CoolHandTodd, on racism in soccer

This was a comment, but it deserves its own post.

CoolHandTodd said...
I can't say that I'm surprised. More than diving, silly haircuts or poorly-choreographed goal celebrations, this all too common behavior has really given the sport a black eye. The international governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has tried to crack down on fan racism as part of their prominently-featured "Say No To Racism" campaign. Regardless, this sort of nonsense continues throughout Europe.

The American winger DaMarcus Beasley, who plays for Rangers of Scotland, was subjected to monkey chants by the home fans after scoring a goal against a team in Montenegro. Luis Aragones, the current manager of the Spanish national team, somehow was able to keep his job after he referred to French striker Thierry Henry as a "negro de mierda." Throughout Europe, there have been reported episodes where black players have had bananas and peanuts thrown at them from the stands.

And the bigotry isn't exclusively targeted towards black players. At Chelsea, after replacing the wildly-popular Jose Morinho, the Israeli manager Avram Grant was bombarded with anti-Semitic chants and Holocaust references. In Israel, the team Beitar Jerusalem, a club with a traditionally right-wing nationalist fan base, have never signed an Arab player. In Mexico, Chivas de Guadalajara have a policy of signing only Mexican-born players.

The interesting thing about Italy is that there are no black players on the Italian national team (mostly because there are very few talented black Italians). Mario Balotelli will begin to change that; he is only 18 and has had a sensational season for Inter Milan (6 goals on the season so far). In 2006, Brazilian-born Marcos Senna (who defended Luis Aragones' remarks towards Henry) became the only black player to join the Spanish national team and was, by many accounts, the key to Spain winning Euro 2008. France and England, though not without their respective share of infractions, have been fielding black players for many years now.

Guys like Balotelli are, unfortunately, reliving the same role that Jackie Robinson was forced to play over 50 years ago. Let's hope that he can go on to achieve a comparable level of success.