Category: the Rant Board
During england's match with Spain last night in Madrid, every time Ashley Cole, Sean Wright-Philips, Germaine Genus or Germaine defoe, all of whom are black players, were anywhere near the ball, the disgraceful and disgusting Spanish crowd performed racist monkey chants. This was not only in a small prooportion of the stadium, but it was from all parts of the ground and it was blatantly obvious to anyone watching that a very large proportion of fans were participating. Now, I guess we shouldn't be shocked at this after Spain's manager yesterday said that he understood that the English regarded black people as colonials at his pre-match press conference, but I was shocked and stunned at the scale of this attitude that seems to be a relic of general Franco's regime. But you know what's worse? Fifa, the international world football governing body, are refusing to take tough action against the Spanish FA! This is the same body that threatened to throw England out of two previous tournaments in recent times for the behaviour of their fans, and the same governing body who make thinly veiled threats before every tournament directed at british supporters. We have certainly been guilty of misbehaviour in the past as British fans, and I don't condone that at all. On the contrary, I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. But why oh why when Spain's fans indulge in perhaps the worst case of racism in western European football in the last ten years or so, do FIFA come out with pointless plattitudes such as 'The players would have been in real trouble if they had refused to continue'? What else can the players do if 20000 Euros is the maximum penalty that Fifa are prepared to enforce! It's a bloody disgrace and I hope that common sense will prevail and Spanish fans will be barred from the next few home games or something like that! And I hope it means that the 2012 olympic bid tendered by Madrid will be seriously set back by this nonsense. how could the International Olympic Committee ever justify bringing the olympics to this cauldron of racism?
For once I am in complete agreement with you Sir LL, I saw that on the news and couldn't believe what I was hearing. They should've thrown the lot of em out of the stadium for behaviour like that....Frey.
Yeah, this is horrendous. Admittedly it worked, the British team played one of their worst games in recent history and lost, but there is no excusing for racist chants, totally unprovoked, even the coah is very openly racist. Spain should ultimately get a warning that if this continued they'd be banned from major football tournaments such as the worldcup 2006, they deserrve no less.
Thats dispicable! I hope they throw the book at the lot of them!
FORMULA 1 is one of the few sports with no cowardly management or racisim and a rule book thats thicker than War & Peace!, Maybe FIFA should take a leaf of their book.
The english FA has responded with its usual ineptitude: David Davies, the chairman, is no here to be seen, and all that is being done apparently is a formal letter is being written expressing our disappointment at the behaviour of the Spanish fans. expressing our disappointment? I bet we are, and over a glass of their finest wine no doubt! What a bloody unmittigated shambles! If I were David Davies I'd be knocking down the doors of the Spanish fA's headquarters saying that I would not tolerate young men representing england being treated in that manner! Additionally, an acknowledgement and condemnation by the Spanish FA would be nice, wouldn't it? And a condemnation from the Spanish Olympic Association would surely be welcomed, wouldn't it? Well, neither have been forthcoming. both had the opportunity to condemn what has happened when asked about it by the media, and both remain resolutely silent to date. Well, all I can say is I am even more disgusted as this and I become more disgusted the more I hear about it. spanish papers apparently covered the game in full, but devoted two or three sentences only to the monkey chants, and even then only to point out that the spanish FA may be fined. Moreover, if you turn to the comment section of Spain's most popular paper, you will see a comment on last night's incident to the effect that the English media were to blame for asking the Spanish coach about a racist comment he made last month concerning Arsenal's Thieri Henri, another black player. What absolute bull shit! all right, the media did ask him that question, aut they were bound to! In any case, the media didn't make the Spanish fans take flags with Fascist symbols into the ground, did they? Nor did they make them chant and heckle the black players. Such has been the breathtaking incompetence with which this affair has been handled that I would question Madrid's ability to stage a sporting event for at least the next five years.
it seems the spanish have taken up the baton re football trouble where the brits left off. and they had the nerve to preach to us?
Quite right, dobin, and I notice that the daft racists haven't had the guss to apologise for it yet. To their credit, though, Fifa are taking some sort of action it seems. Well, I think that4 everyone living in and around the British coast should hire a boat as soon as they can and go and sink as many Spanish trawlers as possible when they come to fish in british waters. i mean, they shouldn't be fishing in our waters anyway and if it wasn't for the stinking EU we wouldn't have let them!
Your partly wrong there LL.
...............
The Spanish goverment have apologised on behalf of the black players,but this behaviour has seriously compramised Spain's bid to host the olympics and also the paralympics, if these tossers cant handle seeing a few black players then how the hell would they cope with disabled athletes!.
Apologise Shmologise as far as I'm concerned Goblin, I'm afraid. You're right, they have apologised after a fashion, but never do they say they condemn what happened. and another thing: the only member of the Spanish government to apologise was their sports minister, and as we all know, that's the equivalent of an apology from the awful Tessa Jowell whilst Tony Blair remains silent. I only hope it means that English players won't go over to play for the Madrid clubs.
Well, I'm pleased to report that after more than three weeks of waiting patiently, the Spanish FA have finally been coerced into some action. The spanish team manager is now facing an inquiry over racist remarks that he made about Arsenal's French striker Thieri Henri, and the rant he lapsed into at a press conference the night before the match with England in which he made rather offensive and insulting references to Britain's exploitation of the slaves in our colonial past. These events were widely believed to be the backdrop against which the filth in the Spanish crowd prosecuted their daft racism against the black English players on the night of the match in the form of monkey chants. well done to the Spanish FA, I say, but why wait so long? And in any event, I stand by that I said about Fifa having no guts as they have refused to take the lead on this issue. I hope that if the inquiry finds, as it should, that the comments made by the Spanish coach were misplaced and wrong that he will be removed from his post.
This goes on and on, doesn't it? Now Luis Aragones, the daft racist Spanish coach, is reported to have said of one of his players Jose Antonio Rias, 'you're a gipsy who's better than the black' (another reference to Thieri Henri)
This is horrible. Why don't they take some action! It's dispicable behavior and just think--the youths of today are going to see it and see no action taken and think it is okay! Well some of them anyway. This is wretched.
Caitlin
It's because the filth in FIFA are biased against the english due to our past indiscretions. admittedly, there were some complete imberciles who frequented football matches in the eighties and caused a lot of trouble, with the consequence that English domestic club such as Liverpool and Manchester United were banned from all European competitions between 1986 and 1991. Here, however, the Spanish FA are only fined a piffling pathetic and wretched sum and no further action is taken! If it had happened in england, you mark my words, the book would have been thrown at us, but like a lot of sports administrators at the moment, FIFA are not taking the lead.
And meanwhile David Beckham and Michael Owen continue to play for Real madrid when they could easily return to the premiership? Well, David Beckham doesn't have a mind of his own and it's Posh Spice who wears the trousers in that household, we all know that, but Michael Owen I expect better of you.
Well, the treatment of those black players is what angers me. How dare people? What does their race have to do with it, for crying out loud!
Caitlin
Yes there is that of course, coupled with the weak leadership of the english FA, lilylivered beggars that they are, and the anti-English and indeed anti-British bias in FIFA. The spanish are allowed to fish off the coast of Cornwall by the stinking EU, and if the Lawlord were in charge of the navy I'd order the home fleet to put to sea and blast the hell out of them.
Beckham has been dropped from real madrid for doing what we all knew he would under performing....
Come on LL your man will go where the money is Michael Owen is in the game to bleed it dry and make his name meanwhile the racisim and corruption can go to hell that kind of deliberate blind ignorance is almost as difficult to comprehend as the racisim and arrogance of the spanish.
What? I don't get what you mean, Goblin, sorry. Seriously, I don't mean to be rude. But could you explain?
Caitlin
I think he's referring to the anti-English bias in the FIFA, and I'm sorry but there certainly appears to be that sort of a bias. It doesn't apply to Scotland, but it certainly applies to us and yet we've done more to try and stamp out complete idiots attending football matches than any other European nation. all right, we haven't achieved a 100 percent success rate, but it's improved beyond recognition from the days of the mid to late eighties. FIFA have got to wake up to that and start concentrating on the cauldron of racism in Madrid. beckham's been dropped has he? Well I can't say I blame Real Madrid for that if he plays for them in the same passionless way he plays for England nowadays.
Is this topic now an old chestnut? Not a bit of it I'm afraid! The joke goes on and becomes ever more ridiculous! Last week, fans at athletico Madrid subjected Brazilian Black player Roberto Carlos to monkey chants. How much did the Spanish FA fine the club? £420! That's about $600! You get fined more than that for arguing with the referee or if the coach stands too close to the field of play! Now why, in the name of bloody hell as Victor Meldrew used to say, are the Spanish so ambivalent about it to the point that they're doing virtually sod all to resolve it?