Racism - the scourge of football
Tuesday, 10 Oct 2006 17:43
Croatian fans are said to be among the worst offending of footballing nations
Racism is an all too familiar scourge of football, Ben Arnold writes. It is also one that is proliferating in eastern European countries as has been brought to our attention this week in the build-up to England's Euro 2008 qualifier in Zagreb against Croatia, one of the worst offending footballing nations. Fifa, world football's governing body, insists, the "time has come to tackle the problem unequivocally". It is right, clearly, but questions surround whether it has underestimated the problem at hand.
The problem of racism in football, specifically in Britain, has come a long way since the dark days of the 80s when player persecution from fans was rife. Ken Bates, Chelsea chairman from 1982 to 2003, recalled a few years ago how the club's first black player, Paul Canoville, actually had bananas thrown at him from his own fans as he was warming up before making his debut against Crystal Palace. Bates, now at Leeds United, also revealed how the National Front would send him hate mail and even razor blades in the post if Chelsea selected black players.
Through criminal and political motions and the vigorous efforts of organisations such as Show Racism the Red Card and Kick Racism Out of Football, Britain appears to have largely overcome the problem. It does still exist here in a far diminished, minority capacity but a broader, cultural shift in public attitudes has unquestionably helped eradicate it from Premiership stands on a routine basis.
Sadly, several European countries have still not yet evolved through this social transformation. Spain notoriously came under international condemnation when their fans chanted monkey noises at England's Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips during a friendly in Madrid in 2004. Fifa president Joseph Sepp Blatter – who has said that "the solution to this problem, as to any other, lies firstly in identifying it and acknowledging its existence" – fined the Spanish FA the paltry sum of £44,750 for the incident. Since then, with the problem clearly identified, Spain's national team coach Luis Aragones was fined barely half a day's work for making a racist comment about Arsenal's Thierry Henry while Samuel Eto'o, Barcelona's brilliant Cameroonian striker, was pushed to literal breaking point by racist Spanish supporters chanting at him in a game in February this year. With each occasion, the minimal extent of the repercussions has been nearly as disturbing as the actual abuse.
Yet racism and anti-Semitism in Spain arguably pales in comparison to the widespread discrimination that is becoming ever more prominent, and aggressively transmitted, in eastern European countries such as Slovakia, where in Bratislava four years ago England's Emile Heskey and Cole again were subjected to racist taunts, as well as Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova, all of whom have experienced problems in the past.
Croatia, according to William Gaillard, director of communications at Uefa, is now among the worst of culprits. In August this year, a section of 200 Croatian fans formed a human swastika on the stands during a friendly against Italy in Livorno, an action condemned on a Europe-wide basis and one that revealed, in no uncertain terms, that attitudes in the country towards racism are at levels of concern equating to, if not surpassing, those of 80s Britain. Kurt Wachter, from Austrian FARE partner, FairPlay-VIDC, campaigning against racism, explained: "The photos and video footage that have been sent to us clearly show the Croatian fans forming a human swastika. These kind of actions are highly organised and illustrate that football must continue to intensify its work against racism. Fifa has recently toughened up its sanction to deal with incidents like this. We hope they are ready to use them."
As Wachter alludes to, the answer to solving racism in football is not one to be done overnight nor is it one to be solved by single idea. It is one that will need consistent high-profile initiatives from each nation's footballing body, Uefa and Fifa, such as their Ambassadors against Racism programme - which sees stars, past and present, including Thierry Henry, Pele, and Bobby Charlton making public pleas and raising awareness - and this summer's World Cup pledges from the captain's of each quarter-final nation. To find the answer, large-scale innovations must be conjured. It is all well and good having small, localised tutorials and awareness-raising festivals, fetes, matches etc organised to teach the next generation and to inspire social change but these are long-term plans. But now is also important and it is this current generation in the eastern European states that need attention.
One way to target this area is, as Wachter hints at, far bolder approaches. Monetary fines handed to a country's football association or federation are simply not effective. They don't hit the people at the centre of the trouble – ie the troublesome fans – and in the money-spinning footballing world any sum, even stretching into the tens and hundreds of thousands, is hardly life-changing.
Banning nations instantly from European or even world competitions must be implemented if racism continues. The fans of the nation in question must also be prevented from travelling as should be possible with inter-country hooligan policing and sharing of information. Taking away the platform for these mindless few will deny them the opportunity they seek to publicise their views. Even suspending domestic football for periods of time is an option. Fifa, supported more publicly by each nation's government (yes, sport and politics must be mixed), needs to start being far more intrepid to help tackle the situation and actively instigate change.