The Women’s World Cup has given us many things: athletic triumphs, inspiring underdog stories, and, if we are honest, a fair share of tedious virtue signalling. But the most genuinely edifying moment came not on the pitch but in the stands, where Japanese fans, after enjoying a match, stayed behind to clean the stadium. This spontaneous act of civic duty has, predictably, been held up as a model for the British FA to emulate.
One can almost hear the howls of outrage from the progressive commentariat: ‘Cultural appropriation!’ ‘Why should women clean up after men?’ ‘This is a slippery slope to feudalism!
’ Let us ignore the hysterics. The Japanese fans demonstrated something far more radical than any protest sign: they showed respect for a shared space, a sense of communal responsibility, and a quiet dignity that our own society has long since flushed down the drain. The Football Association, ever eager to import the worst of American corporate culture and the most vapid of woke pieties, would do well to adopt this Japanese standard.
Not because it is exotic or ‘authentic’, but because it is civilised. Our stadiums are littered with the detritus of a debased culture: fast food wrappers, plastic pint cups, and the moral equivalent of empty rhetoric from our self-appointed guardians of social justice. The FA should be urging spectators to pick up after themselves, not as a sop to some foreign tradition, but as a fundamental act of citizenship.
But of course, that would require admitting that the British public has become a slovenly, infantilised mob, incapable of basic decency without a nanny state directive. Better to invite a few Japanese influencers to tweet about it and call it a day. The protest outside the stadium, with its demands for ‘gender justice’ and ‘intersectionality’, was the usual noise.
The cleaning was the real statement. One of those rare acts that speaks volumes about a culture’s health. Our culture is sick.
The FA should take note. Clean your own mess before demanding the world change.
