I am a Georgian sports journalist based in Italy. Today, I’m showing a red card to Mikheil Kavelashvili. He may not understand the language we speak — but he certainly understands the language of football. As a certified referee, I can say this with full authority: Mr. Mikheil, you are officially sent off. You’ve violated Law 12 of the rules of the game. You don’t hear us when we speak as citizens, as human beings — but this, I know you understand. You are no longer on the field. For us, you do not exist.

Yesterday, as we know, the illegitimate president signed an unconstitutional law, according to which protest participants are prohibited from covering their faces… Friends, this is just a regular hat, it’s called a balaclava. People use it to keep their noses, mouths, and ears from freezing… Therefore, this cannot be considered against the law, and of course, we do not comply with an unconstitutional law signed by someone like Kavelashvili, and we do not obey these police officers either, because they too are acting outside the law — and they are acting outside the law because we have an illegitimate government, an illegitimate prime minister, and an illegitimate president… We do not recognize the legitimacy of the elections. Accordingly, we do not recognize them either. So, no matter how many fines these people issue, they cannot scare us with this. On the contrary, the more resistance we encounter, the more we are motivated to oppose them — and honestly, these people need to learn this once and for all.