In 1980, the European Football Championship took place in Italy, and they used Pinocchio, the famous wooden doll, as their mascot. Pinocchio is so famous mainly because of a physical peculiarity, his nose grows as soon as he lies. And that’s the pedagogical message: if you lie, you can tell – so you’d better stop talking about it.
The fact that a major tournament for which Uefa is responsible is prominently displaying a lying nose in the shop window is an interesting move from today’s perspective. On the one hand, Uefa lets all players walk onto the pitch with a Respect badge, on the other hand, Uefa’s sponsors come from countries that have absolutely no respect for human rights. So if a Uefa person were to claim that respect was more than just a word for him, his nose would have to grow to such an enormous length that one could hang clothes hangers with all the shirts of a football team on it.
This year, the EM strategists have the mascot Skillzy Let yourself step out of the scenes, whose nose is inconspicuous, but he squints a little. Skillzy has, the name suggests, enormous skills, in modern German language these are skills, even downright competencies. Skillzy is a freestyler, a street footballer; he has nothing to do with association structures and nothing with the hoodie. Skillzy, or the person in him, can juggle the ball, much like Maradona, who loved the game. Skillzy loves the game too, and by training the ball, he’s bringing the tournament back to its only core, which is the game.
What is the next lie, you can see it at this EM, it is not about business, about assertiveness. Presumably, the mascots at these events regularly turn into jokes because everyone out there secretly senses that they really have nothing to report. Except for Pinocchio, the mascot of all mascots, who revived in 2013. The cyclists held their world championships in Florence. And the cyclists of all people, the most talented liars and deniers when it comes to doping, actually chose good old Pinocchio as the mascot for their tournament in a rare moment of self-awareness. They were once again ahead of the kickers by a wooden nose.
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