Sam Morsy, the rainbow armband, indefensible Ipswich and how ...

Strap in, everyone, it’s time for some Utter Woke Nonsense.

You may have already seen that Ipswich captain Sam Morsy refused to wear a rainbow armband at the weekend. He was alone among the 20 Premier League captains to do during the designated week in which the Premier League supports Stonewall’s long-running Rainbow Laces campaign to promote inclusivity and tolerance and show support for ‘all LGBT people in football and beyond’.

It really isn’t much to ask, and the reasons given for Morsy’s refusal are, obviously, horsesh*t. Ipswich’s statement is horsesh*t.

‘Ipswich Town Football Club is committed to being a fully inclusive club that welcomes everyone.

‘At the same time, we respect the decision of our captain Sam Morsy, who has chosen not to wear the rainbow captain’s armband due to his religious beliefs.

‘We will continue to grow an environment where all are valued and respected, both on and off the pitch.’

Nah, lads, that’s not how this works. They’ve tried to slip it past you there, haven’t they? That actually what they’re doing is being tolerant by allowing Morsy’s beliefs as a practising Muslim to stop him making this one tiny gesture of support for an entire community that for multiple long-standing and depressing reasons can find football unwelcoming in the extreme.

And right here is where Ipswich fall foul of the old tolerance paradox. To be tolerant you must always be intolerant of intolerance.

Respecting Morsy’s conveniently strongly held beliefs in this one particular area is not tolerance. It’s the opposite. There is no justification here. We do not have to tolerate intolerance masquerading as religious conviction. Almost every religious person of every stripe picks and chooses which of their faiths apparently inalienable beliefs and tenets apply to them.

Morsy is a professional footballer in the 2020s; he’s worn plenty of gambling logos and adverts on his kit before now without having a sudden fit of religious devotion. We’d be genuinely interested in how he squares that circle in his mind.

Ipswich for their part have just very obviously and very straightforwardly got this wrong. It’s 2024. “Are we going to let the gays and theys enjoy football, do we reckon?” is no longer a question up for discussion or a matter of personal choice. You don’t get to hide behind your personal beliefs to exclude people in this way. If Morsy wouldn’t wear the armband, Ipswich should have found a new captain.

They certainly shouldn’t have defended him out of what is at best misguided and at worst disingenuous ‘tolerance’ of intolerable, exclusionary views.

Imagine being an LGBT employee at Ipswich today. From training ground to academy to boardroom to canteen. You’d be so f***ing demoralised. The club that employs you is definitely all about being inclusive and open to everyone, but yeah sure it’s okay to be just a little bit homophobic here and there if it’s not even your fault because religion.

It’s interesting, of course, that a lot of those instinctively drawn to support Morsy’s freedom to make his own choice – and what better way to show your refusal to bow down to daft cult-like groupthink than to hide that deeply personal choice behind ‘religious beliefs’ – react very differently when, say, James McClean declines to wear a poppy.

But we can’t land that gotcha without addressing the Uno reverse version. Aha, they’ll say. You can’t support players not wanting to wear the poppy and then criticise Morsy for making his own decision! We can and we will, thanks. And here’s why: it is not the same.

To use McClean’s specific example, he has clearly stated and explained truly personal reasons for not wanting to involve himself in glorification of the UK armed forces. Whether or not you agree with them, they are there in black and white. Morsy has no such basis for his stance on a rainbow armband.

But even more generally, it really should not be necessary to point out that an overtly geo-political symbol in support of one country’s armed forces and an all-encompassing symbol of support for LGBT people throughout the world really are not the same thing at all.

Being a club captain is a position of privilege and responsibility. If Morsy truly couldn’t bring himself to wear the armband then it should have gone elsewhere. That sends a far clearer message of tolerance than Ipswich’s mealy-mouthed capitulation. There was absolutely nothing to respect about his stance.

And until Morsy can explain the inconsistency with his religious beliefs being so apparently unbending here but so malleable elsewhere, it really does amount to nothing more than his own prejudice. And tolerating that leads only to more intolerance.