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News & Current Events Apr 23, 2026 at 2:24 PM

Giorgia Meloni's government rules out Italy replacing Iran at World Cup

Posted by TreacleZestyclose226

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ScottyBoneman Apr 23, 2026 +979
Godammit I am not supposed to agree with Meloni as much as I have recently.
979
AssistanceCheap379 Apr 23, 2026 +380
Turns out that even though some Europeans dislike each other, they dislike foreign influence even more and we are seeing a shift in Europe from national identity to a continental identity. And having the US mess with European allies that you disagree with but still accept, tends to sour relations. It’s like someone messing with your cousin. You can mess with them, others can’t.
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[deleted] Apr 23, 2026 +41
[deleted]
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xxfblz Apr 23, 2026 +10
Yeah, yeah, the old Emperor-God's or Camus' Caligula's shtick. There are healthier ways to get people to not trust power.
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Equivalent-Word-7691 Apr 23, 2026 +9
It's like Lord of the rings, Melkor, Sauron and Tolkien's eucatastrophe Trump is Sauron and though his evil reign will be an eucatastrophe 🤣
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lllDogalll Apr 23, 2026 +3
He's been shit for India though. Our PM did a rally for him in his local state during covid so tgat probably increased infections and did a reciprocal rally endorsing him which is a bad look for a foreign nation to try to interfere in another nation's elections. (It didn't anything coz unlike India, American institutions were more robust and election manipulation is trickier there) And still when he was elected instead of extending a helping hand to a wannabe dictator in a democracy he fucked Indians over with tariffs and this stupid gulf war that might disrupt the stuff we cook our food with which is paused only coz of local elections (also petrol but we have been boiling frog to high prices since long)
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mschuster91 Apr 23, 2026 -16
The problem is, who fills the gap? And I don't like the answer. Even an authoritarian-led US is still better for the world than China, which has been a solidified dictatorship for decades now.
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KereruBod Apr 23, 2026 +11
Why do we need to fill a spot of top country in the world? Maybe China will have the largest GDP of a country, but that doesn’t mean they get a medal or staff that declares we must follow them. Recent events have probably shown that its not a great idea to have a ‘leader’ country since you can never guarantee when things will sour and ruin it for everyone else. Maybe once the dust is settled, the US will still be strong, China just as strong, EU just as strong and we all just accept we have to figure things out together. The leading question is then, won’t that create alliances that then lead to war, but I haven’t seen a world order yet that can successfully and permanently stop war.
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Calimariae Apr 23, 2026 +16
Dude, the U.S administration's official stance on climate change is that it's a hoax.
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Jakespeare97 Apr 23, 2026 +14
I don’t see how China is worse than the US when it hasn’t tried to export its political system outside of its former territories. The US has a far worse track record of supporting coups, paramilitaries, meddling in elections and invading countries.
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RiskyP Apr 23, 2026 +6
Yeah - they’ve been the bad guys all along
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2enty4 Apr 24, 2026 +9
It should have always been like this idk what happened that made everyone worship the oh so great US. Being allies doesn't mean being their puppet
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Short-Peanut1079 Apr 24, 2026 +1
Who really likes foreign influence to begin with? Doubt anybody really
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E_Kristalin Apr 24, 2026 +4
Orban.
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Brief_Hospital_1766 Apr 23, 2026 +87
I know, it feels dirty. But hey ho, even a broken clock?
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ScottyBoneman Apr 23, 2026 +50
Even there there's supposed to be a ceiling of twice a day.
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KidTempo Apr 23, 2026 +11
Depends on how broken the clock is...
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ScottyBoneman Apr 23, 2026 +5
I only know of twice or fewer...
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lolofaf Apr 23, 2026 +5
If the clock goes backwards it could be more than twice!
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ScottyBoneman Apr 23, 2026 +1
I guess that would be 4 times at constant speed. Thanks! Might be less 'broken' and more 'incorrectly assembled '.
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KidTempo Apr 23, 2026 +3
If the clock was running really fast, it could be "correct" several times a day.
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rapax Apr 23, 2026 +37
She's a populist. Back when large parts of the right voting Italians liked Trump, she was his biggest fan. Now he's no longer liked, she opposes him.
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ThePlanck Apr 23, 2026 +30
I think we have just got used to right-wing political leaders being grifters only in it for themselves. As much as I disagree with Meloni politically, she appears to genuine in her beliefs and is attempting to do what she believes is the right thing.
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Seanspeed Apr 23, 2026 +38
She does what she thinks will seem popular. Genuine is not the word I'd use at all.
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BalkanNoBalkan Apr 23, 2026 +12
Isn’t that what leaders should do though? Represent what the people think?
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niconpat Apr 23, 2026 +6
Yes but people want (think) everything to be great for everybody all the time and that's not possible.
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Visible_Handle_3770 Apr 23, 2026 +5
To a point, perhaps, but there are issues with that approach in reality. For one, the people aren't experts, and can often want things that aren't actually best for the country or even themselves on aggregate. Leaders should be experts, or surround themselves with experts, and understand that what is popular isn't always what's actually best. In addition, populism can have a tendancy to repress minority rights, even if that opinion is popular, it may be better for a country to not indulge the opinion. Finally, I don't know about Italy as much, but in the US, the general approach of populism has been less about appealing to an actual majority, and more about polarizing and galvanizing a subset of the population, so they politician may be trying to find what is popular, only for that group, and not care about the actual majority of people.
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Capable_Kiwi2514 Apr 23, 2026 -4
No, doing whatever you think is popular is not what representative democracy is about. 
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upthetruth1 Apr 23, 2026 +1
Large scale immigration?
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Glum-Breadfruit-6421 Apr 23, 2026 +8
Who could have imagined this a year ago… unreal.
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TummySpuds Apr 24, 2026 +3
It certainly shows the current state of the world if she keeps coming out as the voice of reason
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Winslow_99 Apr 23, 2026 +3
I always considered her as reasonable right wing, such a rare specimen
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Little-Chemical5006 Apr 23, 2026 +566
A team can come back after losing. But robbing another team chance to compete using diplomatic privilege so you have a second chance? Yeah, that gonna stick forever.
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 +82
They also need to come over the Zidane curse and weaseling thrpugh the backdoor would just have made it worse.
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Used-Gas-6525 Apr 23, 2026 +30
You mean the Zidane that cost France the WC against Italy with his dumb f****** temper?
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 +59
Yeah, the Italian player called his sister a s***, Zidane lost it. But the Italian player never apologized foe he said and since that, Italy never got passed through the group stage in the World Cup. It didn't even qualify for the last 3. *shrugs* it's a funny quirky thingy. I don't care a ding about pro Football, it easily irks the Italians.
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HofT Apr 23, 2026 +31
They did win the Euro in 2021
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 +24
Thank you for proving my point. They got a good team but they got the yips as soon as the World Cup is concerned. Because of the curse.
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HofT Apr 23, 2026 +13
Meh, I think you're too hung up on that. It was a funny meme at the time and that's it. Keep in mind, they still qualified in WC 2010 and 2014. If you're into Italian football, you'd understand it's a systematic problem that many have been pointing out for a while.
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Steveisnotmyname_ Apr 23, 2026 -9
Do you also believe in the tooth fairy?
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 +9
It's football dude. Who gives a shit? Its probably rigged, the players must all be on some PED, FIFA is corrupt as hell. Might as well have fun than taking this c*** seriously and being "rational" about it and try to understand the stuff that happens using seriously incomplete parameters. A curse is funnier than some naive explanation about how the calcio got institutional problems bla bla bla.
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SilverAss_Gorilla Apr 23, 2026 +18
He didn't call her a s***, I don't know why people insist on making Zidane out to be a blameless saint when he's had a ridiculous temper his whole career. Materazzi was pulling his shirt so Zidane told him he could have his shirt after the game if he wanted it so bad, to which Materazzi responded that he would rather have his sister's. And as per usual Zidane lost his shit and completely overreacted.
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 -18
IGAF, really. I just have to say "oh lol Zidane's curse! Italy is fucked until Materazzi apologizes to Zidane' sister" and a bunch of assholes get all worked up. I'm not French, I don't care much about Italy except they elected a fascist as PM, which tells me there are dumber people than the Americans, *since they got their country destroyed the last time they let a fascist run the government*. At least back then, they didn't vote the fascists in, they had to.make a coup. They've got dumber it seems.
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XF10 Apr 23, 2026 +2
Bet you are a French butthurt to have lost the World Cup lol
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 -1
I'm not French. I don't like football and people who vote for a fascist PM.
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XF10 Apr 24, 2026 +1
Seems like you are from Quebec which is french-speaking Canada,at very least you clearly speak French and are thus very likely to cheer for France and hate Italy >fascist PM Come on a conservative leader isn't automatically a fascist. It's like calling every progressive a communist, the world isn't black and white
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Dominarion Apr 24, 2026
If you knew anything about Quebec, you'd know wdgaf about Football. We care about hockey. When FIFA came around sniffing to organise a couple games for the World Cup here and asked for money, we told them to f*** off. We don't root for France because the French are dicks. Our team qualified for the World Cup, come to think of it. I had to check, but we did too 4 years ago.
0
ThePr1d3 Apr 23, 2026 -4
Frenchman here delete this. Our love for Zizou is only matched by our hatred for Italians (and Argentinians ofc)
-4
CGNYYZ Apr 23, 2026 +2
Like when Denmark replaced Yugoslavia in 1992 and ended up winning it all?
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decmcc Apr 23, 2026 +2
what about Ireland. Robbed of a spot Henry's handball in 2010. Alphabetically speaking, we're right there! I don't want everyone I know asking to come stay with me though, so I'm torn. I have a 1 br apartment and 2 dogs. Ireland could qualify if we could qualify through the Middle East region, just getting out of Euro groups is so damn hard
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5510 Apr 23, 2026 +1
I felt bad for Ireland, but I also hated how many Irish people who were against VAR were suddenly for VAR after that incident. Like, on one hand I was glad, because I support VAR, especially for things like playoffs and knock-out tournaments (although I think the implementation could use some improvement). But on the other hand, it was such a dumb reason to change their mind. Like... it wasn't exactly a Black Swan incident. Bad calls of that nature used to happen all the time. Like nothing about it was unpredictable or unimaginable.
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3000doorsofportugal Apr 24, 2026 +2
Yea the rest of Europe would NEVER let them forget it.
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ZaireekaFuzz Apr 23, 2026 +334
Italy has the second most World Cups in history, and are one of the truly legendary national teams. Accepting this would bring a level of generational shame that would be leagues beyond even the embarrassment of having missed out on the last few World Cups.
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momogoto Apr 23, 2026 +93
As an Italian, I totally agree. It's a real shame.
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JoSeSc Apr 23, 2026 +31
Surely even if Iran would not participate Iran would be replaced by a team from AFC not UEFA
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Dominarion Apr 23, 2026 +34
If only Materazzi apologized to Zidane's sister, Italy wouldn't be in this mess.
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ThatWeirdItalian Apr 23, 2026 +9
Hey, I Guess is never too late to switch sides, right!?
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joluboga Apr 23, 2026 +3
Italy AND GERMANY are tied for the second most WC in history.
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decmcc Apr 23, 2026 -2
I would love to see the collective tears shed by all of South America, France, Germany and England when Italy would go on and win the thing (because they are tournament specialists) with a series of 0-0 games where the keepers saves them in penalties.......I've just realized that Buffon was actually what was holding Italy up for so long.
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quidamquidam Apr 23, 2026 +212
It was a stupid idea by the stupidest american of all time.
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ScottyBoneman Apr 23, 2026 +77
There are clearly millions of dumber Americans, come now.
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Prior_Industry Apr 23, 2026 +30
He's the highest ranking dum dum. The leader of dum dums if you will.
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el_sandino Apr 23, 2026 +12
You mean his voters?
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cdreobvi Apr 23, 2026 +18
Leave it to Trump and his friends to completely miss the point of fair competition.
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DzoQiEuoi Apr 23, 2026 +22
American corporate sponsors want the most lucrative “franchises” in the competition to maximise profits.
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Schlonzig Apr 23, 2026 +7
Nevermind that FIFA has strict rules about politicians meddling with the sport. I know they won‘t have the balls to disqualify the US team, but boy, wouldn‘t that be epic?
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_KarsaOrlong Apr 23, 2026 +4
Sadly, they will do nothing to the w***** of the illustrious FIFA peace prize. Infantino just wants to collect money from powerful governments, not fight for accountability.
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Jasperneal Apr 23, 2026 +5
wasnt this an idea of Paolo Zampolli and not actually trump himself???
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spam__likely Apr 24, 2026 +1
Nah. The stupidest are the people who voted for him.
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Moontoya Apr 23, 2026 +25
Add in the recent Papal fol de rol with the mango moron and you've another solid reason Italy wants nothing to do with it
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Frequent-Chain-6082 Apr 23, 2026 +34
Very well done!
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Dookie120 Apr 23, 2026 +33
Imagine how clueless you have to be to suggest a bullshit plan like this. Not only a huge insult to Iran but to your OWN nation of Italy. They’d carry that shame till the end of time ffs
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SoftDrinkReddit Apr 23, 2026 +19
100% any Italian i have spoken to about this said f*** no they'd rather miss out then get a pity handout spot
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CityRulesFootball Apr 23, 2026 +33
Accepting it would be such a disgrace to even non political fans. If Iran withdraws it should be in the AFC not to Europe. 
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nilssonen Apr 23, 2026 +11
*I'm 100% against this in any form* With that said, the only option if you were to do this is the team that lost to them in the quailfier, UAE.
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_KarsaOrlong Apr 23, 2026 +13
Good sportsmanship. Iran isn't even in UEFA, not sure why Italy would be their replacement anyways.
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ladygagafan1237 Apr 23, 2026 +7
It’s ultimately up to FIFA on how they want to handle replacing them or not. But if they do it could be Italy since they are the highest ranking country that hasn’t qualified, UAE which was the Asian team that got the closest to qualifying, Bolivia who lost the intercontinental playoffs is another potential option, or they could just cancel the matches they were supposed to play and give the 3 points to whoever they were going to play. I would not like to see Iran forced to withdraw. And I certainly wouldn’t want to see Italy qualify in that way. Italy is my team and it would just be embarrassing if they got in that way.
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NGGKroze Apr 23, 2026 +9
Taco probably taught "Hey, they have the same colors on the flag" and tried his best
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pillgrinder Apr 23, 2026 +8
She’s not politically stupid, and accepting this deal would be a national shame for Italy.
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Adidas6q Apr 23, 2026 +15
Saremmo stati gli zimbelli ripescati che sarebbero comunque usciti agli ottavi
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DownWithTheSyndrme Apr 23, 2026 +4
And she is 100 percent correct.
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Ikarus_ Apr 23, 2026 +4
Imagine winning a World Cup you didn't even qualify for...
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pyfinx Apr 23, 2026 +7
Fair play.
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IntentionDeep651 Apr 23, 2026 +2
fifa ceo isnt sweating bullets right now lol
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MagnificoReattore Apr 23, 2026 +2
Infantino is such a slimy corrupted turd.
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According_Most2914 Apr 23, 2026 +3
The US are truly spinning in the drain.
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bk-12 Apr 23, 2026 +1
In 1992 originally, Yugoslavia qualified for the final stage of the European Championships, but due to the Yugoslav wars, the team was disqualified and their qualifying group's runner-up, Denmark, took part in the championship. Just saying..
1
[deleted] Apr 23, 2026 +10
[deleted]
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VanLunturu Apr 23, 2026 +2
That's their point
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Slight-Ad-6553 Apr 23, 2026 +2
sure took part - We still remember that party
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Nurkanurka Apr 24, 2026 +1
That'd be a reasonable way to replace a team who for some reason can't play the championship. And for Iran replacement that would be the UAE. Not Italy.
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I_SawTheSine Apr 23, 2026 +1
If it can't be Iran it should be be an AFC team. Give the place to Palestine.
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Fernand_de_Marcq Apr 23, 2026 +1
A World Cup where every penalty will be a political issue. 
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ch4ppi_revived Apr 23, 2026 +1
As much as I agree, but how is Meloni entitled to decide that?
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Ill_Wolverine_6265 Apr 23, 2026
Bravo, c'est courageux comme position, elle devrait aussi interdire que la mostra de Venise accepte les russes.
0
jcrestor Apr 23, 2026 -4
Important context: the Orange Scourge blurbed something, and one minister in Italy‘s government says that participation is the result of the qualifications, not political decrees.
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eni22 Apr 23, 2026 +10
Its the sport minister. Its not a random guy.
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RelegatedRick Apr 23, 2026 -10
Che cazzo 💔
-10
vamphorse Apr 23, 2026 +13
Ma scusa, saresti orgoglioso di andarci in quelle condizioni?
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