I don’t remember Real Madrid’s UEFA Champions League group game against BATE Borisov in September 2008. Looking it up, BATE had a man sent off just after the hour and Madrid won 2-0. So far, so unremarkable.
But apparently that was a game so offensive to the sensibilities that, nearly eight years later, it’s being held up as an example of all that’s wrong with the Champions League. Never again, the grandees say, can Real be expected to play against a team as loathsomely irrelevant and as lacking in global fanbase as BATE.
Perhaps they chose that game because they figure they’re not going to face much of a backlash from the Belarusian football lobby.