The lesson from football is simple but powerful. A serious people must be willing to say, even when it hurts: the rule is the rule. If it is wrong for them, it is wrong for us. If justice is to mean anything, it must be impartial. That is fair play. That is institutional integrity.
By Carl Sanders, Guest Writer Independentist News | Soho, London
Mexico city – 9 July 2026 – Football is often treated as entertainment, but at its best it reveals something deeper about society: how people respond when truth goes against their own side.
During the recent England vs. Mexico match, three former England players — Wayne Rooney, Alan Shearer, and Joe Hart — offered a lesson far beyond sport. In analyzing three major refereeing decisions, including the two penalties and the red card shown to Jarell Quansah, they did not hide behind patriotism. They did not defend England simply because England was their team. They did not excuse Harry Kane where the rules did not support him, nor did they invent protection for Quansah’s costly error. Instead, they judged the incidents by the standard of the game. That matters.
Their analysis reflected a culture of fair play in which loyalty to truth is stronger than loyalty to convenience. They understood that rules mean very little if they apply only when they favor us. If a decision would be accepted when made against another player, then it must also be accepted when made against one’s own. That is the essence of institutional fairness: the same standard must apply to everyone. This is where football becomes a mirror of governance.
A society cannot build trusted institutions if every rule is interpreted according to tribe, party, language, region, family, office, or political advantage. Justice cannot survive where people defend wrongdoing because it belongs to “our side.” Public trust cannot grow where facts are twisted to protect power. And no Republic can mature if loyalty to authority is treated as more important than loyalty to truth.
The best traditions of constitutional government are built on this simple principle: rules must stand above personal preference. Law must stand above power. Facts must stand above propaganda. Institutions must serve truth, not bend themselves around convenience. This is the culture Ambazonians are fighting to restore.
Southern Cameroons once knew a public tradition shaped by parliamentary debate, legal procedure, local accountability, and respect for institutional process. It was not perfect, and no history should be romanticized. But it gave the people a political language in which rules mattered, records mattered, courts mattered, debate mattered, and public office carried responsibilities beyond personal loyalty.
That tradition was gravely weakened when Southern Cameroons was absorbed into a centralized system where administrative command often replaced public accountability, and political obedience too often mattered more than institutional truth.
Ambazonians are not fighting merely for a new flag or a change of officials. They are fighting for a deeper restoration: a society where facts are not enemies of power, where rules apply equally, where courts are independent, where public records can be trusted, and where officials do not treat truth as a threat.
The lesson from football is simple but powerful. A serious people must be willing to say, even when it hurts: the rule is the rule. If it is wrong for them, it is wrong for us. If justice is to mean anything, it must be impartial. That is fair play. That is institutional integrity.
And that is the kind of public culture a future Ambazonia must build: one where truth is not negotiated, justice is not tribalized, and no person, office, party, or nation stands above the rules.
By Carl Sanders, Guest Writer Independentist News | Soho, London
