Woke up on a Saturday morning with my head filled with football related thoughts. Here's one more - on Arsenal's "hypocrisy" in speaking up about the SARS issue but distancing themselves from the Uyghur issue in China. A thread.

It's time we realise that football clubs are not larger-than-life moral institutions. Although not necessarily mutually exclusive, they are business institutions and therefore won't do anything that will impact the business. Speaking against China is one such act.

China is a global superpower and huge source of income for global businesses such as Arsenal. There is a reason no big club is speaking up against the Uyghur treatment right now. Respect to Özil for doing it, but he probably doesn't have much to lose from it.

But he represents Arsenal who have a lot to lose here. 1 tweet from Özil, the Arsenal vs Man City match wasn't televised in China. Arsenal were forced to distance themselves from this, sadly but understandably. The financial consequences if they didn't could've been massive.

BLM & EndSARS have become global outrages/movements. It would look bad on Arsenal if they were to not speak at all on them. Even then, in their tweet, Arsenal never spoke against the government/country. They merely expressed their condolences to the victims.

What the club is doing is frustrating, really. And morally wrong in many ways. But it's time we stop expecting football clubs to do the right thing. They would only do things that maintain the balance between keeping up their business and their image. End of thread.