Letter from a Reader:
Racism, Gay Bashing, Nazism, the World Cup, and the "Beautiful Game" of Soccer
June 30, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Before the World Cup began in Brazil, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff pledged a "World Cup without racism" because, as she put it, "It is unacceptable that Brazil, the country with the largest black population after Nigeria, has racism issues." But further, racism is deeply embedded in the game of soccer throughout the world.
It didn't take long for Rousseff's pledge to be violated. In Germany's second match of the World Cup, against Ghana, a number of Germans showed up in "black face," with some wearing black afro wigs. A couple of Germans in "black face" crudely scribbled "Ghana" on their shirts. It was reported that at least eight people wore "black face" at that match and that many other white people lined up to have their pictures taken with these racists. It was also reported that some German fans were yelling "monkey" at the Ghanian players. Despite the fact that many people were outraged by this show of hate and racism and called for the expulsion of these fans, FIFA (International Federation of Association Football), the world governing body of soccer, did nothing and they failed to act on the patches they had World Cup players wear on their jerseys that said, "Say No to Racism."
Then we had another form of hate at the World Cup when the Mexican fans began chanting "¡EHHH...PUTO!" during goal and corner kicks. This chant was heard during the matches Mexico played against Brazil and Cameroon. "Puto" is a word that has been given a male gender from the word "puta" that translates to "bitch" and "whore." The male version of this word translates as "faggot" and is aimed at gay men and promotes homophobia, machismo, and misogyny. Once again FIFA gave lip service to this in promising an investigation, but then concluded that the chant "is not considered insulting in this specific context." You say what? This is a word that even the Mexican government has denounced, and FIFA says it is fine to use it? Fuck that shit! (See "Neo-Nazi Banners, Blackface, and Homophobic Chants: World Cup Fans Behaving Badly," by Sam Brodey, Mother Jones, June, 24, 2014.)
Revolution has written about homophobia in U.S. football. What was written about U.S. football can be said about homophobia in the world's game of football—soccer, that the atmosphere for gay people in soccer is just as hateful and toxic as the atmosphere for gay players in American football. SB Nation's Outsports has written about this where they told about a gay German player whose teammates waited to shower until after he left the locker room. (See "FIFA's failure to punish homophobia and racism among other things make soccer the harshest of sports," by Gotitletown.blogspot.com, June 20 2014.)
These racist and homophobic acts went unreported in the U.S. mainstream press and can only be found in the press of other countries and some lesser-known and underground U.S. publications. The only things people in the U.S. know about the World Cup are the sanitized coverage by ESPN and the U.S. press falling all over itself over the U.S. soccer team.
The press spent hours covering the incident at the World Cup when Luis Suárez of Uruguay bit Giorgio Chiellini in the match against Italy. We found out that Suárez had bitten two other players and had head-butted a referee in the club matches he has played in and has received suspensions for those acts. FIFA did suspend him for this most recent biting incident. But we did not learn that Suárez racially taunted Patrice Evra, a black French player, during a Premier League club match in England where Suárez appeared to commit an intentional foul by kicking Evra. A few minutes later, Evra, speaking Spanish, asked Suárez, "Why did you kick me?" Suárez replied, "Because you are black." Evra told Suárez to "shut up," and then Suárez said, "I don't speak to blacks." Evra then threatened to punch Suárez, and Suárez responded in Spanish in a way that could be understood as, ""Bring it on, blackie" or "do it, blackie" or "go ahead, blackie." Suárez was suspended for several matches by FIFA for his racist taunts towards Evra.
People watching the World Cup may have noticed that there are black players on every European national team that most would think would not have any black players. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why there are black players on the European teams, but do want to get into the racism aimed at these black players, not only from opposing fans, but also from their own fans.
Italy's Mario Balotelli reacts to the multiple instances of racism he faced at the World Cup.
Photo: AP/Antonio Calanni
Mario Balotelli is a black Italian soccer player. He was born of Ghanian parents in southern Italy. Italy does not allow for birth citizenship. You have to have at least one Italian parent to be a citizen if you are born in the country. Balotelli was adopted and raised by Italian parents, and he became an Italian citizen by applying for citizenship after he was 18 years old. Despite calling himself Balotelli, the last name on his identity card is "Barwuah," the name of his birth family. He is the best player on the Italian team, but Italian fans commonly shout at matches he plays in, "There are no black Italians." Silvio Berlusconi's (the former Prime Minister of Italy) brother Paolo, the vice president of AC Milan, Balotelli's soccer team since 2013, recently referred to him as "our little family nigger." At matches in Italy, Balotelli has monkey noises made at him, and the racists throw bananas at him on and off the field. In a pre-World Cup match, Croatian fans chanted monkey sounds at him and a banana was tossed on the pitch (field) at him. In response to all this, Balotelli defiantly stated, "Racism is unacceptable to me, I cannot bear it," and "If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to prison because I will kill him."
After Balotelli's Italian team was eliminated from this year's World Cup, an Italian attacked Balotelli on Instagram with "Mario do you know what the matter is? You're not Italian at all... quit it." Mario responded with a tweet of his own, "I'm Mario Balotelli, I'm 23 and I didn't choose to be Italian. I really wanted it because I was born in ITALY and I've always lived in ITALY." And referring to the fact that he did not play well in the final match of the World Cup, he tweeted, "This World Cup meant a lot to me and I'm sad, angry and disappointed with myself."
Balotelli has found anti-racist, white allies on the Italian soccer team. Star midfielder Andrea Pirlo, who will most likely retire after this World Cup, came to Mario's defense by saying, "We need Mario Balotelli. I'm not sure he really appreciates it yet, but he's a special kind of medicine, an antidote to the potentially lethal poison of the racist you find in Italian grounds." (For more on Mario Balotelli and black players in European soccer, see, "The Italian Exception" by Sean Wilsey, The New Yorker, June 24, 2014, and "Mario Balotelli and the New Europe" by Laurent Dubois, June 26, 2012, at Sies.duke.edu.)
Almost all the black players who play on European national teams and those from Africa who play on European club teams have recounted similar incidents that Mario Balotelli has faced—racist chants, monkey calls, bananas thrown at them, and few of them have found ways to combat these racist attacks.
In 2013, Kevin-Prince Boateng, who is Ghanian and plays on the Ghana World Cup team, kicked the ball in the stands at the Italian fans who were making monkey chants. He then took off his jersey and led his AC Milan team, which included two other Africans, off the field and they failed to return, thus ending the match, when the authorities were unable to stop the racist chanting. Boateng, whose brother plays on the German national team in this year's World Cup, said that if he heard any racist chants during the World Cup, he would, again, lead his team off the field.
The huge resurgence of Nazism in Europe has also erupted into soccer matches with the fans carrying large swastika flags and chanting Nazi chants. This affected this year's World Cup when Croatian soccer player Josip Šimunić was suspended from the World Cup because he led Nazi chants at a match in Croatia. The chant, "For the homeland—Ready," was the country's national slogan during Nazi rule in the early 1940s. In Poland, soccer fans have chanted "Jews to the gas" at opposing teams.
So there you have it. Don't just get carried away with only paying attention to what is happening between the two teams on the pitch in the World Cup. Be aware of all the ugliness that is deeply embedded in the world's "beautiful game" of soccer, and think about how in the future we can end this ugliness once and for all while retaining the beauty.
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.