I’ve been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. Growing up outside of sports-mad Boston, in the neighborhood of Larry Bird, Roger Clemens, Ray Bourque, Tony Eason (ahhh, oops) In the 80s, it was practically impossible not to be. And it’s definitely not the casual, “isn’t it fun” kind of fandom. It’s a kind of fandom.
As a fan and amateur athlete, and then a college sports journalist, I have always held dear the idea that sports bring out the best in us. This competition offers a window into the human spirit like no other. That it’s an important part of life and that there’s something valuable about winning, losing, and being rooted in sport. And, most importantly, this sport brings us together in a unique way by creating intimacy between strangers and a platform for deeper connections between people from all walks of life. More specifically, it allows us to share experiences of suffering to achieve something, to celebrate in victory and to agonize in defeat.
I’m not afraid to admit that nothing, other than my family, gives me as much pleasure as the “magical” moments of sport. In fact, I was wrong several times this weekend reading the stories of bravery, perseverance, and the role of sports as a healing tool in Sports Illustrated. article about preparing for this year’s Boston Marathon. I may or may not have said “This is our fucking city” under my breath and I renewed and affirmed my belief in the positive power of sport.
It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have observed over the past week the media coverage of several sporting incidents clearly showing how sport can also bring out the worst in people. Certainly, the surfacing of the Audio by Donald Sterling is part of my feeling of nausea. But I personally found out what happened to Daniel Alves and the continued inability of football culture to curb its long-standing problems with racism is all the more upsetting as it increasingly appears to be part of the culture of the game.
While the LA Clippers situation appears to be the thuggish act of a despicable individual, the Alves incident is only the most recent and well-publicized incident among the many cases where people are using football as a platform for the public communication of racist views. In fact, the Alves incident would have been the fourth banana throwing incident (in three countries no less) in one week. Let me say it again: Last week in 2014, people in 4 different soccer stadiums *threw bananas* at players. And please note that we’re only talking about one of them here in America – and that’s probably only because the victim responded in a way that created a stunning video and inspired a series of high-profile responses on social media. I wonder who is tweeting in support of the other three victims from last week and weeks before? And why is the NBA’s lifetime ban on Donald Sterling getting more coverage on the sports page of the Guardian’s UK website as I write this than the Alves incident or this wider outbreak?
(Photo: The Guardian | April 30, 2014)
(Photo: The Guardian | April 30, 2014)
Simply put, this conversation has been going on for far too long in the football world to be where it is today. Concrete example:
Driven by numerous high-profile incidents, CNN World Sport’s message “Racism in football the documentary is almost a year old
FIFA Buenos Aires resolution to fight racism will be 13 at the end of the World Cup
THE Anti-racist campaign Kick It Out the charity was founded in 1993
Bill Buford is excellent and terrifying “Among the thugs” took people into the world of football hooligans in 1992
Football is the world’s game – and yet it is far from having distanced itself from racism. It is shocking to recall that in November 2011, the head of FIFA Sepp Blatter told CNN that he believed racism on the field had been eliminated.
Before I go any further, it should be acknowledged that I find this topic difficult to discuss and that I am a white American male and cannot speak with authority about anything except from my personal perspective as an observer. But I am forced to wonder what is going on here, what is the role of the fans and what can bring about change?
Why have football stadiums become a place where this type of behavior has managed to exist in a very public way for much longer than almost anywhere else? I can’t help but believe that the shared emotion of the sport and fandom that I find so special also played a role in keeping this behavior alive for so long. It seems that the people in the stands are willing to put up with such abhorrent behavior, in part because of the “us versus them” attitude that bonding in their stadium allows them to have. As fans, we are drawn to sports to feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves, something special. This makes us reluctant to denigrate the group we are a part of and distance ourselves from the group – because this makes us feel less “in”. We gave up.
Aside from such terrible things as racism, think about what we as fans are willing to accept in terms of a moral code of conduct in the context of a sporting event. The guy using the most disgusting language possible, two rows behind a group of kids at a college football game – did you say anything about that? No, I didn’t. The constant personal insults directed at someone wearing the opposing team’s jersey in the stadium – how about that?
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve often told the story of being at a Red Sox-Yankees game in 2004, where a fight broke out in the stands every inning or so, and the whole stadium cheered every time it happened. “Really?” I have to wonder. Is this game, this rivalry, so important that we should celebrate an assault?
In European football there are obviously significant cultural differences which I cannot fully understand. (Can you imagine what would happen in America if bananas were thrown on a basketball or soccer field four times a week?) But the phenomenon is the same: We have allowed sports to be a place where it is somehow more acceptable to be “the worst version of yourself.” As leagues, teams, players and fans, this should not be acceptable.
Of course, there is simply no way to control the way people think, but you can start punishing this type of behavior more aggressively and make it clear that it is unacceptable. Villarreal lifetime ban banana thrower is a start, but what happens to the other three banana throwers from last week? And what actions will actually motivate the other 99% of fans in the stadium to take the necessary steps to stop this behavior completely. The local team withdraws? The team being unable to attract and retain star players?
In a way, I appreciate Dani Alves’ response to this weekend’s taunt and his “you can’t affect me” message. But I think Kevin Prince Boateng and the rest of AC Milan had a more effective response by leaving the field during the match after repeated racist insults. Game over everyone, it’s time to go home. I don’t think the rest of the public would take it lightly if racist acts routinely resulted in the end of their entertainment or a loss for their team.
And, as for Sterling, while it’s great that the NBA commissioner was tough on Sterling, as people like Bomani Jones I pointed out that it was far more shameful that it had taken so long. Sterling’s racism was first revealed “publicly” in 2003 in the context of a lawsuit that he settled concerning discriminatory practices in his activity as a sleep merchant. Still, there seemed to be no negative repercussions for his NBA activities. In fact, things got a lot better for his franchise over the next few years. Last year, a guy I consider “up” is coach Doc Rivers (UbuntuDoc) and a man who already (at least in my mind) has everything he “needs” – a coaching ring, millions of dollars, the ability to choose from a variety of coaching or advertise extremely high-paying jobs – has chosen the Clippers as his employer. Sterling was just as racist when Doc made his choice and when Chris Paul resigned in 2013, the world just wasn’t paying attention. I guess we should all be happy that we received the smoking gun in the form of leaked audio on a gossip website and it looks like he’ll be leaving the game soon (after probably cashing in his stake for over $1 billion, of course). However, it is impossible to feel proud, because the response was driven by embarrassment and shame, not conviction.
And maybe Dani Alves eating a banana is the smoking gun of football. I certainly hope so. And while I know it’s not really fair for me, in my position, to say much about it (in fact, my support for the Boston teams has never wavered because of a less than stellar race-themed story), if the Alves incident is not a smoking gun, I hope the players have the courage to follow the example of Boateng and AC Milan instead of Alves. It was an act of conviction. I hope we start to see more and more visiting and home teams refusing to play in front of crowds that allow things like this to happen and fans who stop supporting teams that allow this to continue. And where conviction fails, I hope that lifetime bans become the norm and team managers are punished for actions committed in their stadiums.
I can’t remember where I heard or read it in recent days, but I was struck by someone’s observation that there was a time when the world’s greatest athletes — and keep in mind that these athletes generally made far less money than today’s athletes — put the good of society before the good of their careers. For example: Ted Williams (the greatest hitter of all time, of course) gave up years of his prime to fly fighter planes in the war; Muhammed Ali was exiled from boxing for three years after being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. In today’s world, where the big business of sports seems to place too much emphasis on doing the right thing (the NFL and concussions, anyone?), it seems that racism will have to be bad for business before things really start to change. And that means that someone – fans, players and coaches, teams and leagues, or perhaps FIFA – will need convincing to make sacrifices – financial, personal, professional – until this behavior is a thing of the past.
