The semifinal round of CONCACAF (North American and Carribbean) zone World Cup qualifying concluded on Wednesday. Advancing to the final "Hexagonal" round are: USA, Panama, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Guatemala and Costa Rica. The surprise elimination was that of Jamaica's Reggae Boys, who were bounced despite a 1-1 away draw to the US; they paid the price for failing to win any of their three home qualifiers (including a shock loss to Panama). The US-Jamaica match featured yet another goal by young Eddie Johnson, who cooly netted his 5th goal in only his 3rd cap, thus becoming the first American in history to score in his first three international appearances. Since he played only briefly in the first two matchs and scored early in Wednesday's match, his 5 goals came in less than an hour of actual playing time.
The big news in Wednesday's action was in Madrid where Spain and England played a "friendly." Spanish fans hurled racist abuse at England's several black players, making monkey noises every time midfielders Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Philips touched the ball. This was the day after the exact same thiing happened at a match between the same two countries' under-21 youth national teams.
I'm sure the self-styled "anti-political correctness" crowd will think the monkey chants are ok.
Several weeks ago, Spain's coach Luis Aragones referred to French striker Thierry Henry as "that black sh*t." Henry is one of the best players in the world and, unlike Aragones, is seen to have a bit of class. He did the usual "I'm sorry if I offended anyone" bit, adding the obligatory "I have many black friends" line and everyone thought the issue was over.
No, that would be too boring.
Aragones revived the controversy on Tuesday by turning it back on Britain. "I know who is racist. I remember the colonies. There are people who ran after them like wolves after prey," said the Spanish boss, apparently unaware that his country had a pretty large empire too.
Not surprising, Aragones refused to condemn the racist chants after Wednesday's game (though his employers did apologize).
Many English commentators think the team should've walked off the field, including players' union chief Gordon Taylor and former Coventry City and Southampton manager Gordon Strachan.
Strachan wrote in The Guardian that the FA, England's soccer federation, is saying that Uefa and Fifa [respectively, the governing bodies of European and world soccer] should do something about the racism. Well do something yourself. Show how brave you are. Taking the team off would have been a great stance. The whole world would have taken notice.
I'm generally a supporter of anyone-but-England (except Mexico), but I have to agree with Strachan. The racist abuse was garbage and there was no reason for England's team to tolerate it. The match wasn't an obligatory World Cup or European qualifier; it was a friendly, an exhibition voluntarily agreed upon by the English and Spanish federations. If the Spanish authorities weren't able to fill their part of the bargain by controlling this racist crap (Spanish officials or even players could've made announcements asking the crowd to knock it off), then that certainly freed England from its part of the bargain.
Frank McGahon, over at Internet Commentator, notes that for the terrible reputation English fans have, that sort of racism would not have been tolerated in English stadia. Such racism was commonplace in England through the 80s, but a concerted effort by the country's entire soccer structure has significantly diminished this crap.
Frank writes: Anyone tempted in the future to label all British football fans as hooligans because of the actions of a tiny minority of violent thugs and who assumes the European football fan to represent the acme of civilised behaviour would do well to pause and instead consider the fact that this racist barracking, unthinkable at British grounds, is commonplace at European football grounds and is, at best, tolerated by the entire crowd, at worst, celebrated.
BBC Online explored the question of racism in Spanish soccer. Liverpool's Spanish manager Rafael Benitez claims that it's not a problem.
But Frank's comments rightly point out that discussion should not be limited to Spain. The exact same racist monkey chants were directed at some English players during a Euro 2004 qualifier in Slovakia a few years ago.
Though Frank and I have had an interesting exchange as to why some offensive chanting is seen as tolerable (Mexican fans chanting 'Osama' at American players, Irish nationalist or loyalist sectarian songs in Glasgow) but others (racist ones) provoke an international incident.
The irony is that before Wednesday's match, the Spanish federation aired a video entitled 'All United Against Racism in Football.'
2 comments:
Is there any way that a ref can penalize a team for the actions of fans during a game? For example, in basketball the ref can call a technical foul on the home team for the actions of fans. I believe that you can assess penalties in football too.
I think that would be the best way to handle it. Crowd out of control? Put the other team on the stripe. Maybe that would not be a big deal in a friendly, but let's see what happens the first time that racist fans cause their team to lose a World Cup qualifier.
I know that a ref can give individual fans red cards. I saw it happen at a high school game! And for a reason which no one in the stands could figure out, even those close to the ejected. But I don't know what they can do on the field during a game when it's large segments of the crowd. Usually that's handled after the fact by a governing body.
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