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Tennis superstar Roger Federer offends Pakistan
When tennis star Roger Federer, at the request of his sponsor, Nike, posed with an India cricket jersey ahead of that country's clash with hated rival Pakistan, the Pakistanis apparently took it as a snub against their entire country.
The moral of the story being, apparently, that if you're a sporting superstar and you dare to express support for one team over another, one country over another – which you would think would be your right as a sports fan and a free citizen of the planet and certainly doesn't mean you hate the opposition – you get creamed.
This long, heartfelt response in Pakistan's Express-Tribune by a clearly diehard Federer fan who has now closed the books on a longtime idol, was so over the top it was almost scary.
"I’m not upset that you chose to support India over Pakistan. I’m upset that you chose to support India over Pakistan, publicly. This made it seem like your Pakistani fans are expendable."
It doesn't, of course. It just meant that Federer's sponsor asked him to do a little promo, in the wake of a Federer trip to New Delhi to play in the International Premier Tennis League – he was a massive hit there in the exhibition team event.
Had Federer held up the Pakistani shirt, no doubt his legions of Indian fans would have been equally mortally wounded. Which begs the question: is Federer not ALLOWED to have teams he cheers for?
The backlash was so fierce, it got to the point where the tennis star even had to issue an apology on Monday.
“It was more of a Nike thing to be quite honest. It was a Nike campaign they had because I met some of the Indian players and I had just spent some time in India so they presented the shirt to me.
“I support South Africa, and everybody knows that (Federer's mother, Lynette, is South African). The idea wasn’t to spark any fire and I’m sorry if it did that.”
Federer is generally pretty good at staying out of the fire; it's the Swiss in him. He's, like, the Teflon guy, smoothly easing his way in and out of most situations without ticking too many people off – diehard Rafael Nadal fans excluded, of course.
He's not the first tennis star to get into hot water over this sort of thing – perhaps cricket and soccer bring out the worst in the fans.
All the way back in 2006, Andy Murray, who is Scottish, got in massive trouble in the U.K. in the leadup to the World Cup.
"The journalist said to me 'So Andy are you going to be supporting Scotland in the World Cup?', knowing that Scotland hadn't qualified and he started laughing.
"So he asked me who I would be supporting in the World Cup, and I said 'Anyone but England ha-ha' and all of a sudden it's the biggest story ever."
Murray got raked over the coals for this. And many STILL haven't gotten over it, nearly a decade later. Ask British sports fans who don't like Murray (and there are many) what their problem is with him, and that's the incident they always bring up – as if he'd committed treason or something.
The moral of the story, if you're a sporting superstar? Toe the politically-correct line 24/7 – or risk the wrath of an entire country.
