In 2009, Daily Mail was on a mission: to put people in two categories.
Category one included people who wore poppies, and category two had people who didn’t.
And the latter category was deemed nothing but despicable.
Soon enough, their efforts reached the world of football.
But to their utter dismay, five teams decided not to get their kids embroidered with a poppy for games till Remembrance Day.
And those clubs included two giants: Liverpool and Manchester United.
Manchester United, in particular, was quite vocal about the issue.
A team spokesperson expressed that the team already did enough to respect the poppy by working with charities related to the Armed Forces.
Also, poppies were sold during games anyway.
So Manchester United didn’t want to stretch itself just to get on a bandwagon.
The Daily Mail tried to do the equivalent of some folks having a row about how some footballers didn’t sing the national anthem with enough enthusiasm.
As if symbols are all that matter when it comes to being a patriot.
And it’s worth mentioning that the poppy stands for freedom.
Freedom was why the British military fought so bravely in the two World Wars.
And that same freedom was pinching Daily Mail for some odd reason.
Setting a tradition is all fine and well.
But respecting people’s decision not to follow those traditions is equally important.
Instead of genuinely focusing on honouring the armed forces, which the poppy symbolises, Daily Mail decided to spend show after show and news article after news article trying to force people to wear the poppy.
They could have done something special to celebrate the military’s efforts with that same energy.
And now, for the worst part.
All this while Daily Mail hadn’t displayed the poppy in their own logo while other newspapers had.
So Daily Mail, the next time you take such a firm stance on an issue, make sure you’re not acting like a complete hypocrite while doing so!
