Ever since he sensationally blasted LeBron James for his political stances, Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been getting it handed to him.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic rocked the sporting world when he seemed to support an extremely controversial notion: sportspersons should stick to sports. He made the following statement:
“[LeBron] is phenomenal at what he’s doing, but I don’t like when people have some kind of status, they go and do politics at the same time,” Ibrahimovic said. “Do what you’re good at. Do the category you do. I play football because I’m the best at playing football.
“I don’t do politics. If I would be a political politician, I would do politics. That is the first mistake people do when they become famous and they become in a certain status. Stay out of it. Just do what you do best because it doesn’t look good.”
This came in for universal criticism in the sports world. Despite all of the flak he got, however, Zlatan refused to back down. He made this statement to back his previous one up:
“Athletes unite the world, politics divide it. Our role is to unite the world by doing what we do best. Athletes should be athletes and politicians should do politics.”
Perhaps he believes that issues like systemic racism and discrimination are not political. But in the unfortunate picture that world politics presently is in, that is no longer factual. Everything is political.
LeBron James claps back at Zlatan Ibrahimovic with a tweet about Kelly Loeffler
Kelly Loeffler, who just lost her bid for Georgia’s Senate seat, has recently been forced out of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. James posted a link about the same with the caption ‘Stick to sports’.
It is obvious that James is still smarting about Zlatan’s comments regarding sportspersons and politics. And he has every reason to be. Asking an African-American not to speak up on the injustices his own community faces is not a smart move.
