Stepping It Up

As long as I've been doing this blog, and as long as I've been paying attention to soccer, and all the trouble that surrounds soccer, I have never seen real measures taken against racism.

No one likes that racism is a constant part of soccer, and no one likes that racially charged incidents make the news more than the results of games.

FIFA has consistently made attempts to try and contain racism, which is a daunting task, but the punishments have varied.

Some seem like a slap on the wrist: a fine for the team involved. The police often get involved with the individuals and enforce the law.
Some are more severe: close the stadium for fans of the team, forcing the team to play in an empty arena.

But overall, there hasn't been anything that has really stopped these sort of things from happening, and the teams and international federations have not been able to really do much of anything except lay down punishment when something happens.

It seems like that is changing.

Yes, for the first time in recent memory, FIFA is being more proactive in this field.

First of all, Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, has said recently that he has ideas on how to end the discrimination, saying that one possibility is to "... deduct points, relegate a team [to a lesser division]...The moment we have the courage to do that discrimination will end."

That's a big leap. From fining the team involved to deducting points or relegating them? That's huge.

I like it.

That's what they need. This is something that they need to be willing to do. Come down hard. Encourage the clubs to be proactive as well. Granted, when something happens, clubs are pretty good about it (for example, a Villareal fan threw a banana at Barcelona's Dani Alves, who picked it up and took a bite before proceeding with the game. Villareal banned the man who threw it from their stadium for life as soon as they found who it was), but being proactive to prevent this happening in the first place is worthwhile.

FIFA also is going to start penalizing clubs and federations if they don't take action to fight the racism. For example, FIFA decided in 2013 to make a rule saying that federations could deduct points from clubs for incidents like this. Not a single federation has exercised this rule.

One federation official, from CONCACAF (North and Central America), said he is going to set up a hotline so people can report racial incidents directly and submit evidence.

Italy's federation has started a new anti-racism campaign, which will take off at their international game against England. They have secured former Olympian Fiona May to head the campaign and will have various Italian players as well.

This is good. It's also a promising flip flop from when coaches and officials have said that racism does not exist in soccer. Finally, FIFA and the federations are taking action before anything happens: telling each other to enforce the rules and prevent things from happening.

I know there is no screen you can run beforehand to prevent racists from entering the stadiums. But if they know that if they do something, their team will essentially lose a game, they won't do it.

This is going to help. Maybe we'll start hearing less and less about these racially- charged incidents.

Maybe something will finally change. We're on the right track.

Finally.


CITED

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/04/390707630/is-fighting-racism-in-soccer-a-lost-cause-fifa-president-says-no

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-05/fifa-plans-to-penalize-soccer-federations-for-racism-inaction

http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/former-olympian-may-to-front-italian-soccer-s-new-anti-racism-campaign-032915

He Said What?

Arrigo Sacchi is a former head coach of the Italian National Soccer Team, as well as former coach of AC Milan, with which he won the European Cup twice, in 1989 and 1990. He is known throughout Europe and Italy as a good coach, and coaches have sought advice from him in the past as to what to do in situations or in times of trouble.

This is a man whose words will regularly be in the news, regardless of what he says. He's one of those people who will always be in a spotlight.

Which begs the question, why would he then go and say THIS:

"I'm certainly not racist, as my past as a coach shows... but after seeing the Viareggio Cup (an Italian Youth squad tournament), I say that there are too many players of color- too many foreigners- even in the academy sides... Italy has no dignity, it has no pride. It's not possible to see squads with 15 foreign players."

Hold on, what?

Have you ever (except for the Russian coach who I talked about a while ago) heard a coach say something like that?

Sacchi has also had multiple black players on his teams in the past, including the teams that won him the trophies he is known for, which he brought up recently in various media outlets when asked about his comments.

“I have been misrepresented, do you really think I’m racist?"

Sorry, yes. I do. It's hard to misrepresent when you say there are "too many players of color" in Italian teams. Next quote?

"...I was just saying that I’d watched a match in which there was a team that included four boys of colour."

Well... why is that notable? Why does this need to be pointed out? Sure, if you think of "Italian," you may not think of someone with dark skin, but, I don't see why that needed to be talked about at all.

"My history speaks for itself, I’ve always trained teams with diverse players of colour and they won a lot, both at Milan and in Madrid... I just wanted to underline the fact that we’re losing our national pride and identity.”

So you have trained teams with diverse players. For one thing, that should show that this isn't an issue, because that's how training a team works. Teams will be diverse. The world is diverse. Why, if you have trained teams with diversity, are you saying that there is a problem with teams with diversity? Secondly, the fact that you have trained teams with diversity doesn't change the fact that what you said was blatantly racist. And, I don't see why that is a matter of Italian pride and identity. 

I understand Italy has some issues. Someone I know who has been to Italy several times and knows many Italian people has said "There aren't black people in Italy. There might be one person with dark skin in a class of 30." So clearly there is a sort of "this is different" culture going on there. 

But it's also close to Africa. And as I said before, diversity is a thing. The fact that someone who is well regarded in Italian soccer culture, and European soccer culture as a whole at that, is comfortable saying that there are too many colored players in the youth system. It appears that he's afraid of when all these youngsters will grow up and there will be more black players on the field.

It's a problem that is rooted in the culture, which this man coming out and saying what he said can be seen as the issue coming to a very public and noticeable head.

Can you imagine Bill Belichick or John Harbaugh saying, "Yeah, there are too many black people on these teams. It's shameful."

No. You can't. That's the difference. This may not be a post racial society here, but we have nothing like what Sacchi said. You run out of things to say and ways to describe it. But based on the way he talks about himself and what he said, there seems little chance that anything will be done, and a very high chance that we'll hear something like this again.

CITED:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/17/football/football-italy-saachi-racism/
http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/129486/Sacchi-sparks-new-racism-storm-for-Italian-soccer.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/ex-italy-and-milan-boss-arrigo-sacchi-denies-racism-claims-1.2106931

"...And That's The Way We Like It."

Last week, the UEFA Champions League, the most prestigious tournament in club soccer, kicked off its Round of 16, featuring a heavyweight match-up of French Champions Paris Saint- Germain, and British leaders Chelsea. The first leg (they play two games, one in each arena, and go on total goals) was played in Paris, and resulted in a 1-1 draw, as the matchup will return to London next week to see who advances to the quarterfinals.

This is a big-time matchup. It is one of, if not the most significant, games in this year's competition. Chelsea is a club that is favored to win the whole thing, but PSG is one of the most solid, best teams in the world, with arguably the third best player in the world in Zlatan Ibrahimovich. The loser will go home believing they got robbed due to a random drawing and that they should have done better. The winner will continue on their quest for the cup.

Given this, you'd think the talk this week would be about the return leg coming up, its implications, and all the parts of the game that we watch this sport for.

It isn't.

What is in the news, and what has once again plagued the soccer world, is a racial incident.

The scene is the Paris metro. The time, before the game.

The train is packed. A man tries to get on the train, and is forcefully and purposely shoved out and jeered at.

The man is black.

The men in the train start to chant "Chelsea, Chelsea" in British accents, then proceed to chant:

"We're racist, we're racist, we're racist: and that's the way we like it."

The Guardian Wire obtained video of the incident and the chanting, and it is troubling, to say the least.



I have never seen anything like this before. This is astonishing.

These are English "fans" in Paris for a soccer match. And this is what they do. It's not even "on their own turf" in a way. It's hard to comprehend why.

Chelsea released a statement saying “We will support any criminal action against those involved, and should evidence point to involvement of Chelsea season-ticket holders or members, the club will take the strongest possible action against them, including banning orders.”

The club also said, “Such behavior is abhorrent and has no place in football or society.”

So, if it has no place in football or society, as I think we all can agree on...

Then why does it have a place?

That's the burning question here. Why does this happen and is allowed to happen?

This reflects negatively on the club, the country, the actual fans of the team, and soccer fans all over the world. Not every soccer fan is racist. You only hear about the bad parts. But those bad parts are all over the place. 

It is looked down upon by everyone. But here we are, finding that “it is outside UEFA’s remit to act” on the situation since it did not occur in the stadium or involve the players.

Oh.

So there will be criminal charges. There will be bans by the city and the club towards these people: Chelsea has banned five people (whose faces all appear in the video and have reportedly been identified by UK police) from the stadium.

So... that's it?

They did this because they had to. They acted rightly. They said the men cannot come to the games. They condemned it swiftly and acted against it, and the police will take care of the rest. Good.

But this extends further than just these men. It's a culture. They think this is okay. No one else does, but week after week and competition after competition, these kind of people show up. And that is an issue that I don't know how to solve.

When I read on Twitter (shameless plug- follow me @PatrickJStoll for sporty things) that Champions League games started again and that Chelsea was playing PSG, among other games, my first reaction was: "Oh, international games! Something is bound to happen that I can write about!"

That should not be my first reaction.

I, a huge soccer fan, who could talk about sports and players and formations and everything for days (try me), first thought of the impending racial incident over the impending heavyweight matchup.

And there it is.

And that's the way they like it.


Feedback, as always, is welcome!

CITED:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/21/football/football-chelsea-racism-storm-london/

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/20/sport/chelsea-football-racism-paris-metro/

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/02/chelsea-train-chant-were-racist

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2015/feb/17/chelsea-fans-prevent-black-man-boarding-paris-metro-video?CMP=embed_video

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/world/europe/video-shows-chelsea-soccer-fans-in-racist-behavior.html

 http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/18/abuse-by-soccer-fans-underscores-games-lingering-racism-problem.html

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oneill-soccer-fans-bad-rap/index.html