Racism In Soccer
Overview
Racism is becoming a
growing issue in modern day soccer. You would think that we all have moved on
and quite frankly, grown up, but it turns out that some people haven’t. Racism
is seen on all sorts of playing fields in the “beautiful game”. You see the
fans mocking players and making money noises and gestures at them. Some fans
have even gone to extremes, like bringing in a Nazi flag and holding it up
during the game. And now its not just the fans, it’s the players too. We have
seen famous players like Luis Suarez and John Terry saying racist remarks to
black players, these players are people that kids look up to. What’s a good
role model if they are depicted being a racist. Some players have also been
either suspended or banned for actually hailing as their goal celebration. Some
players just commit dirty fouls on the black players, which has happened to
Italian soccer player, Mario Balotelli.
The Fans
Where
the fans are is where most of the racism lies. Fans seem to go to some extremes
that we haven’t seen before. We have seen countless cases of fans having racist
flags and even some Nazi flags being held up at the games. This is most commonly
in Russian league games bust has popped up in a Real Madrid game as well. Four
fans were escorted out of the game for holding up a Nazi flag during one of the
teams games in 2015. Although we see things like this happening there are fans
that take their actions outside the stadium. In 2015 a group of Chelsea fans
were on the subway train when a black PSG supporter attempted to board the
train, but was shoved out numerous times by the Chelsea supporters. They then
began to chant “yeah we’re racist, yeah we’re racist, and that’s the way we
like it”. Angered by this, the Chelsea club found out who the gentlemen
involved by a video that was recorded, and the men were revoked of their season
tickets without refund. Fans from West ham made a video mocking the Chelsea
fans. In the video a black man asked if he may board the train, the white
gentlemen responded “on you come lad, this is how we do it in West ham”. This
sparked a lot of laughs and really made the situation lighter, but do not think
that all was forgotten. So the fans seem to be the most involved for the racism
in soccer.
The Players
Player
Dani Alves said that fighting racism in soccer is a “lost cause”, what about
you?