More reaction to Arsenal's move to ban all national flags from their stadium

The furore over the 'Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus' flag at Arsenal's Emirates stadium has been going on for a couple of months now, not that you would know that from the BBC's pathetic news story covering this weekend's announcement by the club that all national flags and nationalists flags are to be banned from the stadium.

The piece simply trots out the official Arsenal line that "The move comes after some fans have been upset at the waving of certain countries' colours", making no mention of the fact that it is specifically the flying of the TRNC flag which has angered the Greek Cypriot community.

A few people have commented on my first post about the situation, including an Arsenal fan sad to see the day that he can no longer bring his English flag to games anymore.

By co-incidence though, yesterday I also stumbled across some much better coverage of the Cyprus issue on the BBC News site. Mark Mardell has been visiting the occupied Northern part of the island, and brings a very human perspective to the long-running and deeply divisive dispute. The comments below the article only serve to illustrate how this conflict has affected generations of Cypriots, Greeks and Turks.

Posted by Martin Belam, December 19, 2006    
Read the latest posts about: BBC, Cyprus, Football, Greece, Turkey
The views expressed on currybetdotnet are my own, and do not reflect the views of Guardian News and Media Limited, or any current or former clients or employers. Read my blogging principles
 Get free updates via RSS       Get free updates by email       Follow Martin Belam on Twitter