Racism in association football

Racism in football (soccer) is still a major problem in some parts of the world, particularly in Poland, Spain and Italy, although it is a world-wide phenomenon. Racism isn't directed at players simply because of their skin colour; players are also targeted because of their nationality or religion. Some players may be targeted by football supporters more because they play for an opposing team rather than their appearance/heritage. However, some players have been targeted by their own fans, such as John Barnes

History

France

On 18 April 2007, Lyon player Milan Baroš was accused of racially abusing Renne's Stéphane M'Bia .

Germany

Racism in Germany really accelerated after the reunification of Germany; by 1992 neo-Nazi groups in Germany had begun to use football matches as occasions to plan and organise attacks against local ethnic communities and East European, particularly Turkish, refugees. In 1994 the Borussia Dortmund star, Júlio César threatened to leave the club after he was refused admission to a local nightclub because of his black complexion . FC St. Pauli fans responded decisively to outbreaks of racism in the German game. With the slogan, Gegen rechts ('Against the Right'), a combination of fans and students took to the club's terraces in 1992 to stand up against politically motivated racism. In December 1992, all the teams in the German League followed the St Pauli lead and, over one weekend, all players played in shirts displaying the slogan Mein Freund ist Auslander ('My friend is a Foreigner'). The German Sports Youth's 1995 "No Chance for Hatred" campaign has promoted activities against racism and xenophobia on a national scale, encouraging local clubs to participate. Unfortunately, this campaign has not spurred German football authorities into further action. Merkel (1996) reports that they vehemently refuse to acknowledge that racism is a major problem, and dismiss racist abuses as isolated incidents which have nothing to do with the sport. Most of their measures are concerned with law and order - cutting down violence at matches - but anti-racist action is very sparse. Anti-racist initiatives are designed to create positive publicity but generally consist of little more than token gestures, such as rock concerts and short term advertising campaigns.

Hansa Rostock were fined $25,000 (£12,700) in 2006 after fans racially abused Schalke's Ghana-born striker Gerald Asamoah .

On 4 February 2007 a racist German football fan was apprehended by fellow fans during a match between Energie Cottbus and VfL Bochum, and faces a lifetime ban ; racist chants in Cottbus are said to be commonplace .

Italy

Ronny Rosenthal, playing for Israel's Maccabi Haifa F.C. in 1989, was subjected to anti-Semitic taunts. Black footballers playing in the Serie A top flight in 1993 were also racially abused. Two black Dutch players, Ruud Gullit and Aron Winter, have spoken out against such racist taunts. Their complaints spurred a day of action on 13 December 1992, with the slogan No al razzimo! (No To Racism) being paraded by all players in the two Italian divisions. Paul Ince also complained about open abuse during his spell with Inter Milan in Italy between 1995 & 1997 .

On November 27, 2005, Marco Zoro attempted to stop the Messina-Inter Milan match by leaving the field with the ball, after being tormented by racist taunts from some Inter supporters. He was eventually convinced to keep playing by other players, notably by Inter's Adriano. These facts then brought strong and unanimous condemnations by the whole football community within Italy, and even a 5 minute delay for an anti-racism display for all the matches to be played in the next week in the country. The actions of the Inter supporters were also brought to the attention of the European football governing body UEFA as well as that of the European Union.

Netherlands

Ajax fans have the tradition of using Jewish and Israeli symbols to express their allegiance. Regularly, the supporters wave large Star of David flags and scream Joden! Joden! ("Jews! Jews!") to fire up their team. Die-hard Ajax supporters call themselves "F-Siders" or "Joden" - Dutch for "Jews" - a nickname that reflects the team's and Amsterdam's Jewish roots. The nickname for Ajax fans dates back to before World War II, when Amsterdam was home to many of the Netherlands' 140,000 Jews and the Ajax stadium was located near a Jewish neighborhood. Most Dutch Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and little remains of Amsterdam's old Jewish quarter. But the tradition survived. Ajax currently has no Jewish players, the last player with Jewish roots being Daniël de Ridder. However, opposing supporters use anti-Semitism to express their antipathy towards Ajax. This is expressed in slogans such as Hamas, hamas, joden aan het gas (Hamas, Hamas, Jews into the gas) or producing hissing sounds that imitate the flow of gas. This however, does not withhold the 'Jewish' supporters from celebrating the Bombing of Rotterdam by Nazi Germany when facing Feyenoord with songs like Rotterdam, kankerstad, in de oorlog lag je lekker plat(Rotterdam, cancer town, in the war they rightly bombed it down!). Songs like this (using the melody of ´Tulips from Amsterdam´) were sung from the stage, i.e. organised, at the celebration of the winning of the Dutch Cup in 2006. The hardcore Ajax fans however, are proud of their outsider image as "Jews" and feel encouraged to show more Israeli/ Jewish signs. The Jews who support Ajax are split on this matter. Dutch authorities have tried to tone down the Jewish symbols of support for Ajax, hoping to lead to a decrease of anti-Semitic counter-incidents. However, the head of the European Board of Jewish Deputies has signalled his support for the F-siders, noting that anti-Semitism in Europe would be lessened if more non-Jews identified with Jewish culture. In 1991 Fritz Korbach, manager of SC Heerenveen, was censured by the Dutch footballing authorities for racially abusing his country's black international star, Bryan Roy . During Euro 96, Dutch midfielder Edgar Davids was sent home after complaining that black players were excluded from tactical meetings and had no input into the team, these privileges only being extended to white members of the team . The Netherlands Government pumped the equivalent of £948,000 into an anti-racist activities in Holland in 1991. The Nederlandse Sport Federatie (equivalent to Britain's Sports Council) has been very vocal, organising a conference in 1991 - Kleur Bekennen ('recognising colour') - to raise public awareness of the issue in Holland. Belgian authorities have aimed their anti-racism campaign at the grass-roots level, working through local sports clubs to encourage more minority participation.

Russia

Cameroonian player André Bikey suffered racism while playing for Lokomotiv in Moscow .

Serbia

In October 2006 thirty seven Borac Cacak fans were arrested and eight are facing criminal charges after racially abusing the club's Zimbabwean player Mike Temwanjira during a first division match. Several days later, 152 supporters of second division side Rad Belgrade were detained after shouting anti-Muslim slogans during a match against their Novi Pazar rivals . On 29 November 2006, Hajduk Kula coach Nebojsa Vucicevic insulted Red Star Belgrade's Senegal defender Ibrahima Gueye .

Spain

Aston Villa's Dalian Atkinson returned from Spain after one season with Real Sociedad, unhappy with the reception he received, and identifying racial abuse as a major factor in his rapid departure from the Spanish Club .

During a training session in 2004, a Spanish TV crew filmed Aragonés trying to motivate José Antonio Reyes by making offensive and racist references to Reyes' Arsenal F.C. team-mate, Thierry Henry. The phrase used was "Demuestra que eres mejor que ese negro de mierda", translated as "Show that you're better than that shitty black guy". The incident caused uproar in the British media with calls for Aragonés to be sacked. However these opinions were not widely supported in Spain, with the national football federation declined to take any action, and politicians being slow to denounce the remarks. When Spain played England in a friendly match at the Bernabéu soon after, on 17 November 2004, the atmosphere was hostile. Whenever black England players touched the ball, a significant proportion of the Spanish crowd began to make monkey chants, in particular to Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ashley Cole. Aragonés' remarks were widely blamed by the British press for inciting the incident. After an investigation into the events during the match, UEFA fined the RFEF 100,000 Swiss francs/ 87,000 USD and warned that any future incidents would be punished more severely. UEFA noted that possible punishments could include suspension from major international tournaments or the closure of Spain home international matches to supporters. On 7 February 2007 Aragonés won an appeal over the offence, with the misdemeanour being downgraded to "conduct which could be considered to be racist" .

In February of 2006, Samuel Eto'o suffered from racially-driven verbal abuse by some Real Zaragoza spectators during a match for FC Barcelona. The fans began making monkey-like chants whenever Eto'o had possession of the ball and peanuts were hurled onto the pitch. Eto'o threatened to leave the pitch in the middle of the game, but was prevented by the intervention of his team-mates and the referee, who rushed to the pitch to calm him down. His teammate Ronaldinho, who has suffered similar abuses but less intensely, said he was fed up with the sounds and that if Eto'o had left the pitch, he would have done the same. As Barcelona won 4-1, Eto'o danced like a monkey, saying rival fans were treating him as a monkey . Referee Fernando Carmona Mendez did not mention the incidents in his match report, commenting only that the behaviour of the crowd was "normal" . The fans were identified to police by fellow spectators and they were fined and banned from attending sporting events for five months . Eto'o declared in the aftermath that the punishment was insufficient and that La Romareda, Real Zaragoza's stadium, should have been closed for at least one year. However, Eto'o's coach, Frank Rijkaard, told him to concentrate on football and to stop talking about the incident. On 4 April 2007 , Eto'o stated that he does not take his children to football matches, due the prevalent racism

United Kingdom

England

The dark-skinned Everton F.C. center-forward, Dixie Dean, recalled how racist comments were aimed at him as he left the pitch at half time during a match in London in the 1930s. Dean, reportedly, punched the offender himself before disappearing into the players' tunnel. The authorities took no action against Dean, and a nearby police officer was alleged to have informed the victim that he had "deserved" his punishment .

Steve Mokone, the highly rated South African who later played for FC Barcelona, left Coventry City after his manager said to him "We brought you over here and you are not satisfied. That's the trouble with you people"; Mokone interpreted this as being racist, and he swiftly signed for Heracles Almelo .

On 21 April, 2004, Ron Atkinson resigned from ITV after he was caught making a racist remark live on air about the black Chelsea F.C. player Marcel Desailly: believing the microphone to be switched off, he said, "...he [Desailly] is what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick nigger". Although transmission in the UK had finished, the microphone gaffe meant that his comment was broadcast to various countries in the Middle East. He also left his job as a columnist for The Guardian "by mutual agreement" as a result of the comment.

On 13 January 2007, the F.A. charged Newcastle United F.C. player Emre Belözoğlu with "using racially-aggravated abusive and/or insulting words", referring to an incident during the 3-0 defeat by Everton F.C at Goodison Park on 30 December 2006 . Emre was, on 16 February 2007, accused of more racist behaviour, this time against Bolton's El-Hadji Diouf . However, on 1 March 2007, it was revealed that Diouf would not be pursuing his claim . It was also later revealed that Watford player Al Bangura had released a statement declaring that he was the victim of racist abuse from Emre . On 19 March he was cleared of the charges relating to the Everton game .

On 6 March 2007 it was announced that the Metropolitan Police were investigating apparent anti-Semitic chants by West Ham fans before the match with Spurs two days previouisly after a video of the offence surfaced on the internet .

On 7 April 2007, in a match between Rotherham and Gillingham, Gillingham keeper Kelvin Jack was raically abused by a Rotherham fan. On 13 April 2007, the fan was banned for life from the club .

Scotland

On 28 February 2007 the St Johnstone player Jason Scotland was the target of racist taunts by a handful of Motherwell fans. The offenders were promptly reprimanded by the spectators around them and were reported to police and match stewards. Motherwell chairman John Boyle latter issued an apology on behalf of the club.

See also

• Football Against Racism in Europe
• Racism Breaks the Game
• Show Racism The Red Card
• Stand Up Speak Up

External links

• Football Unites, Racism Divides
• Show Racism The Red Card
• Let's Kick Racism Out Of Football
• Stand Up Speak Up