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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Simon Tisdall

Forget Risk, play Fantasy Football for Fascists: grudge matches, foul play and violent conduct guaranteed

Illustration by Dominic McKenzie showing two footballers kicking off with a bomb with the fuse lit. One player is kicking the other and the pitch is on fire.
Illustration by Dominic McKenzie. Illustration: Dominic McKenzie/The Observer

It’s been a gloomy old year, often reflected in this space – so maybe it’s time to inject some festive cheer with an exciting new Swiftian parlour game: Fantasy Football for Fascists (FFF). Ideal for dictators, autocrats, strongmen, neo-Stalinists, far-right nationalist-populists or just students of geopolitics, it’s fanatical fun for all the family!

Under conventional fantasy football rules, imaginary teams are composed of real-life players from the Premier League. In FFF, the principal players are typically politicians and public figures who exhibit extreme totalitarian tendencies. Leading FFF teams include Donald Trump’s Mad Angry Geezers Athletic (Maga) and Vladimir Putin’s Greater Russia United (GRU). China has the Xi XI.

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