Neil W. Blackmon
It’s Christmas Eve: a time for love, joy, magic, wishes and of course, soccer.
In this, the season of giving and perpetual hope, my wish for soccer, the game I truly love, is simple.
Do something about the racism that is ripping apart the sport’s beauty apart.
Not to sound too caught up in the magic of the holiday season, but if not at Christmas, then when?
Do it now, at the dawn of a new decade.
Imagine football as Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge, being visited this Christmas season by three spirits, all of whom ruminate on the ruin being visited on the globe’s favored game by racism. Imagine that but use it to keep faith. Scrooge became “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city” of London knew. If Scrooge’s ragged soul can be redeemed, so too can the soul of association football.
There will be those who dismiss this plea as just another article about racism in football.
What can we really do to change hatred in a person’s heart, they’ll wonder- some in good faith, some with shrill disgust. To them, I’d suggest this: the mighty torrent of the riptide or racism may not be slowed immediately, but that doesn’t excuse our responsibility to rage against it.
It’s been a decade and a half and three World Cups since Sepp Blatter and FIFA announced the beginning of the “Say No to Racism” campaign in April 2006. The idea, according to Blatter himself, was to use the unifying power of football to combat discrimination of all kinds, and “eradicate the blight of racism forcefully and resolutely.”
As we approach a new decade, the fight continues. And soccer is losing.
In Europe, the problem is worsening, with the creep of authoritarian-infused populism on both the continent and in the UK emboldening racist elements of the populace just as the proliferation of social media has provided them a larger platform for their ideologies of hate.
According to Kick It Out, a UK organization that works to tackle discrimination in professional and grassroots football, reports of discrimination rose by 32% in 2018/19 in England alone compared to the previous season.
Racism remains the most common form of discrimination and has risen “alarmingly,” Kick It Out says, with reports increasing by 43%.
On the continent, a recent study by the Centre for the Study of Democracy states that instances of reported discrimination have risen by 40% since the announcement of the 2006 “Say No to Racism” FIFA campaign. The study estimates that actual instances of racism are much higher, with many lesser-known players of color less likely to complain, out of structural fear that the club they play for (quite literally their employer) would rather find a player who doesn’t complain than compensate one who speaks out.
Football at the end of the decade, then, continues to be plagued by an ever-worsening racism problem, one that isn’t isolated to a specific league or continent.
The behavior of Spurs fans at Sunday’s Tottenham-Chelsea match was just the latest incident and exhibit of the problem’s scope and magnitude.
This time, it was Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger who was abused and subjected to “monkey noises,” a racist equivocation that has become commonplace in global football. Rudiger was hardly the first global footballer subjected to the chants in 2019; with Boxing Day and New Year’s weekend fixtures ahead, it is with great sadness I inform you we can’t promise he’ll be the last.
In Europe alone, 2019 has seen the sport marred and maimed by racist abuse across country and competition.
This spring, England’s Danny Rose, who for now plays in front of and for Tottenham Hotspur, the same fans who racially abused Rudiger, lamented he can’t wait to retire from football just so he can escape regular racist abuse. The next time you think about white privilege, consider what Rose faces every time he puts on his shirt to go to work as a reasonable deductive starting point. The next time you argue soccer shouldn’t be political, think about the privilege you have to make that comment, which Rose could never make.
Rose was the tip of the iceberg.
In March, Chelsea lodged a formal UEFA complaint- again over “monkey noise” chants- this time aimed at young Callum Hudson-Odoi by fans of Ukrainian side Dynamo Kiev.
In April, Everton’s Moise Kean, then playing for Juventus, was racially abused in a match at Cagliari. Leonardo Bonucci, long regarded as perhaps the best technical defender in the world, used his platform to suggest that Kean deserved “50 percent” of the blame- presumably for having the audacity to celebrate a goal.
Meanwhile, in Islington, not too far from Scrooge’s 19th century counting chambers in north London, Arsenal launched an investigation into its own fans for racist chanting and songs directed at Napoli’s brilliant captain Kalidou Koulibaly. That same week, another London club, West Ham United, issued a statement condemning supporters singing anti-Semitic songs.
Earlier in 2019, Manchester United condemned racist attacks on star midfielder Paul Pogba, who threatened to “fight racism until the end.” He’ll need to, sadly.
In late April, many European players join a social media boycott to protest racist abuse on Twitter, highlighted by extensive racism directed at Ashley Young following Manchester United’s Champions League elimination to Barcelona. Twitter shut down several accounts, but United fans didn’t seem concerned with the boycott, and as spring blended into a new season over the summer, both Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba were subjected to racial abuse from Manchester United fans.
Rashford and Pogba stood tall against the abuse, with Rashford saying if “you attack one player of color, you attack us all” and Pogba promising to “fight racism for generations.”
Sadly, as evidenced by Mario Balotelli’s being abused in a game in Verona this November, or dailies like the Correiro Dello Sport deploying racist headlines to attack Inter Milan footballers Rom Lukaku and Chris Smalling this December, Rashford and Pogba will have plenty of racism to fight and a strident need for our solidarity.
International football is also plagued by racist and other discriminatory incidents.
Discrimination in football isn’t just racism.
In the US, there are inclusion problems- and a federation fighting a courtroom battle over whether its World Champions deserve equal pay for superior work.
Mexico’s supporters continue to rain homophobic chants on opposing goalkeepers, despite the FMF’s clearly stated condemnations and CONCACAF’s threats to punish El Tri if the chants persist. Until the threats for more punishment become real, whether in the stands, the FMF’s wallet, the qualifying table or all of the above, it’s hard to take the campaign to eradicate the chant seriously. Fans clearly don’t—with many gaslighters arguing that culturally, the clearly discriminatory and anti-LGBT chant is not actually homophobic. That bigots can proclaim such a take boldly is more proof they don’t fear the consequences of the chant, which was an immense part of the atmosphere seeping through television sets as Mexico won the Gold Cup last summer.
To the north of Mexico, in the United States, the US Soccer Federation remains embroiled in a court fight with its equal champions over whether women should receive equal pay for equal work, a battle it is fighting- and increasingly losing, from a legal perspective—all while it continues to exclude entire swaths of Latino and rural populations from the sport from an access standpoint.
The point, I think, is that racism and discrimination in soccer is systemic: the rash of racist incidents across the globe are just symptoms of the larger disease.
In Brazil, supporters of the Seleção opened the Copa América, one of the greatest soccer tournaments on earth, with racist chants and homophobic slurs aimed at Bolivian players, including goalkeeper Carlos Lampe.
One of the thinly veiled, suspension of disbelief things about sport generally is that spectators often find themselves cheering in a sporting vacuum for individuals they would obstruct or discriminate against in other walks of life. It’s easy to suggest you aren’t part of the problem when you cheer for and canonize players of color on Saturdays and Sundays, even when vote against their interests and endorse politicians and policies that oppress and subjugate many of them Monday-Fridays, I suppose.
Brazil’s brilliant national team and its relationship to racist and discriminatory fan culture may embody this odd sociopolitical fissure or reality fragmentation more than any team in the world, including the reigning world champions France, who have dealt with a similar interpellation between political identity and sport.
The rise of Brazil as a football power corresponded with the evangelical mission of the ruling class to bring football to the favela. Soccer being as a sport of the monied and elite in Brazil, it wasn’t until the game spread to the favelas, and players like Leonidas, were able to play and showcase their skills that Brazil became good and soccer became a source of deep national pride.
Brazil’s greatest players- Pelé, Garrincha, Didi, Jairzinho, Ronaldinho- were and have almost all been black men– all skilled in a cunning way of play that is historically linked to the favelas. That Brazilian fans continue to engage the difference that has made them uniquely great with hate and bigotry speaks not just to Brazilian hypocrisy, but instead to the depths of racism and discrimination’s claws in the sport.
On the European continent, the hatreds are sometimes more tribal, but no less intense.
This year, UEFA ordered Montenegro to play Euro qualifiers with Kosovo this summer behind closed doors after repeated racist songs and chants against England last spring. UEFA repeated the punishment with Bulgaria this October, demonstrating a boldness of action that is rare—something we should see more of in global sport, but sadly do not.
Perhaps Downing Street’s Monday dictate that the Premier League establish strict consequences for racism in the sport will create leadership as well—to date, too many of the globe’s prominent leagues, as well as emergent ones like Liga MX and MLS—have been too silent or too tepid in their resolve to countenance and crush racism.
A longtime corporate dream of football has been to count money and look away from racism, to hope it goes away on its own or doesn’t impact the ever-expanding bottom line.
Aside from the moral crisis created by looking away from injustice, there are corporate problems with these strategies in this contemporary moment. First, soccer (and sport) is always-already inherently political, and the do nothing approach only opens more space for racism to flourish and operate freely in supporters’ cultures. The more racism and bigotry permeate your supporters’ culture, the less family friendly your product is, impacting you at the gate.
Second, shunning is once again becoming an increasingly prevalent political strategy– precisely because it does impact the bottom line. If your league or your club won’t deal with racism, enough supporters or fans will find clubs or watch leagues that will, or cheer loudly—from the comfort of their couch. And while club allegiances are often the last to go, corporate sponsors know that fans will quickly abandon their allegiances to corporate sponsors who endorse environments or racism, discrimination and hate.
Perhaps, for soccer, this year’s Christmas miracle will see the Premier League use this terrible year to become a global leader in tackling racism in football.
Anti-Racism Social Club #RCTID #MLS #PORvNYC pic.twitter.com/VT2jTKDLHO
— Jamie Goldberg (@Jamiebgoldberg) April 22, 2018
Or maybe a younger league, where the old parochial tribalism and bitterness is a bit less entrenched, will lead the way.
MLS, still a young league buoyed by an expansion bubble- could- and should- see leadership on eradicating racism in soccer as an opportunity.
Unfortunately, the league has waffled on the issue, choosing the apolitical path of least resistance, or so it thought.
When a brawl between members of a well-known far right, fascist group of fans of the club NYC FC and New York Red Bulls supporters broke out last season, MLS had a chance to make a statement. In the aftermath, NYC FC CEO Brad Sims issued a statement denouncing hate speech and hate-related conduct, but MLS Commissioner Don Garber balked, telling longtime American soccer journalist Jonathan Tannenwald that the problem was not widespread and that “our job is not to judge and profile any fan”.
Ultimately, the league elected to ban all political content in stadiums, a problematic decision that suggests that all political speech is the same and a truly bizarre decision for a young league that specifically targets a young, progressive, politically active demographic at the gate.
Maybe MLS will do better next time.
Corporate and league leadership on the issue is a cynical path to change, but in the multibillion-dollar industry of global football, it’s one that’s needed. Raised voices and player and fan solidarity hasn’t been enough. What is needed is good corporate governance and an institutional commitment to change. That part- the institutional part of fighting embedded hatred- always takes the longest.
Until then we tackle racism brick by brick, with the pen, with our wallets and yes, with our Christmas wishes.
Neil W. Blackmon is co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.