Turning a blind eye; Fifa and Uefa are racist organisations

Posted on by Tony Attwood

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Turning a Blind Eye

Don McMahon

FIFA,EUFA, Some officials and some Turkish fans are racists, at least based on what I saw happening to Eboue in a Galatasary match recently. The former Gunner was fouled and rolling on the ground doing his usual pantomime of a dying swan when the hail of missiles started. Once he was resurrected, he prepared to take the throw-in but was immediately hit by an almost full water-bottle, batteries and other paraphernalia rocketed at him from the stands by irate Galatasary fans.

An article on ArsenalNews website reported this with video evidence but the moron who penned the article asked whether Eboue should have thought twice about going to Turkey, choosing not to criticize the Turkish cretins attacking Eboue and the game officials total indifference to these attacks!

Eboue pleaded with the referee to do something, and also pleaded with his own manager but NOTHING was done!

Why do I say that the unholy cabal of FIFA,EUFA and some officials are racists?

1) Because this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this in Europe, nor will it be the last time. Italy, and in particular certain Northern Italian teams are infamous for their racist chants, attacks and insults…just ask Mario Balotelli. Roberto Carlos had bananas thrown at him in Turkey and this happened in England when the first black players began their careers in the EPL and most recently with Ferdinand,Terry, Evra and Suarez confrontations.

2) Because FIFA and EUFA have known of this problem and have ignored it, or simply made token gestures to ¨remedy¨ it.  Septic Blatterfull’s exceptionally stupid, foot-in-mouth commentary last week about racial abuse being insignificant and racists’ comments leading to handshakes after the match, as well as  Platini’s indifference to continuous examples of racism throughout Europe, are proof sufficient.

3) Because officials in Europe have failed to stop games or threaten stadium management with severe consequences (well within their powers under the Laws of the Game) and, as in the case of Eboue and Balotelli, have ignored these horrible events while enjoying the spectacle of a black man being humiliated and abused by opposition (and occasionally home)supporters.

The FA seems to have gotten the message so why haven’t other European national associations woken up and smelt the roses? Any team can go anywhere in the world, except Europe and never see the slightest hint of racism BUT don’t come to Europe or else!

The answer is clear….the World Football governing bodies are lead by idiots and cretins who prefer to turn a blind eye to the continuous abuse of  minorities and are very reticent to take any meaningful action to protect minorities from this type of racial abuse. Here is what, as a minimum, needs to be done by our esteemed leaders at FIFA & EUFA in collaboration with their respective membership:

a)Immediately ban any player(s) adjudged to have used racial slurs against another player, a Club representative or management, for a significant period of games, to be determined by general consensus. Once the ban is over, require the offender(s) to travel across their country promoting racial equality and respect towards opponents, to youth and supporters associations and teams.

b) Suspend clubs who continue to permit such abuse to occur in their grounds. Again for a period of games to be determined by general consensus. If the Club fails to remedy the situation within a reasonable delay, they should be heavily fined and at worse banned permanently.

c) Require clubs to play a number of games behind closed doors until they have convinced the authorities that the racial abuse is being adequately dealt with.

d) Require that the National Association(s) involved, investigate and determine who did what, then pursue these racist fans or Club members/players legally, to the extent that local laws permit.

e) Repeat offenders should be automatically banned from the game for life and offending clubs receive a competitive ban for the remainder of the current season or the entire subsequent one.

f) Stiff compensatory fines should also be levied against player(s) and the Club…these monies can be paid to the abused players as partial compensation and mitigation for the public humiliation, embarrassment and suffering they endured at the hands of those ignorant fans.

g) Ensure that the offended persons have access to all legal recourse in pursuing justice and additional compensation.

h) Immediately suspend the game official(s) who failed to protect the player(s) from such abuse or to take action to re-mediate the situation. Pursuant to a full investigation, the officials should not officiate in any further games, until proven innocent of all charges period. If found to have ignored the Laws governing the protection of players and control of Match events, they should be required to follow a mandatory racial relations program and be reassessed regularly during their future match assignments.

i) Should further incidents of racism be ¨tolerated¨ by said officials, they should be permanently removed from the referees list.

j) National Associations who fail to handle their member Clubs racist issues, as describe above, should be banned from all International competitions until they have re-mediated such conditions to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

 

There is no such a thing as a little racism, sexism, intolerance or abuse. The slightest hint of such abuse MUST be dealt with immediately and thoroughly, in a fair, enlightened and just manner for all concerned. Draconian measures are not necessary if the approach taken by the authorities is rehabilitative and educationally based and proactively applied. Happy faced slogans and campaigns are fine but when they fail to prevent this type of abuse, then warnings are inadequate and severe punishment must become a recourse.  Stamping out racism easily takes priority over stamping out diving, dissent, cheating and other shameful failings in our Beautiful Game.

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14 Replies to “Turning a blind eye; Fifa and Uefa are racist organisations”

  1. The issue of whether Eboue was taunted racially or not is, at least as far as I have seen, unclear. That is not to say that there are some horrific things going on in Turkey, and it would not be surprising if the taunting was racist. (I believe that it was only 7 years ago the Turkish state actually allowed Kurds to give Kurdish names to their children – not exactly racist, but revealing of a mindset that is so different from anything that exists in many other countries).

    But as to whether Eboue should have known what he was going to get in Turkey… I don’t know enough about racial equality in Turkey to comment, and of course no one should ever have to hesitate about going anywhere for fear of racism, homophobia etc (which is why the awarding of the world cup to a country that had homophobia enshrined in its laws was so wrong), but I must openly admit I was surprised when he opted to go to that country.

    I have suffered from having abuse and stones hurled at me in the street, with the police doing nothing, when I lived outside Europe. It was frustrating because the local population thought I was French, but I did quickly think, “there must be an easier way to earn a living”. Maybe that’s my weakness; ultimately I returned to Britain.

  2. If I can give my thouhts on what a ref could/should do.

    First of all you must be wise about it and not see any word as being meant racist.
    As in my country there are not that many people from Africa present it happens a lot that you only have one coloured man in a team. If then for example a player of the other team shouts to a team mate: “you, cover that black” this is for me the same as saying: cover that red haired, that bold one, the blond one,… I can accept that they will not say : “you cover that number 6, oh no its 16 or is it 8” Because by then that player will be not covered at all.

    So I do think that when using an external criteria when shouting instructions to your teammates is something that has a racist intention.

    But I have sent off players of my field for using it towards the players themselves. I once send off a player after he was being fouled by a player who came from Africa. The player who was fouled said “chocolate” to him. Unfortunately for this player I heard him saying this and he could go to the dressing room. Because the word “chocolate” was meant to hurt him. The player from Africa was very grateful that I took care of it like that.

    So as a ref you should look at the circumstance a little bit. It’s not that there should be a list of words that are never allowed in fact.

    Another example in my country we don’t have many people with red hair. In dutch this is called “ros” hair. So a red haired player will hear “rosse” all the time. Both from his team mates and his own supporters. Then it is used as some kind of friendly nick name. Again an opponent can say from me as a ref: ‘cover that rosse”. But if people add words to it like “dirty rosse” they are in trouble.

    The same goes if the team mates of an African player use the word “chocolate” as a nickname of their players. Then it is mostly some kind of inside joke they have and use and with no bad feelings behind the word.

    So saying this word is forbidden is impossible if you ask me. But as a ref you must look at the way things are said because it can make a difference to who is saying it and to whom it is said.

    But the bottom line for me as a ref is clear: No racism on my field!

  3. Great article, Don McMahon. Whichever way you look at it there is no justification for the comment Septic Blatticunt made. How do you forget and forgive someone who just called you a black monkey? How do you shake hands with someone who has just called you a black monkey? I wonder if Septic Blatticunt and the said officials have ever seen a monkey in real life and not only on TV. Because if they have ever seen one, they will know how serious, hurtful and humiliating it is to be called a black monkey. What offence have black players committed to warrant such insults? Must black players suffer such humiliations because they want to play the game they love or take care of their families? Sometimes i wonder if these officials who claim to love the game really do. Are they not there because of the fat pay cheques they get?

  4. Tony,
    “I believe that it was only 7 years ago the Turkish state actually allowed Kurds to give Kurdish names to their children – not exactly racist, but revealing of a mindset that is so different from anything that exists in many other countries”.
    It’s not that long since it was illegal to register children with Catalan names in Spain. Hence why Cruijff decided to call his Amsterdam-born son Jordi, just to piss off the government in Madrid.

  5. Pursuant to a comment you made earlier addressed to me, where you called my position on not jumping to conclusions about Eboue’s abuse being racist, as me calling it “just routine harassement devoid of racism”, while your position was, “it was hit the black guy with whatever you can”, I would still like you to clarify your comment. I had replied to your post there but received no reply. Why do you think Eboue was racially abused? Because he’s black? Because he’s in Turkey? As Tony pointed out, it is still unclear whether Eboue was singled out because of his race.

    As I had mentioned earlier, there was another black Galatasaray player on the field as seen in the video. Was he abused too in this manner? If not, then why not, if race was the reason for this disgusting behaviour from the crowd? Is it possible that the crowd were actually reacting to something else, and it is other people who jump to the conclusion of racism because they see a black man being abused? What if a white man was hit with a water bottle? Would racism be the first thing that comes to mind?

  6. @Tony

    I don’t think awarding the World Cup to Qatar was wrong, at least for the reason you mention. It is a different matter that no one should be persecuted or outcast from society, but the laws of a nation are reflective of the pace of growth of a society (sometimes in fact are more archaic than that). Not every country in the world can be at the same stage of development as the European countries have reached. Even in my country, till recently homosexuality was outlawed as ‘unnatural’ and was a criminal offense. Even now, the judgement to decriminalise it, is under appeal with religious, and orthodox groups, and some political parties, taking the lead in challenging it. Does that mean my country should not play host to international events and should not receive tourists? Is isolation really the way forward? I would think exposure to other cultures is the best way for a society to continue to grow, while other nations must be respectful of that process even if they don’t agree with the current position.

  7. Shard….is your question addressed to me as the writer or to another poster…please clarify and if its to me,I’ll gladly reply. Sorry if I neglected to reply to a prior post…my wife has me on a leash, very short and curt so time is limited!

  8. I saw the video of the abuse on Eboue. Whether this was a racist attack or not, I believe the ref should have stopped the game. One item thrown can happen, then try and remove that fan, if not possible then keep a close eye on any further incidents.
    In the Eboue case there were many many items being thrown. Whether or not this was racist needs to be looked at after the game but regardless, the player was in danger and the referee should have abandoned the game. Then very heavy fines should be placed on the club whose supporters were throwing objects and any fans caught should have world-wide bans for life and be reported to the police for intent to cause actual bodily harm.

  10. The evidence is overwhelming that FIFA condones corruption within its own organisation regarding the selection of world cup venues- it is no surprise when it also condones and accommodates racism within the game. There has been evidence of racism directed at English based blacks players both within this country and those playing in Spain, Italy and Russia within the past year- and all UEFA and FIFA have done is deny the that the problem exists. The only problems that FIFA is willing to admit to within the game are those it can re categorise as individuals failings- then it will try to throw the book at them.
    Blatter and Platini are far from being fools and idiots- they will not admit to anything that criticises the organisations they represent- but they both head up organisations which are demonstrably not fit for purpose. FIFA especially is a joke- and Blatter has no moral authority to criticise anyone.

  11. Shard…..I spoke to my Turkish amiga (and Galatasaray fan) in Istanbul by Skype yesterday and she said that the other black players on the field for Galatasaray were Kasim Kazim (English apparently) and Felipe Melo who is on loan. She told me that opposition fans regularly throw insults and sometimes more solid objects at Melo but Galatasaray fans rarely do that. They may whistle and boo a player who is under-performing but that isn’t racism, just good judgement. Apparently Eboue has come in for a lot of stick from opposition fans for his tendency to dive and overact when injured and she did say that there IS racism, even at Galatasaray. She wasn’t at the match in question but watched it on TV and was astonished that Eboue was singled out and that the referee allowed the game to continue. Is it racially motivated…she seemed to think so. She said that Kazim wasn’t getting the same treatment like Eboue but that he has, in the past, had bananas and pineapple thrown at him in away games.

    What if a white man was hit with a water bottle? Would racism be the first thing that comes to mind? If he was hit by bottles thrown by non-white fans who have a reputation for doing such things, it might be considered racism but there are two things here; it is next to impossible to prove racism unless it is openly admitted and embraced by said fans and as my friend in Istanbul said, Turkey is know for its radical xenophobia as seen in numerous incidents against visiting European teams. The other equally serious aspect is that, regardless of race,creed or colour…this dangerous and uncivilized behaviour was tolerated by the officials, whose major duty is to protect the players at all times, along with ensuring a fair and firm application of the Laws to the benefit of the Game.
    My argument about Eboue being abused, whether racially or from simple fan harassment is still valid. Neither behaviour has any place in Football and must be harshly punished if the game is to progress.

  12. @Domhuaille

    Your above post is something I agree with. She SEEMED to THINK it was racially motivated is different from saying “it was hit the black man with whatever you can”. The facts are still unclear.

    This is not to say that racism isn’t a problem in football. I just don’t like people making accusations of racism without knowing the entire facts as I think this can in fact prove harmful to tackling racism. As you say, and I have said earlier, the behaviour of the Besiktas fans is deplorable and I agree that the referee definitely didn’t do his duty properly.

    On a side note, “Turkey is know for its radical xenophobia as seen in numerous incidents against visiting European teams”
    Also something I’m not sure about so won’t counter, but football hooligans are hardly the basis of judging the entire football fanbase or society. (If I judge English society by the football hooligans, press and even authorities, what image would I get?) Again, this is not to say that Turkish authorities don’t need to act. And while I have never been there, my sister has, and from her and what I’ve read, I wouldn’t think of Turkish society as inherently xenophobic. No more than many other societies at least.

    Anyway, that isn’t my main point, and I agree with you that the referee should have stopped the game, and that it is possible that Eboue was racially abused, but also possible that race had nothing to do with it. Either way the club and the ‘fans’ should face punishment.

    By the way, did you catch news of the fans in Germany firing rockets into the opposition stands? The match continued with officials holding umbrellas over players taking corners to protect them from getting hit. While in Argentina a match was called off due to fan violence.

    Stupidity, violence, racism are all present in football. The authorities have to clamp down on such things and you are right to pull up FIFA, UEFA and the lot. But equally I think we shouldn’t focus on the minority who behave this way as representing the entire society or all the fans.

  13. Shard…. have lived overseas for 11 years (but now am retired back home) and at no time have I ever judged an entire people,race or nation by its extremes. That said, when I ckaimed Turkey is xenophobic, I meant that a large part of its fanbase is very uncomfortable with foreign Football fans.
    I lived in Germany for two years, attended about 25 Bundesliga games across Germany and never saw the fans there behave like you described but the very fact that game officials held umbrellas over players says it all!
    If I were in Sepp Blatter or Platini’s shoes, I’d be very worried indeed about officials allowing such a game to continue. Where is common sense in all this?
    I also lived in Mexico for 8 years and saw some pretty heated games between the US & Mexico in the Azteca stadium as well as local Division 1 derbies and even worked in a school with kids of the Div.1 Club attending there, but rarely saw such behaviour.
    I don’t know about you but I feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with European stadium management,EUFA and FIFA’s refusal to see these issues and the nonsensical officiating and if it continues,it could ruin the game.The FA were able to eliminate hooliganism by the 90’s so why can’t FIFA and EUFA tackle the stadium management issues and questionable officiating in a similar fashion? Wait, I know why….because all it takes is a handshake at the end of the game!

  14. i agree with Shard regarding the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar and the illegalities of homosexuality there.

    alot is due to the development of the country and he makes a good point that homosexuality was illegal in many developed western countries until recently.

    the fact is, most countries legal systems are based on religion (10 commandmends, Koran etc.) and this means they differ.

    Personally, i think people should be totally free to do what they like as long as they do not impact negatively on others but that is too vague and puts too much faith in human nature.

    whilst qatar bans homosexuality, we shud also bear in mind that the UK bans polygamy and smoking cannibis etc. whilst i think people shud b free to do what they like.

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