Spaniards like to say they live in Europe’s most racially tolerant country. Soccer has shattered that myth.
In Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, Spanish fans bellowed out monkey chants last week each time a black English player touched the ball in a friendly match.
A month earlier, Spain coach Luis Aragones was caught by a TV crew using racist language about France striker Thierry Henry. He kept his job with little protest at home.
”I was shocked and I am still shocked at what happened,” Fifa president Sepp Blatter said. ”I am sad at this new expression of racism in a stadium that has been a temple of football.”
Two black players at the French club Bastia were roughed up and insulted by 30 fans after a match earlier this month.
Countries such as Spain traditionally sent emigrants abroad and began to experience widespread immigration only 15 to 20 years ago. Spaniards often say they entered the 20th century in 1975 — the year dictator Francisco Franco died.
”It took immigrants coming to this country for us to realise that we can be racist like any other country, like anybody else,” said Tomas Calvo Buezas, director of the Center for Studies of Migration and Racism at Complutense University in Madrid.
About 7,5% of Spain’s 40 million people are immigrants. The figure is higher in Madrid, where 13% are foreign born, Calvo Buezas said.
”Soccer stirs up raw emotions,” said Isabel Torrado, working at Dehesa Santa Maria, a cafe-bar just 100m from the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan stadium — home of the Sevilla soccer team. Several black men sat outside on benches, with overstuffed athletic bags at their feet.
”We have poor people coming around looking for work, and 70% of Spaniards barely have a cent saved in the bank,” she said.
After France won the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship with a team dominated by black and North African immigrants, 39% in a French survey said there were too many foreign-born players on the team.
”You would have thought people would be enamored with the team,” said Simon Kuper, a journalist specialising in sports and politics who has written the popular ”Football Against the Enemy”.
Fans of Italian teams Lazio and Verona have been warned about racist goading.
Known as Europe’s most tolerant country, even the Netherlands has seen repeated racial incidents and violence at The Hague-based club ADO The Hague. Dutch powers Ajax and Feyenoord are also notorious.
In central and eastern Europe — in countries like Slovakia, Hungary or Croatia — there are few blacks and the level of racial awareness is low.
Former Yugoslavia coach Ivica Osim said soccer racism in his region stemmed from a deep seated ”inferiority complex against larger, richer clubs or countries”.
”The racism in football is all about national identity,” said Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at Tanaka Business School in London. ”It’s a way of cementing your identity and singling out people who are not like you.”
Soccer racism is also rife in Israel, where 20% of the population is Arab.
”Today there is no game where they don’t curse Arabs, even if there aren’t any on the field,” said Rifat Turk, an Israeli Arab who played for Israel in the 1980s. ”People yell ‘Death to the Arabs’ like it’s going out of style.”
Despite anti-racism campaigns by Uefa and denunciations of racial abuse by Fifa, the message often goes unheard. The Spanish soccer federation was criticised for not firing Aragones after his comments about Henry a month ago.
”The response of the Spanish federation has been disappointing,” said Santiago Segurola, respected soccer writer for the daily El Pais. He said the body was in a state of ”decomposition with a leadership bloated by years of excess in power”.
In a similar incident seven months ago in England, former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson quit after he used a racial slur on TV to describe black defender Marcel Desailly, who is French.
Spain and much of Europe have laws against racism, but Calvo Buezas said they are not enforced.
”People are not used to the fact that being racist in public is reprehensible,” he said. ”Here, nobody will touch the coach (Aragones).”
Uefa last week boosted fines for racial incidents against Sevilla and Sparta Prague. Sparta must pay €39,500 (R310,142 ) and Sevilla €16,400 (R128,768 ), small amounts in a sport where top players earn millions.
Two days after the England game in Madrid, the Spanish Coalition Against Racism in Football set up a telephone hot-line to report racist incidents, and sent an letter of apologyto British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The incidents have certainly tarnished Madrid’s image as it bids to host the 2012 Olympics. The city is competing against Paris, London, New York and Moscow. Fifa says it could be several months before Spain is handed a punishment, with a fine the most likely.
That doesn’t satisfy Piara Powar, who heads an anti-racism program for England’s Football Association. He wants Spain suspended from all European soccer.
”This is not a cycle of events to be dealt with simply by a fine and a slap on the wrist,” Powar said.
Spaniard Eduardo Torrico, assistant sports editor at the sports daily AS, said: ”The only way to stop it is to take points away in World Cup qualification. Only something stern will make people wake up.” — Sapa-AP