Saying No To Soccer Racism

Been talking about from time to time in various TransGriot soccer related posts about the now decade old FIFA Say No To Racism campaign that has the ambitious goal of eradicating racism from international football matches. 

Racism still rears its ugly head in matches like it did during the recent UEFA Euro 2012 tournament but you have more superstar players and national teams working harder to condemn and eradicate it than silently condoning the boorish behavior of their fans.

They are doing so not only from a personal distaste with what is happening in international football, but face a situation in which the club in question or national organization can get fined, suspended from FIFA sanctioned international tournaments or have both penalties happen for not expeditiously doing so.  

Something amazing happened at a recent match.   AC Milan player Kevin-Prince Boateng hears some wastes of DNA shouting racist chants at him, punts the ball into the stands and walks off the pitch.  

Boateng is not alone.  He is joined in his walk off the pitch by his teammates and players from the entire opposing team. 

How cool is that?   It starts at the 0:09 second mark in the video.

Some Euro 2012 Fans Can't Say No To Racism

The UEFA Euro 2012 tournament is being co-hosted by the nations of Poland and Ukraine June 8 through July 1.   The group play stage is winding down to its conclusion this weekend to determine the teams that will enter the knockout rounds and be in contention for the European championship.

Because it is an international game, talented players of African descent have long been integral parts of European club teams and several national clubs for years.

In the UEFA Euro 2012 tournament the national sides of England, the Netherlands and France have large visible contingents of African descended players.  Italy has 21 year old striker Mario Balotelli and the Czech Republic has Theodor Gebre Selassie as lone African descended starting players on their national teams. 

While soccer is called 'the beautiful game', one of the ugly stains it struggles with is racism in the sport, especially in European football venues.  There has been a long deplorable history of players and supporters of European based club and national teams uttering racial monkey chants, anti-Semitic epithets and throwing bananas on the pitch at African descended players. 

There were concerns expressed before the Euro 2012 tournament started by groups that monitor racist events at European football matches such as Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) about the wisdom of hosting the tournament in those two nations in light of reports that Ukrainian fans had been videotaped during matches doing Nazi salutes and aiming monkey chants at African descended players


FIFA has been engaged in a ongoing Say No To Racism campaign to clean up the bigoted behavior in the sport since 2001 which I believe also needs to be expanded to combat homophobia and transphobia as well. .  

Superstar players in the sport such as David Beckham have also been outspoken about eliminating racism in 'the beautiful game' as well.

UEFA (Union of European Football Associations, the governing body for soccer in Europe) has a zero tolerance policy and rules that make national football associations responsible for their fans' boorish behavior.   Punishments can range from warnings and a sliding scale of fines to points deductions and even expulsion from future Euro tournaments.

Reports out of the first week of Euro 2012 are justifying the concerns that FARE and other groups had when the tournament was initially awarded to Poland and Ukraine.  It seems that old bigoted habits are dying hard. 

Even before the tournament started, The Netherlands national squad was highly pissed off about their players being subjected to racist chants during an open training session in Krakow a day after they visited the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp.

Reports have surfaced that during the June 10 Spain-Italy and June 14 Croatia-Italy matches elements of the Spanish and Croatian fan bases started monkey chants aimed at Balotelli.  The Croatians took it a step further by not only doing the chants but throwing a banana onto the pitch.

Croatia has a particularly egregious history of racist abuse.  They were fined by UEFA for deploying neo-Nazi flags and shouting racist chants during a Euro 2008 quarterfinal loss to Turkey and fined by FIFA for an incident in a World Cup qualifying match in Zagreb in which England's Emile Heskey was subjected to racist taunts.

Croatia has been formally charged for the incidents in Thursday's Croatia-Italy match in Poznan and the Croatian Football Federation is rapidly distancing themselves from the bigoted elements of their supporter base.


During the June 8 Russia-Czech Republic match in Wroclaw reports are surfacing that some of Russia's nekulturny supporters aimed racist monkey chanting at Gebre Selassie, and UEFA is investigating those charges with Russia's sports minister vehemently denying them. 

If those reports are true, then it's karmic justice that the Czech Republic qualified for the knockout round despite being beaten 4-1 by Russia thanks to Greece beating the Russians.1-0 in group play.

Now that UEFA is starting to crack down, we'll see if this chills out the racist supporters of some of the national teams still left in the Euro 2012 tournament and if the threat of severe UEFA sanctions or banishment from Euro 2016 will be enough to get those fans to say no to racism at this tournament.

Beckham Calls For End To Racism In Soccer

I'll be rooting against David Beckham and his LA Galaxy teammates when they play my Houston Dynamo in the MLS title game on Sunday but he definitely gets a thumbs up from me for speaking up and speaking out about the long festering problem of racism in international soccer.

'The beautiful game' as it's called has a ugly side in terms of the virulent racism that rears its head in matches.  In some European nations they make monkey sounds or throw bananas at players of African descent.

Even some of the superstar players aren't above using the N-word during a match multiple times to taunt players and it ain't a new problem. 

I remember reading a December 1978 EBONY magazine story about Erwin Kostedde, a German soccer star who was the first African descended player and superstar in the Bundesliga.   The article chronicled his search for his American GI father and there was a paragraph in it that referenced the crowds shouting at him 'Du fauler Neger" (Lazy n----r) when he had the ball taken from him during a match.

A firestorm of criticism has erupted in Britain after FIFA president Sepp Blatter made comments during an interview broadcast on CNN in which he minimized the racism in international soccer and said it should be settled with a handshake.   It also comes as Britain's Premier League is investigating charges that Liverpool striker Luis Suarez and Chelsea defender John Terry racially abused black players during league games.

Asked if he thought there was racism on the pitch, Blatter told CNN: 'I would deny it. There is no racism, there is maybe one of the players towards another, he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one, but also the one who is affected by that.  

'He should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.  I think the whole world is aware of the efforts we are making against racism and discrimination. And on the field of play sometimes you say something that is not very correct, but then at the end of the game, the game is over and you have the next game where you can behave better."

Um Sepp, if racism isn't a problem in football, why are you still running commercials during World Cup and international friendly matches for the Say No To Racism campaign?

The 75 year old Blatter was just reelected to another four year term amidst a corruption scandal and there were calls for his resignation as FIFA president with even British prime minister David Cameron putting him on blast.

He tried to calm the firestorm by appearing in a photo op with Tokyo Sexwale, the South African government minister and anti-apartheid activist who was imprisoned at Robben Island, and it only poured gasoline on the controversy.  

But Beckham had this to say when asked about it.
“I think the comments were appalling for a lot of people,” he said. “I don’t think those comments were very good for this game.”   Beckham didn’t call on Blatter to step down from the FIFA presidency as others have.but was adamant about ending racism in soccer.

“I have no power with who goes or who stays within FIFA and I don’t wish to have that,” he said. “But there obviously is and has been racism throughout soccer and in life. I do think especially being around the England team and being around the FA, the FA do a lot of work with kicking racism out of the game.

“I think they have made huge strides in the last 10-15 years. But it’s still there, and it can’t just be swept under the carpet and it can’t just be dealt with just a handshake. … It’s not how racism should be treated. We need to work hard to keep it out of the game and keep it out of life in general.”

Amen Becks.  And good luck in any match you play except when it's against the Dynamo or international ones against Team USA. 

Is Super Phobes Coach Uche Really Being Investigated By FIFA?

Nigeria Super Phobes (oops Super Falcons) head coach Eucharia Uche made some startling comments during the recent 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in which she claimed during a June 26 press conference she removed lesbians off her team.

There was a subsequent June 29 meeting between Uche and FIFA's head of women's competitions Tatjana Haenni in which the anti discrimination policy was reiterated to her, and the Nigeria Football Federation made it clear she was still their coach for the time being.


At the same time this was blowing up, an Allout.org sponsored petition drive was gathering over 45,000 signatures and organizing a 'Give The Red Card To Homophobia' protest before the Women's World Cup semifinal game in Frankfurt urging FIFA to attack homophobia in the game with the same zeal they do racism in 'the beautiful game'.

The International Gay and Lesbian Football Association, the Federation of Gay Games and ALLOut.org jointly wrote a letter to FIFA President Sepp Blatter concerning the Uche situation.

FIFA and its affiliated organisations are to be commended for the kinds of strong measures taken against racism in football. Unfortunately we have not yet seen the same commitment to take action against homophobia. It is long overdue for FIFA to apply its own rules regarding discrimination, and help insulate the sport from ideological and religious interference that infringes on players rights.

That it is. The IGLFA and AllOut.org wrote press releases that were picked up in other parts of the Gayosphere claiming that a FIFA investigation of Uche has been launched, but the Federation of Gay Games says otherwise.

The Federation of Gay Games asserts on their FB page she's not being investigated, and had this to say.

Contrary to the press release from our friends at AllOut, cosigners of the letter to FIFA to which Jérôme Valcke has now (more than two months later) replied, FIFA has not decided to investigate the lesbophobic behavior of Nigerian women's football club Eucharia Uche.

We quote:

"Thus, in the event the FIFA Disciplinary Committee considers having enough evidence to be in a position to open proceedings, it will not fail to do so with the assistance of the FIFA administration."

We are puzzled by FIFA's request for us to provide information, as it is clear in our letter that the information provoking our letter came from the press. We do hope that FIFA will look into those sources, and eagerly await news of any investigation.

But we're not holding our breath...

Neither am I.  Nigeria's Super Falcons are in the middle of a two leg playoff for the remaining 2012 London Olympic Games women's qualifying tournament with Cameroon. 

They won the first leg 2-1 and play Cameroon on October 22 to decide who gets that other African qualifying spot.  

If there were any FIFA investigation of Uche, it would be big news in Nigeria, on the African continent, the FIFA website, the Confederation of African Football one and any site on the Net that tracks international football.   So far all I've been able to detect is cricket chirping silence on the issue.

I said this when I wrote about the controversy back on July 7:  

This situation with Uche admitting that she forced lesbians off the squad cries out for sanctions, but the likelihood of that happening is about the same as a certain appletini chugging gay rights orgs in the States hiring a transperson to run it.  

And so far, both scenarios are playing out.

USA Women Still Number One In FIFA World Rankings

Despite the upset loss on penalty kicks in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup final, the team USA women are still number one in the just released FIFA world rankings.

As a matter of fact, the top five didn't change despite early exits by Brazil and Germany in the quarterfinals of the tournament and the Swedes losing in the semis to the eventual world champion Japan.

The top five remain in order the USA, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Sweden

Where the movement occurred was in the second five.   England jumped four spots to number 6, France stayed at number 7 while Canada slid two spots to number 8.  Australia moved up two spots to number 9 with Norway dropping one to number 10.  .


And if you're wondering how they are calculated, here's the explanation of the formula for how they do so by FIFA.

Next update in the FIFA world rankings will occur September 23, and we'll see if it stays that way.