Clive Thabo Dube
Sports Reporter
‘FOOTBALL IS A BEAUTIFUL GAME’, a term popularized by the Brazilian Legend, Edson Arantes do Nascimento known as Pelé.
This comes after a successful career in the history of football spanning the 70s.
Over the years, the sport of passion has been tainted by a dark cloud as racism especially from white folks against black player, and this state of discrimination is prevalent in the world of football since the time immemorial.
In 1925 Jack Leslie was dropped off England’s football squad after it was discovered he was black.
Fast forwarding to the early 2000s, one of Africa’s celebrated Football star Samuel Eto’o found himself in a racism spat while playing for Spanish giants Barcelona in 2005 when he was taunted by monkey chants coming from the white fans.
In 2021 Junior Stanislas, a father to one-in-a-million-twins, Alex and Jacob, who have different skin tones but the same race has revealed that one of the twins is constantly facing racial abuse. Speaking to sky sports last year the Bournemouth FC star, Stanislas revealed that,
“The difficult thing with my sons is that, with them being twins, they’re one-in-a-million twins. One is my colour with dark hair and dark eyes, the other one has white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes.
‘The sad fact of the matter is one of them has already seen racism and sadly will see it probably throughout his life and the other one, although they’re exactly the same race, will never see it or experience it.’ he said.
Stanislas was also personally attacked by a Twitter user early this year,
“Tell that black thing that scored I’m going to break him, just like I broke his mrs @afcbournemouth small club #leagueone” reads the tweet dating back to 02/01/2022 written by Martin @tweetwhatiwant8.
Stanislas is a father to rare twin boys aged 10, the other has an African skin tone while the other has white skin colour.
England, the nation that enslaved nearly whole of Africa lost in the 2020 UEFA Euro Football Championship to Italy and their black players were racially abused after missing penalties shots, the likes of Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho.
In a related matter of inequality, managerial jobs, despite the huge number of African and black players in Europe’s top league’s (English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) qaulified black coaches are not given the same chance to manage European teams or national teams like their white counterparts.
Currently there are only two black managers, Patrick Vieira who manages Crystal Palace and Antoine Kombouare who coaches Nantes. Frank Lampard, Xavi Hernandez, Steven Gerrard ( recently sacked by Aston Villa) Unai Emery, had no problems finding a coaching job at the top leagues.
None- black former players are able to get high paying gigs soon after they hang their boots but the blacks will have to be assistant coaches.
This just goes to show how belittled people of colour are.
Thomas Frasser Pettigrew, an American Psychologist says,
“Racism is a doctrine that holds that the world’s human population consists of various “races” that are the primary determinants of human traits and capacities. This doctrine typically regards one’s own race as superior to other races. Inter group hatred and discrimination generally accompanies racist doctrines. Social science investigates racism at three interrelated levels. First, “individual racism” involves those individuals who hold racist beliefs. Here racist ideas often overlap with such concepts as prejudice, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. But the key distinguishing feature of individual racism is that the group differences are viewed as innate and unchangeable. If assimilation or conversion is viewed as possible, then intolerance is involved but not racism. Second, “situational racism” occurs when racist behavior is shaped by the social context. This occurs when face-to-face situations are patterned, based on racist beliefs, to place one group in an inferior position in inter group interaction. This occurs, for example, when one racial group in a situation possesses most of the resources that emphasize the status differences between the groups. Finally, third, “structural and cultural racism” results when a society’s institutions are shaped by racist beliefs and results in group discrimination. Indeed, racism’s effects can invade virtually all of a society’s institutions. Thus, racism differentiates human beings from one another by presumed “races,” and this leads to unequal access to resources and opportunities as well as to other forms of inequality such as gender-, ethnic-, and class-based inequity.”
Closer to home, racial rants are ever heard when Highlanders FC plays Dynamos FC from Harare. Bosso fans (as Highlanders is known) have composed songs or renditioned songs with lyrics that overflow with discriminatory slurs. Tribal tantrums are thrown at opposition players who do not posses a Ndebele surname.
Ironically, many Highlanders FC players are not of Ndebele origin.
Many Highlanders FC club supporters believe that the club is for the Ndebele speaking community because it is based in Bulawayo and was founded by the sons of the late Ndebele King, Lobengula.
Football icon and humanitarian Pelé apart from leading Brazil to lift three World Cup gold medals (1958, 1962 and 1970), he brought both joy and skill to the game.
Before going to win the International Peace Award in 1978, it is believed the Brazil legend’s presence in Lagos created a 2 day cease-fire in Nigeria. The West African country was involved in a civil war in 1967, one of the bloodiest in African history.
The three time World Cup winner has also worked with United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF) and is the FIFA ambassador against racism in a bid to build a more harmonized society.
This is evident enough that Football is the highly loved game which exists to bring families together, unite communities and society since it is a Universal language.
With the World Cup starting at Qatar next month, FIFA, sports personnel and all Football stakeholders along with fans must unite to fight racism and discrimination in all forms for all to enjoy the beautiful game at the worlds greatest stage in harmony