Racism: The ugly side of Football is back again

But it is the tone-deaf reaction that followed which has enraged players and anti-discrimination campaigners. When the Italian Football Association’s (FA) disciplinary body reviewed the incident, it handed Muntari a one-match ban for the two yellow cards while absolving Cagliari on the grounds that “only 10 fans were involved”.According to The Independent, Cagliari’s vice-president Stefano Filucchi insisted that “nobody here heard anything”, and the Gazzetta

According to The Independent, Cagliari’s vice-president Stefano Filucchi insisted that “nobody here heard anything”, and the Gazzetta dello Sport, the country’s top newspaper, accused Muntari of “losing his head”, while largely ignoring the incident.

“Only a callous commission would ignore the full picture of what went on here,” Piara Powar, executive director of the anti-discrimination Fare Network, told The Associated Press. “It’s set a very dangerous precedent. There are recurring incidents and the Italian football authorities are not dealing with them in the right way.”

The Italian FA did make some amends, rescinding the ban, but only after FIFPro, the world players’ union, and the head of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, weighed in.

As critics have pointed out, the FA’s handling of the Muntari saga shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Its chief, Carlo Tavecchio, had himself served a six-month suspension for racism in 2014, after referring to black players as “banana eaters”. A year later he was censured for anti-Semitism when he was caught on tape saying, “I don’t have anything against Jews, but it’s best to keep them under control.”

“If you thought the sheer volume of racist abuse directed towards players would have provided the authorities ample experience on how to clamp down on this sort of nonsense, you would be severely mistaken. Italian soccer history is littered with black players getting abuse from the stands and their fellow players, yet the FA merely offers half-hearted punishments to the offenders, and even these instances of vile characters getting their comeuppance are even few and far between,” writes Aanu Adeoye in SB Nation, the sports website.  Italian football didn’t have to wait long for its next indiscretion either.

A week after the Muntari episode, a furious Mehdi Benatia cut short his interview with broadcaster Rai after hearing a racist slur in his earpiece. While speaking to studio presenters after his side’s 1-1 draw with Torino, the Juventus defender says he heard a voice in his earpiece asking: “What are you saying, s***** Moroccan?” The remark was not heard by viewers but Benatia stopped mid-sentence and said: “Who said that? What stupid person is speaking?”
Rai has apologised and claimed that the slur came from the stadium, but the incident once again highlighted the prejudices plaguing the game in the peninsula.

Four years ago, in another such high-profile incident, then AC Milan midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng had stormed off the pitch during a friendly against third-division Pro Patria after continuous monkey chanting in the terraces. In solidarity, his team-mates had followed him out, among them Sulley Muntari.
FIFA has now promised action against the Italian FA, with its president, Gianni Infantino, offering to meet Muntari and Tavecchio.

But the world football body’s own efforts in tackling the issue are far from exemplary. Last September, FIFA disbanded its Taskforce Against Racism and Discrimination, which was set up in 2013, on the ground that it had “completely fulfilled its temporary mission”.

While the taskforce did make progress — FIFA set up an Anti-Discrimination Monitoring System for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers on its recommendation — there has been none of the “zero-tolerance” attitude to discrimination that the world body had promised.

If that wasn’t enough, critics point to where FIFA will hold its show-piece event, the World Cup, in its next two editions. Both Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) have questionable records in dealing with prejudice. While homosexuality attracts the death penalty in Qatar, the Russian FA’s disciplinary body, The Guardian says, “is a pioneer” of punishing players standing up to racism. As per The Guardian, the body’s head, Artur Grigoryants, banned FC Ufa’s Ghanaian midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong in 2015 for gesturing at racists; Rostov’s Gabon midfielder Guelor Kanga for three games in 2014 for “insulting” them; French defender Christopher Samba for two games in 2014 for an “unpleasant gesture”; and Alania’s Ivorian Dacosta Goore in 2013 for the same offence. In 2015, Grigoryants explained his decision: “These so-called, in inverted commas, victims … they keep losing control.”

It is against this backdrop, Aanu Adeoye argues, that FIFA’s decision to disband its anti-racism task force “still boggles the mind”. “With the World Cup heading to Russia where the soccer culture is still virulently racist, it takes a certain amount of cognitive dissonance for the gatekeepers of the game to argue that racism has been solved. Where do soccer authorities stand in the fight between good and evil? With all the evidence we have, the answer is quite clear,” he writes.

Which is why columnists such as Darren Lewis believe that Muntari and other black players should keep walking off until racism is addressed. “A culture exists within Italian football that has made it acceptable in some areas to demean players on the basis of the colour of their skin. Despite the good of so many within their game, there is an ugly side which needs to be addressed urgently. Until that happens, players like Muntari have to take matters into their own hands. It is the only way that they will force Italian football to confront its problems…,” Lewis writes in The Mirror.