The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game

rguilmar

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,701
The game we all love is consistently marred by racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on. The events in Spain surrounding Vini Jr have been well documented. “The Chant” from L Tri fans has been discussed here at length. Consider this a place to share and discuss the ugly behavior by fans, players, and club officials ruining the game

In Spain’s third tier, a goal keeper, Cheikh Kane Sarr, went into the stands to confront people hurling racists insults at him. He was given a red card and suspended for two games (which is more a criticism of the inflexibility of the rules).

Closer to home, the NYRB U-17 team has left the GA tournament after two incidents of racism that they felt went poorly addressed by MLS and MLS Next.

Juve are pursuing a punishment against Lazio (surprise, surprise) for their fans’ racist chants against Weston McKennie.

FMF, CONCACAF, FIFA, and even Mexican players have tried in vain to get rid of the anti-gay chant coming from their fans, but the reality is that he punishments-stopping games, fines, empty stadiums- do not hurt the fans.

Luis Rubiales has been charged with corruption in Spain. This is on top of the fallout from “The Kiss” that rightfully cost him his job.

These incidents are all within the last week or two, and I’m probably missing some. What other incidents am I missing? What can be done by teams, leagues, and confederations to combat these types of incidents?
 
Mighty Joe Young

Mighty Joe Young

The North remembers
SoSH Member
Sep 14, 2002
8,465
Halifax, Nova Scotia , Canada
trs

trs

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2010
557
Madrid
Mighty Joe Young said:
An overview of Tragedy Chanting in the UK

https://theathletic.com/5390976/2024/04/06/tragedy-chanting-what-manchester-united-liverpool/?source=user_shared_article

My own view is this should not be a police matter - but this is the UK where free speech is increasingly diminished - witness the Tory government’s response to Palestinian protests - so it’s not surprising.

The behaviour is , of course odious. I don’t mind banning participants from games , but arrests?
Click to expand...
Agreed, it's a difficult situation. Vinicius here in Spain has been calling for arrests, saying that racism is illegal in Brazil and should be in Spain as well. As a while male, I have a hard time making any real claims about the legality of racism in a country like Spain. I'm certainly in favor of enforcing laws against hate crimes. Is blatantly chanting horrifically racist or homophobic shit at people a hate crime? That's the question for me. It might be, but wow, it would be hard to legislate, I would think.

As you said, I certainly do think it is the responsibility of teams to ban these individuals from games. I would think that it is possible to identify and track groups of people screaming terrible shit in a closed environment at a specific target. Given how much it seems to mean for these hateful people to be at games so they can spew this shit, you would think outright bans from stadiums would be a rather targeted and effective punishment. I support movements to reduce racism, but I don't really support those that are in leadership positions at La Liga (for example) to be in charge of reducing racism in Spain. If La Liga wants to continue to enjoy being the national top league in Spain, I do think it's proper for the government to mandate that they prevent certain actions from occurring in stadiums. It is then, though, up to our society here to look to eradicate racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.

I agree that infringing upon speech is a dangerous tactic. Banning speech is a last-ditch strategy and might do more harm than good. Looking for the origins of the hateful speech is what we need to do, but that's not a new idea, and it's really difficult to do.

This also I suppose gets a bit V&N, but yeah, it was depressing to read about the nonsense that continues to exist in Spanish soccer last weekend.
 
trs

trs

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2010
557
Madrid
On a related note, this rather well-done piece from ESPN the Magazine (remember that?) quite a few years back gets into the issue of racism in Serie A - https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/9338962/when-beautiful-game-turns-ugly. Similarly titled to this thread in fact, that's what reminded me of the piece.

I have my students read this when we're looking at the relationship between knowledge and language. There's always a decent conversation about intention and meaning in terms of language that follows. It also brings up the idea of empathy quite well too -- something that I think gets missed in a lot of discussions about racism in popular culture.
 
scott bankheadcase

scott bankheadcase

I'm adequate!!
SoSH Member
Nov 1, 2006
3,089
hoboken
An old friend of mine, Mark Wright, does a poscast called press pause. Last October he had Shaka Hislop on to talk about the red card to racism initiative.

Worth checking out if you have time.
 
rguilmar

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,701
It’s a fine line to draw between protecting free speech and preventing some of the more egregious behavior. Atletico Madrid have barred over 200 fans from their stadium for racist behavior. Individuals in Spain have been charged for hanging a Vini Jr dummy in effigy. Whatever is being now though isn’t enough. The heartbreaking thing about some of the footage in Spain was the young kids involved in the monkey chants. I imagine kids at Mexico games are impacted by the chant, and in this case I think the ultimate punishment- abandonment of the match- is exactly what the offenders want.

I hesitate to have empty stadiums and teams kicked out of competitions, knowing full well that even Real Betis (generally a left leaning crowd) have a small but vocal far right group of ultras. This is true of almost every club short of maybe the St. Paulis, Rayo Vallecanos, and Cadizs of the world. If that’s what it takes to stamp some of the worst behavior out of the game though, I would understand it.

jose melendez said:
Under the tragedy chanting rules, can we not make Thurman Munson jokes anymore?

Just asking.
Click to expand...
I think Munson chants are fine. Corey Lidle is still too soon
 
jose melendez

jose melendez

Earl of Acie
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Oct 23, 2003
31,175
Geneva, Switzerland
rguilmar said:
It’s a fine line to draw between protecting free speech and preventing some of the more egregious behavior. Atletico Madrid have barred over 200 fans from their stadium for racist behavior. Individuals in Spain have been charged for hanging a Vini Jr dummy in effigy. Whatever is being now though isn’t enough. The heartbreaking thing about some of the footage in Spain was the young kids involved in the monkey chants. I imagine kids at Mexico games are impacted by the chant, and in this case I think the ultimate punishment- abandonment of the match- is exactly what the offenders want.

I hesitate to have empty stadiums and teams kicked out of competitions, knowing full well that even Real Betis (generally a left leaning crowd) have a small but vocal far right group of ultras. This is true of almost every club short of maybe the St. Paulis, Rayo Vallecanos, and Cadizs of the world. If that’s what it takes to stamp some of the worst behavior out of the game though, I would understand it.



I think Munson chants are fine. Corey Lidle is still too soon
Click to expand...
This lead me to check... 18 years since Lidle. That's a long time.
 
CodPiece XL

CodPiece XL

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 4, 2007
2,433
Scottsdale, AZ.
Just a general comment. I’ve never been in favor of collective punishment. Punishing the vast majority of normal good behaved fans just because of the actions of a small minority. But that’s just me.
 
rguilmar

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,701
CodPiece XL said:
Just a general comment. I’ve never been in favor of collective punishment. Punishing the vast majority of normal good behaved fans just because of the actions of a small minority. But that’s just me.
Click to expand...
In a vacuum, I agree with you. I can only look at things through the incidents and behaviors I know best, which are in La Liga and as it relates to US soccer. In La Liga, they have gone with punishing only individuals literally caught in the act, long or lifetime bans being the most common punishment. I might have mentioned it here or elsewhere, but Atletico Madrid have given lifetime bans to over 200 fans over the years. Atleti fans come from all walks of life, and most are decent people as well as amazing fans. That being said, one supporters group, Frente Atletico, is made up of full on neo Nazis. Feel free to look them up to see their laundry list of "accomplishments". The group has been barred from the stadium in the past. 15 of these ultras were given lifetime bans all for one incident. I know what happened to Vini Jr. at Mestalla got the world's attention, but his treatment at the Metropolitano was as bad, or even worse. The Frente even went after an 8 year old girl wearing a Vinicius jersey. It just does not stop. In short, punishing the individuals isn't working in Spain. In some ways, it's gotten worse.

When it comes to "The Chant" by Mexico fans, I don't even know what a punishment would even look like. Barring an individual from going to future games? It might be the only time they go to an El Tri game, and they play all over the US. I'm not sure what it would accomplish, so the punishments in CONCACAF focus on stopping the game itself. The Chant only seems to come out when Mexico are losing late in games. The fans know what the punishment is and they are actively trying to get punished- stop the game temporarily then force abandonment. Literally the punishment is making fan behavior worse.

Both in Spain and in CONCACAF, what they are doing is not working. I don't know what a proper fix is, but the reason I am ok punishing full fan bases with empty stadiums, removal from competitions, point deductions etc. is more in the hope that it is enough of a deterrent for this kind of behavior. Of course, then you need to follow through when a club's or national team's fans continue their reprehensible behavior.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom