England Outraged by Spanish Racism
 

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England outraged by racist chants

Reuters

LONDON -- Britain will seek action from Spain after England's black soccer players were racially abused by the crowd during Wednesday's friendly international in Madrid.
Monkey noises were heard when Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips touched the ball during England's 1-0 defeat and regular chants of "If you are not f**king black jump up and down" were sung by parts of the 55,000 crowd at Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.


"There is no place for racism in football or modern society, and I strongly believe that action needs to be taken at the highest level," British Sports minister Richard Caborn told BBC radio.

"I will be writing tomorrow (Thursday) to the Spanish sports minister to express my outrage at their behavior."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was "very disappointed" by the chants and Minister for Europe Dennis MacShane had telephoned his Spanish counterpart on Thursday to tell him of the "outrage across Britain".

The English FA had already complained that racist chanting marred Tuesday's under-21 friendly between the two countries and will contact world body FIFA after Wednesday's scenes.

"We will be making a full report on this to FIFA and to UEFA and will be sending a letter of complaint to the Spanish Federation. Football as a whole should stand up and express its disgust at what has gone on here," FA spokesman Adrian Bevington said.

The Spanish Football Federation's press officer Fernando Garrido said some of the blame lay with English reporters, a sentiment echoed by the Spanish press on Thursday.

"Were there racist chants against some players? This hasn't happened in the Spanish league and Spain for many years," he said. "So you (English reporters) should ask yourselves what you have done to contribute to all this."

FIFA said it would issue a statement later as it had not yet received formal correspondence from the English FA.

London and Madrid are battling to host the 2012 Olympics and the aftermath of Wednesday's scenes could spice up the rivalry. The International Olympic Committee said it would also issue a statement later.

BEHAVIOR CONDEMNED

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who experienced racist fans when he was at Italian club Lazio, said: "The issue of racism is big. There must be a protest through official ways. I am against racism and it should not happen in 2004 in any country."

England captain David Beckham told the FA's website: "It's disappointing when it happens anywhere in world football because we all know how wrong it is - and so many people are working so hard to cut it out of the game."

Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballer's Association which represents English players, said the team should have been taken off in protest.

"The message should have come down from the FA directors, to say we will take responsibility for this and take them off," he told the BBC.

Spain coach Luis Aragones was only prepared to answer questions on his team's performance.

"I've always said my conscience is clear and I only want to talk about football," he said.

The 66-year-old was involved in controversy last month when he made racist remarks about France striker Thierry Henry in an attempt to motivate his Arsenal team mate Jose Antonio Reyes.

The British press grilled Aragones on the issue before the game and reacted angrily to the scenes at the Bernabeu.

"England lost a football match last night but Spain shamefully lost something more important - Spain lost their right to be considered a civilized football nation," the Daily Telegraph said.

In the 1980s racism, along with hooliganism, blighted the English game but campaigns have helped to all but eradicate it, making the scenes in Madrid all the more shocking for British viewers.

"Sanctions should include stopping all Spanish participation in European football until Spain comes up with an action plan," Piara Power, director of "Let's Kick Racism out of Football", told Reuters.

The Spanish national side has no black players but Brazilians Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos at Real Madrid, as well as Ronaldinho of Barcelona, encounter few problems in La Liga.

Re: England Outraged by Spanish Racism
 

I read this quote too quickly and thought it said "There is no place for racism or football in modern society."

wow.

My friend, who's a huge British football fan, posted this on his LJ yesterday.

I'm still outraged. :mad:

The Spanish coach is also one racist mofo. During training, he described French's attacker Thierry Henry as "negro de mierda." Italian hooligans are worst. Imagine sitting down at a Lazio game and a guy dress up us hitler yelling Mein Kempf. THat has happen. Plus, black players get pelted with banana everytime they go out on the pitch. ugly ugly ugly.

This is outrageous.

Pretty strong words to describe someone... literally "a sh*tty n*gg*r".

Mein Kampf is Adolf Sh*tler's magnum opus of anti-Semitic (and anything else that didn't conform to his racial standards) vitriol... perhaps you meant the numbnuts in the stands was quoting from it?

Yes, I deliberately misspelled the name of Der Führer. And reading Mein Kampf is an exercise in futility - guaranteed to bore anyone to death with his turgid prose, if you don't raise the B.S. flag on evert turn of the page.

Re: England Outraged by Spanish Racism
 

Is there such a thing?

wow those British have a minister for everything. I want to be Minister of Suing Spain. Racism pisses me off, but I'm glad of that this racism had nothing to do with America.

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slu...ters&type=lgns

Spanish FA urged to launch probe into Aragones

By Simon Baskett

MADRID, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Spain's Anti-violence Commission has asked football authorities to launch an urgent disciplinary investigation into remarks made by national coach Luis Aragones before last month's friendly against England.

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The Commission, which reports to the government-run sports council (CSD), urged Spanish Football Federation president Angel Maria Villar to set up the probe when he appeared before the body on Friday.

"The declarations were inopportune and they have to be dealt with," said Commission president Rafael Blanco. "The law is the same for everyone and the Anti-violence Commission wants to condemn and combat racism by all the means within its power.

"Opening such an investigation does not mean there will necessarily be any final punishment .... but such behaviour could be considered as serious or very serious and could carry a penalty such as being barred from a position or a heavy fine."

Blanco said that Villar had explained that the Federation had not opened an investigation because Aragones "had not been trying to instigate any conflict and had subsequently apologised for his action."

Aragones made the remarks when he was defending himself against accusations of racism following comments he made about France striker Thierry Henry.

Quizzed on the eve of the friendly against England, Aragones mounted an energetic defence of his actions.

"The problem of racism is, in my opinion, a question of conscience and all I can say is that mine is clear," said Aragones before asking the reporter who had put the question: "Is your conscience clear? I doubt it.

"I know who is racist, I remember what happened in the (British) colonies. Who was it who were like wolves hunting down deer?

"I'm not a racist but you lot will write what you want. I've a lot of black friends who have explained to me that the English were after them in the colonies."

RACIST ABUSE

The friendly against England was marred by racist abuse and chanting directed at visiting black players by sections of the crowd at the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid.

Aragones landed himself in trouble in October when he was heard telling Spain's Jose Antonio Reyes that he was better than "that black shit", referring to the forward's Arsenal team mate Henry during a training session before a World Cup qualifier against Belgium.

The 66-year-old apologised for his remarks, saying he had "never intended to offend anyone."

Anti-violence Commission president Blanco said that the problem of racism in Spanish football went much deeper than Aragones's remarks.

"We are clear that xenophobic behaviour didn't start with the Spain-England match, but existed well before that in Spanish football. The roots of the problem do not lie in what Aragones said but in the behaviour of certain groups in society."

He also said that Spain could learn a lot from other countries about how to deal with the problem.

"The action that other countries take is an example for Spain to follow," he said.

"If we need to change the law we will do so in order to deal with this more firmly and that's why we want to learn from the experience of the countries around us."

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slu...ters&type=lgns

Spanish FA fined over racist chants at England game

ZURICH, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The Spanish Football Federation was fined 100,000 Swiss fancs ($87,340) on Tuesday for the racist chanting of its fans at the friendly match against England in Madrid in November.

World ruling body FIFA announced the punishment on Tuesday following a meeting of its disciplinary committee.

Several black England players were subjected to monkey noises and other abusive chants from the crowd during their 1-0 defeat at the Bernabeu stadium on November 17.



The punishment also took into account racist abuse at the under-21 match the previous evening.

FIFA, which has adopted a strong anti-racism stance, warned in a statement that any repeat of the racist behaviour could result in them playing behind closed doors or expulsion from one or several FIFA competitions.

The Spanish Football Federation is also investigating the behaviour of national team coach Luis Aragones after his controversial comments about Arsenal's black French player Thierry Henry and England's colonial past before the match.

It's almost (I said almost) funny that this would occur in Spain. Does anyone know why Spaniards are typically very dark skinned, etc.?

Try 800 years of occupation by people from northern Africa who happened to be black :D

If the typical Spaniard wants to look down upon people of African descent, they need look no further than the mirror. When I was in Spain a few years back, it was a VERY homogenous place. I guess a few inquisitions will do that though.

co-sign