OT : Sepp Blatter - A Point-of-View

This Sepp Blatter racism row shows England's morals are better than its football

Despite England's outdated play, our attitudes on racism are progressive in comparison with fans of our footballing superiors

Marina Hyde
Marina Hyde
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 November 2011 20.30 GMT

"I cannot resign," explained Fifa president Sepp Blatter. "When you are faced with a problem you have to face the problem. To leave would be totally unfair." Oh dear. Once again, the only solution to the problem of Sepp Blatter is Sepp Blatter. It's like an Escher drawing, this endless round of self-created disasters from which the plucky Swiss must extricate himself to increasingly sarcastic acclaim.

The first and most obvious point is that this latest controversy will not do for him. Herr Blatter may have claimed racism didn't exist and could be solved with a handshake. But Fifa is a supranational body that is so powerful, and before whom so many otherwise sovereign states genuflect, that it would take considerably more than a locally contained story about racism to see him off. I spent several depressing days in the specially branded "Fifa World Cup Courts" during last year's tournament in South Africa, watching people get 15 years for robberies they had committed less than 48 hours previously and being threatened with prison sentences for querying Fifa's marketing pitch. I suspect that an organisation which can slap branding on justice itself, and apparently override the constitutions of the countries it parasitically relieves of billions, will not be unduly troubled by criticism from Britain's rapidly oxidising prime minister.

Of course, it is no surprise to find David Cameron rushing to give a quote – the PM can be increasingly relied upon to be right on matters that are none of his concern, and wrong on all of those that are. It wasn't so long ago that he was expressing exasperation with "negative" stories about the World Cup bid process, thus patronising the millions of his citizens who understood precisely the nefarious way these things worked, and knew we were already dead ducks. You will recall England's bid garnered precisely two votes, one from our own representative on Fifa's executive committee, and one from a chap our "frustrating" free press had accused of corruption. The mind semi-boggles.

So it is fitting that this latest racism row leaves England in splendid isolation once again. If we were to go for a Fifa executive committee resolution condemning Blatter's remarks, we would not get even one other vote. The president's comments have been met with indifference or only the mildest interest anywhere but here.

Even so, there is a peculiar comfort to be taken from the fact our society has evolved in the opposite direction to our football. Whereas England's play can seem excruciatingly outdated, the attitudes of most of those who follow it seem progressive in comparison with the supporters of many of our footballing betters. This may seem an odd thing to say, given the England captain is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan police for alleged racism, but you can't help feeling the case against John Terry would not even have made it off the pitch in many other countries. When the Spanish manager called Thierry Henry a "black ****" a few years ago, the then Uefa chief executive suggested Henry should respond by hugging him. That would "surpass any anti-racist initiative we've held". Like that's hard.

But then, we know where racism ranks in Fifa's league table of sins. When racist chants rained down on England players in a friendly against Spain, the Spanish FA were fined £44,750. When Cameroon wore the wrong kit in the African Cup of Nations that same year, Fifa relieved them of £86,000.

As far as our own traditionally craven FA goes, news it has charged Luis Suarez with racially abusing Patrice Evra last month marks a historic change of tack. Four years ago, Joleon Lescott said it felt like he was on trial when he made an allegation of racism, while a host of professional lipreaders concurred that Peter Schmeichel called Ian Wright a "dirty black bastard" back in 1997, only for the FA to bottle the chance to do anything about that (and so many other incidents before and since).

Make no mistake: the Suarez and Terry cases are there because players – and subsequently the press and supporters – put them there. It has finally become a political imperative for the FA to be seen to be doing something.

There are periods when a somewhat stagnated movement seems to take a sudden step forward, and the past month has been one of those for English football and racism. When Evra first made his allegations, many fans took sides along club lines, and the United player appeared to have been prejudged by large sections of the press. The wording of a Guardian poll ran: "Should Evra be banned if his claim proves false?"

But the Terry and Blatter stories coming in such quick succession have kept an educative debate in the headlines. Perhaps even a few of those geniuses who insist racist epithets are "no different to calling someone ginger" have found that line hard to stick to in the week where Duwayne Brooks described how his murdered friend Stephen Lawrence was allegedly set upon by a weapon-wielding gang calling him "******". Who knows. My suspicion is that a confluence of circumstances means that a bit more thought will be given by a range of parties next time an allegation is made within football.

Any shift in attitudes and understanding will be most timely, because next summer's European Championships in Poland and Ukraine represent a potentially explosive challenge to Fifa's quarter-arsed stance on racism. A recent report by the European anti-racism group FARE documented 195 racist incidents involving football in just 18 months in the host nations – which its authors described as "only the very tip of the iceberg", warning that far right groups will be active and visible during the Euros.

As for England, with our old-fashioned football and newfangled football politics – well, it's a funny old game. Nobody likes us, and we're learning not to care. It's an odd sort of cocoon to be in – but, given some of the alternatives, not the worst berth in international football's moral universe.

 

Good article that tbh. He's right about Poland too, but as normal, FIFA will ignore any problems, unless there's any English fans involved. Naturally our own press will happily crucify us too if they think they'll sell more copies.

 

Chuckled at Sky news showing sound bites of them boring press bods that natter on a Sunday morning show. One of them asking and answering himself with no sense of irony, "what did Bulgaria get fined for monkey chants? Peanuts".

I guess you had to be there, but it made me smile.

 

Great article UB.

 

Agreed - good post.

In my personal opinion, FIFA are a bunch of corrupt, donkey-buggering *****philes.

It's OK though, Septic says I can call them anything I want as long as I offer to shake hands afterwards!

 

I can't abide Blatter and football will be a better place without him and his ilk, but I can't help thinking he's taking a kicking for the wrong reasons here.

If two kids in a playground have a falling out over a game and one stamps his foot, pokes out his bottom lip and calls the other 'fat speccy four eyes' there wouldn't be a big hoohah, just a 'shake hands and move on'. Why that should be any different because millionaires call each other names seems the silly bit to me.

Some people are looking to be offended and some people are looking to help give them an excuse.

 

ive said it before , the racial goalposts are moving all the time though.
In some sort of pointless defence of Blatter he may view calling someone a moaning black B'stard is nothing more than descriptive name calling , similar to being called big lipped , luggy , ginger , fatty pumpum etc.
But these descriptions are always seen as derogatory and somewhat outside the norm'

Not too long ago , to be considered racist you would have to say something like ....
"as you are black , i dont trust you to not steal from my home"
"you are on the dole because you are lazy and black"
or to throw the "N" word into some sort of insult.
(thankfully this kind of talk is almost unheard of)

Being white its still hard to understand the experience of being judged on your skin colour but we are probably judged in other ways all the time without considering it .
Its a human reaction to using our social skills , we all try to make a split second judgement on who we see infront of us , if they have particular features we will associate that with a previous experience - you cant get around that.

To not be rasist under todays "Rules" is a learned thing and people will get it wrong - well no they will get it right , but say the wrong thing all the time.

 

Maybe because we're not little kids in the playground and we should educate them that they are wrong rather than copying their bad example.

 

That only works if ALL abuse and name calling is tackled. To simply address comments based on skin colour is in itself discriminatory and in my opinion a bad example.

Take the John Terry allegation. He's accused of calling Ferdinand a 'black bastard' I assume it's not the 'bastard' bit that bothers him, so I guess that means he'll withdraw from any awards offered only to 'black' footballers? If he'd called him an 'ugly bastard' 'daft bastard' or any other kind of bastard there'd be no issue.

Discrimination and bullying of any kind is what should be being addressed. To protect one group more than others is discriminatory.

 

Depends on where you're from and the circumstances, but as the issue is publicised mainly when black people are offended, white people are then being judged on the basis of their skin colour.


It's interesting that the comments of some forign players saying that 'comments from their countrymen should be considered with respect to their culture' have not been publicised as much because they create an uncomfortable dichotomy where people are cherry picking which bits of culture are acceptable.

 

In an ideal world all bullying and discrimination would be addressed and in a lot of cases it is being. I agree with WhittlingStick that it is human nature to find a point of difference with people and regard it as some form of inferiority therefore establishing your own superiority, but that doesn't mean it's right. When you look at society today we have made great strides against racism and discrimination and that's because we are vigilant against it.
To suggest fighting racism is discriminatory because you're not fighting other forms of discrimination with the same vigour is ridiculous. It's like saying I'm not going to get my car fixed because the front door squeaks and I don't want to discriminate against the door. The obvious answer is fix both of them.

 

So it's okay to discriminate as long as it's in favour of black people? In my opinion that's a nonsense. It suggests that black people are more sensitive.

It's long been established that to single out a group for special attention generally works to their detriment. We have laws that for many, many years have worked to protect the rights of an individual. To create further ones that protect one group only is, and can only be discriimination.

If the argument is to prevent discrimination, creating seperate systems is a pretty poor solution, especially when the freedoms are enshrined in the very basis of laws in this society.

In your analogy, yes both need fixing, but not just by widening the door.

 

Please point out where I said it's okay to discriminate as long as it's in favour of black people? You're trying to put words in my mouth because it's easier than responding to my points.
The fact is that it isn't a competition between which forms of discrimination we choose to fight. Of course we should equally fight racism against white people but that doesn't mean we should close our ears to racism against black people.

 

Can see what you are saying, but to begin with race abuse as a case is the best place to start, don't you think.
You will never stop swearing and some words although descriptive of people are a part of the English language. Bastard is a good example of a word which should not be used indiscriminately but has almost lost it's original meaning, and to which the best response is "I am not" or "What's that got to do with you". Bastard is a surname in France. In fact one of my local garages is called "Garage Bastard", and we always have a good laugh when we drive past, so I think it was imported along with lots of stuff in the 11th Century. There must have been a famous Mr Bastard at some time in England.

Sorry to ramble, I agree society should frown on all verbal abuse, but seeing the UK is almost on it's own in this case, there is a long way to go, and we have all made a good start.

 

It's all about context really. I was racially abused for 2 years while living in Scotland on the poxy Mull of Kintyre as a 12-13 year old. My name at school was "English".

Now the sad thing is, I know there's a few of you laughing at this, maybe even some of you saying *well it's your own fault for being English in Scotland* but the fact remains, I was physically, verbally and mentally racially abused by inbred scots who were split down 2 familes, Campbells, McDonalds, one lot Rangers fans, other lot Celtic, both hated each other but shared a common hatred of the English.

Racism is NOT funny, nor should it ever be tolerated. Those Scots used the word English in exactly the same way bigots and people who should know better use the "N" word.

I've never understood why Scottish racism is deemed acceptable, and I'd support Turkey or Argentina playing Scotland. Christ I'd support TWS if they played Scotland.

But yeah, it's all about context and intent. I dont see Terry calling anyone a thick white ****, so Id question why he felt the need to qualify his insult with the word black. They maybe rich, but they're not the brightest pebbles on the beach either.

It does seem to be only us in England that seems bothered by any of this too, if we pushed a vote at FIFA, he's right, we'd get zero support. I don't understand why we just dont leave FIFA but our FA are just as bad as FIFA imo.

 

I know exactly what you mean, I live north of the border for business reasons, but will move back south as soon as is it possible. There is a lot of verbal abuse up here, I went into a restaurant a while back, and 2 Scottish people said to my wife and myself good evening when we walked in, when I said good evening back, their reply was " " we don't talk to the ****ing English **** off somewhere else, so we did.

 

I highlighted the bit in my reply. You didn't say it explicitly, but it's implicit in the scenario you talk about. In my opinion, there's plenty of genuine discrimination that needs addressing before resources are spent on name calling. Racism's a meaningless term used more for people to stiffle discussion than it having any meaning in its own right.

 

Get real DMD. I didn't say it because I don't believe it. End of.

 

Money? You pay peanuts....