I've been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. Growing up outside sports-mad Boston in the Larry Bird, Roger Clemens, Ray Bourque, Tony Eason (ahhh, whoops) 80s pretty much made it impossible not to be. And, it's definitely not the casual, "isn't this fun" kind of fandom. It's the, "the Red Sox between 2003-2004 definitely took years off my life," and, "my co-workers in Colorado wallpapered my entire office in Broncos crap after they beat the Patriots in the playoffs just to torture me," kind of fandom.
As a fan and amateur athlete, and later a sports journalist in college, I have always held dear the idea that sport brings out the best in us. That competition provides a window into the human spirit like nothing else. That it is an important part of life and that there's something valuable about winning, losing, and rooting in sports. And, importantly, that sport brings us together in a unique way by creating intimacy between strangers and a platform for deeper connections between people of all backgrounds. Specifically, it allows us to share in the experiences of suffering to achieve something, celebrating in victory and agonizing in defeat.
I'm not afraid to admit that nothing besides my family makes me well up as much as the "magical" moments in sports. In fact, I misted up a few times just this weekend as I read the stories of bravery, perseverance, and the role of sports as a healing device in Sports Illustrated's article about the lead up to this year's Boston Marathon. I may or may not have said "This is our f&*%ing city" under my breath and had my belief in the positive power of sports renewed and affirmed.
So it is with a heavy heart that I have watched over the past week as coverage of several incidents in sports made clear how sport can also bring out the worst in people. Certainly the surfacing of the Donald Sterling audio is a part of my sickened feeling. But I personally found what happened to Dani Alves and the ongoing inability of soccer culture to stamp down its longstanding issues of racism more upsetting because more and more it appears to be a part of the culture of the game.
While the L.A. Clippers situation appears to be the rogue act of a despicable individual, the Alves incident was simply the latest and best publicized incident of the many instances where people are using soccer as a platform for the public communication of racist views. In fact, the Alves incident was reported to be the fourth banana-throwing incident (in three countries no less) in a week. Let me repeat that – last week, in 2014, people in 4 different soccer stadia *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 way that created a great piece of video and inspired a series of high-profile responses in social media. I have to wonder who's tweeting to support the other three victims from last week and the weeks prior? And why is the NBA's lifetime ban of Donald Sterling getting higher billing on the sports page of the UK's Guardian website as I write this, than the Alves incident or this broader epidemic?
(Photo: The Guardian | April 30, 2014)
(Photo: The Guardian | April 30, 2014)
Put simply, this conversation has been going on for far too long in the world of soccer to be where it is now. Case in point:
Prompted by numerous high-profile incidents, CNN World Sport's "Racism in Football" documentary is nearly a year old
FIFA's Buenos Aires resolution to fight racism will be 13-years-old by the end of the World Cup
The Kick It Out anti-racism campaign charity was founded in 1993
Bill Buford's excellent and terrifying "Among The Thugs" took people inside the world of soccer hooligans in 1992
Football is the world's game – and yet it is far behind the curve in distancing itself from racism. It's shocking to be reminded that as recently as November 2011, FIFA chief Sepp Blatter told CNN that he thought on-field racism had been eliminated.
Before I go further, it is worth acknowledging that I find this a challenging topic to write on and that I am a white American male and I can't speak with authority about anything except my personal perspective as an observer. But, I'm compelled to wonder what is going on here, what is the role of fans, and what can prompt change?
Why is it that soccer stadia have become a place where this type of behavior has managed to exist in a very public way for far longer than almost anywhere else? I can't help but believe that the shared emotion of sports and fandom that I find so special has also played a part in allowing this behavior to survive for so long. It seems that people in the stands are willing to accept behavior that is so heinous in part because of the "us against them" attitude that bonds people in their home stadium allows them to. As fans, we are drawn to sports to feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves, part of something special. It makes us reluctant to denigrate the group we are a part of and to distance ourselves from the group - because we feel less "in" as a result. We let it go.
Outside of things as terrible as racism, think about what we, as fans, are willing to accept in terms of our moral code of conduct in the context of a sporting event. The guy using the most disgusting language possible two rows behind a bunch of kids at a college football game – have you said something about that? I haven't. The constant personal insults directed at someone wearing an opposing team jersey in the stadium – how about that?
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have told a story plenty of times about attending a 2004 Red Sox-Yankees game where a fight broke out in the stands every inning or so, and the whole stadium would cheer every time it happened. "Really?" I have to ask myself. Is this game, this rivalry, such a big deal that we should be celebrating an assault?
With European football, there are obviously significant cultural differences at play that I can't fully understand. (Can you imagine what would happen in America if bananas were thrown on a basketball court or football field four times in 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 you." As leagues, teams, players and fans, that shouldn't be ok.
Of course there's simply no way to control how people think, but you can start to more aggressively punish this kind of behavior and make it clear that it is unacceptable. Villarreal's lifetime ban of the banana thrower is a start, but what's happening to the other three banana-throwers from last week? And, what are the actions that are really going to make the other 99% of fans in the stadium take the steps necessary to stop this behavior entirely. The home team forfeits? The team being unable to attract and retain star players?
On one level, I appreciate Dani Alves' response to the taunt this weekend and its message of "you can't affect me." But I think Kevin Prince Boateng and the rest of AC Milan had a more effective response when they walked off the field mid-play after repeated racist insults. Game over everyone, time to go home. I don't think the rest of the crowd would take it lightly if racist acts consistently caused an end to their entertainment or a loss for their team.
And, related to Sterling, while it's great that the NBA Commissioner came down hard on Sterling, as people like Bomani Jones have highlighted it is far more shameful that it's taken this long. Sterling's racism first came to "public" light in 2003 in a lawsuit he settled related to discriminatory practices in his business as a slumlord. Yet, there seemed to be no negative repercussions to his NBA business. In fact, things got a lot better for his franchise during the ensuing years. Just last year, a guy I think of as "stand up" in coach Doc Rivers (ubuntu, Doc) and a man who already has (in my mind at least) all that he "needs" – a ring as a coach, millions of dollars, the opportunity to pick from a variety of coaching or announcing jobs that pay extremely well – chose the Clippers as his employer. Sterling was just as racist when Doc made his choice and when Chris Paul re-signed in 2013, it's just that the world wasn't paying attention. I guess we should all be glad that we got the smoking gun in the form of the leaked audio to a gossip website and it looks like he'll be gone from the game soon (after likely cashing in his ownership stake for more than $1B of course). However, it's impossible to feel proud because the response has been prompted by embarrassment and shame, not by conviction.
And maybe Dani Alves eating a banana is soccer's smoking gun. I sure hope so. And, while I know it's not really fair for me, in my position, to say much of anything on this matter (in fact, my support of Boston teams has never wavered through a less-than-stellar history on the topic of race), if the Alves incident is not that smoking gun, I hope that players have the guts to to follow the lead of Boateng and AC Milan instead of Alves. That was an act of conviction. I hope we start to see more visiting and home teams refuse to play in front of crowds that allow things like this to happen and fans that stop supporting teams that allow this to go on. And, where conviction fails us, I hope lifetime bans become standard and that team executives are punished for the acts that occur in their stadia.
I can't remember where I heard or read it in the past couple days, but I was struck by someone's observation that there was a time where the greatest athletes in the world – and keep in mind that these athletes were typically making far less money than current athletes – used to put the good of society above the good of their careers. For example: Ted Williams (greatest hitter of all-time, of course) giving up years of his prime to fly fighter planes in the war; Muhammed Ali being exiled from boxing for three years after being a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam. In today's world, where the big business of sports seems to be overwhelming the importance of doing the "right thing" (the NFL and concussions, anyone?), it seems like racism is going to need to be bad for business before things really start to change. And that means someone – fans, players and coaches, teams and leagues, or perhaps FIFA – is going to need the conviction to make sacrifices - financial, personal, professional - until this behavior is a thing of the past.
