and criticized Scotland's football team for being too white.

[00:06:28]>> Our Justice Clark, white. Every High Court judge, white. The Lord Advocate, white. The Solicitor General, white. The Chief Constable, white. Every Deputy Chief Constable, white. Every Assistant Chief Constable, white. The head of the Law Society, white. The head of the Faculty of Advocates, white. Every prison governor, white. And not just justice, the Chief Medical Officer, white. The Chief Nursing Officer, white.

[00:06:56]The Chief Veterinary Officer, white. The Chief Social Work Advisor, white. Almost every trade union in this country headed by people who are white. In the Scottish Government, every Director General >> the Scotland team >> white.

[00:07:09]>> The diversifying of national football teams is going to continue. Look at this graph that shows the increase in foreign-born players in World Cup teams.

[00:07:17]And obviously, that's on top of second and third and fourth generation migrants. So, 96% of Curaçao's players were born abroad, as were 85% of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's. Oh, that's why they've got so many lighter guys. And 73% of Morocco's. I think this is because Morocco is recruiting football players from Europe to play in its national team.

[00:07:39]The Algerians.

[00:07:40]Uh Uh, not Algerians, sorry, the Moroccans. The uh what what do they call them in France? Um, they've they've got a phrase for them. I can't remember what it is. And you might think it's silly for me to be talking about the race of each national team.

[00:07:51]But people on the left talk about the race of the national team all the time.

[00:07:54]They use it to justify mass immigration.

[00:07:56]It's their favorite advert for multiculturalism. 11 men on a pitch used to silence millions of people off the pitch. And it exposes the nonsense of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I actually asked a left-wing mate, I was kind of half joking, why there aren't strict diversity quotas in place to ensure that all ethnicities are represented on football teams. And he said, "Well, that's stupid because then you wouldn't have the best footballers."

[00:08:20]So, what what do you think is happening in other areas of life? In other industries, in business, when you have strict diversity quotas, you're not hiring according to merit. You don't have the best people cuz you're fitting some sort of diversity quota. Honestly, corporate boards have to have a certain number of women and transgenders and fat black lesbians and whatever it is and ethnic diversity. So, maybe we should have laws in place ensuring that each football team has enough ultra-Orthodox Jews and fat Papua New Guinean guys on each team. It would make the teams more diverse, which would make them stronger, apparently. But national teams are becoming less national and more like globalized club teams. The emotional point of international football is that it is meant to be a country versus country, not passport por- portfolio versus passport portfolio. When squads rely heavily on foreign-born or recently naturalized players, the symbolic link between team and nation becomes thinner.

[00:09:14]The modern establishment treats a passport as the whole story. Oh, you've got a bit of paper that says you're British. But nationhood is more than just a bit of paper. It involves ancestry, culture, language, upbringing, memory, and shared inheritance. And I think that stuff can matter. Argentina's winning team in 2022 was entirely Argentinian-born.

[00:09:35]Let's hope Scotland go all the way this year.

[00:09:39]Before I go, let's let's have a look.

[00:09:40]We've got some >> [laughter] >> France is my least favorite African country. Very funny. Nonstick Nick says, I read that as Dr. Congo.

[00:09:48]It sounds like a sitcom where an African witch doctor finds himself employed by the NHS as a GP.

[00:09:54]>> [laughter] >> Which is just the average NHS GP these days.

[00:09:59]Sue says, my great great granddad was given the equivalent of a knighthood by the first black ruler ruler of Haiti. I did a video about Haiti way back in and the stuff I can't remember what the guy's name was.

[00:10:11]But they were brutal, man. They just wanted ethnic slaughter of all the all the the French and the the Europeans in Haiti. And I think Haiti still got laws.

[00:10:19]It's one of the few countries that's got like, you know, race laws in its book that say white people are banned from the country. Liberia is the other country that's like that.

[00:10:28]I don't think Britain's due to get there until round about 2030.

[00:10:34]The Scottish goalkeeper is the oldest player in this World Cup, 43. That's mad. I remember footballers used to retire at like age 27. They'd get an injury or whatever.

[00:10:43]They'd have a drink problem. And now you've got a Scottish guy. I mean, 43's pretty good going for Scotland anyway. I think I think if you get to 45 in Scotland, you get you get a you get a postcard you get a telegram from the Queen.

[00:10:56]I say the Queen, it's Susan Boyle. But it's the same thing in Scotland. Anyway, thanks for listening. If you want to see more stuff like this and stand-up sets, then like and subscribe. And if you want to see me perform stand-up live, I'm doing a UK tour. If you want to see if I'm performing near you, there's a link to tickets below. And if you want to support me making these videos, you can join a growing community of legends on my Patreon and get exclusive content, stand-up sets, live streams, all kinds of nonsense from as little as £3 a month.

[00:11:25]>> [music]