Front Burner - Soccer star faces racist mobs, league inaction

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Earlier this month, one of football’s brightest stars was targeted with an unprecedented amount of racist abuse during a game. Real Madrid superstar Vinicius Junior — the heir to the throne of Brazilian football — was called a monkey and abused with monkey noises by tens of thousands of fans during a game in Spain’s La Liga. But rather than punish those abusing the athlete, it was Vinicius who was shown a red card. In the aftermath of the incident, everyone from the Spanish press to the president of the Spanish football league seemed to blame the victim of the racist attack, rather than his attackers. On this episode, guest host Jodie Martinson talks to sports journalist Shireen Ahmed about one of the brightest stars in world sports, but also about the broader tradition of racism in soccer, and why it remains an ugly issue in the beautiful game. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jodi Martinson. Hi, I'm Jodi Martinson. What you're hearing is a stadium of 50,000 people calling a black man a monkey. It's from an incident in Spain earlier this month, where one of the best soccer players in the world was targeted with racist abuse. Brazil Forward was incensed and said afterwards that he's been targeted several times

while in Spain. The head of the league then criticized the player for insulting Spanish football, throwing fuel on the fire. 22-year-old Brazilian and Real Madrid superstar Vinicius Jr. has become an avatar of the global fight against racism in soccer. There have been countless incidents this year where he has been called everything from a monkey to the N-word. Fans in Spain have gone so far as to hang an effigy

of Vinicius from a bridge in Madrid. In this most recent incident, Vinicius Jr. walked to the edge of the pitch, personally identifying a group of fans that had been abusing him. A shoving match ensued between the players, and a short time later, it was Vinicius who was sent off with a red card. After the incident, Vinicius Jr. tweeted this. It wasn't the first time, nor the second, nor the third. Racism is normal in La Liga. The championship that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano and Messi today belongs to racism.

This isn't an isolated incident. In the last decade, racism in football was such a problem that one of the biggest teams in the world, AC Milan, had taken to walking off the field altogether in response to one of their players being abused. Incredible. Incredible. Really incredible. one of their players being abused. So today, we're going to be talking about one of the brightest stars in world sports, the Brazilian superstar Vinicius Jr. But also about this broader tradition of racism in soccer, and why it remains an ugly issue in the beautiful game. My colleague Shireen Ahmed is here.

She's been covering racism in soccer as a sports journalist with CBC. Hi, Shireen. Hi, Jodi. So before we get into the incident itself, how big of a star is Vinicius Jr.? Wow. He's actually one of the, I would say arguably one of the most powerful, explosive players. He was one to watch. He's only 22 years old, but he has made his mark. I mean, his contract, he makes more than 20 million euros. He plays for one of the most storied clubs in the world.

He is someone who is adored everywhere. His jersey, his kit, rather, is sold out often online. He's just a very impressive player, and he brings us jubilation. He brings us this passion and fun to the pitch again. It's a joy to watch him play, and it's an honor to be in his lifetime speed with the ball to vinicius junior oh yes the brazilian magician I heard someone describe him as like static electricity on the pitch. He's what we would describe as one of those generational talents.

OK, so set the scene up for us. Okay, so set the scene up for us. Earlier this month in Valencia, abuse began before the game had even started, and then there can be fans lined up but blocked off with gates to see the players arriving and sometimes their own fans are there and sometimes the opposition fans are there to heckle and normally this is not what we would say a place to start kind of heckling players it's one that's joyous and, you know, full of excitement. But the heckling and the slurs began then. So, you know, the players are warming up. And then when the whistle blows for the match to begin, chants started almost immediately.

And when I say chants, I mean that they're almost choreographed and rehearsed and there's a group of people participating in this kind of abuse. It wasn't a one-off. It was something that was organized. And that's what I think, to me, is very troubling, the fact that this type of racist abuse is being hurled at him in a very intentional way, and that happened throughout the match. Can you just explain that a bit more? Organized how? Meaning that fans and supporters from opposing teams think it's a brilliant idea to do this.

And to be really honest with you, Jodi, it is a very effective technique to, at times, destabilize people. Because it's one of the things that players from racialized identities, it's so upsetting, and it's sheer injustice. You can't move away from it. First of all, it's humiliating. And he's one of the top players in the world and this feels so unfair. It has nothing to do with the game. For someone to say, oh, you're a terrible player or that's awful. Those are different kind of commentaries, right? But this has, it's not like, A, he can control what he looks like, what community he's from, and B, it's violence.

So, Vinicius is just really trying to play his game in the lightning fast way that he does. And the crowd taunts and taunts. And finally, something sort of snaps. And what happened in that moment? Well, that moment was born sheer. When you look at the footage, it was that moment was born out of sheer frustration. So, you know, a little tussle ensued and Ancelotti, the coach, coach Ancelotti, saw what was happening. You cannot be aware because if your player is losing focus, you begin to identify. And I'm sure the team staff was letting him know. So after Ancelotti went to the official, the first official, the main referee, and said, this is what's happening.

The response to him in that moment was, well, we're not going to stop the game. But what the protocol is, is to make an announcement in the stadium. Jodi, think about that. Can you imagine making an announcement like, please, fans, don't be racist jerks while the players are playing? Like, it's nonsensical. And it was obviously crafted by people who have no experience on being on the receiving end of this. And so did they do that? Did they make that announcement?

You know what? I think they did. of this. And so did they do that? Did they make that announcement? You know what? I think they did. But the problem is things escalated to a point where, like you mentioned, it began to be a tussle because of the complaint. And there is footage of Vinicius standing there looking so lost and hurt as the chants are continuing. And it's really hard to watch as someone who is racialized, who has been racialized on the pitch, obviously not in this level, but it's something that stays with you for a very, very long time. And it's really difficult to just pull yourself away and snap back and try to focus on your game when the very essence of who you are is being attacked. And the very essence of who you are is being attacked. Yeah. And that moment was really incredible because the camera zoomed in to Vinicius and you see these tears in his eyes and it felt like he was almost helpless.

And so what were you seeing in that moment? What were you reading into it and what it had been like for him at that moment? I think the first thing that happens is he's the same age as my children. So I will be fairly transparent and say there was an element of mama bear coming out. He was very upset. One, at the injustice of it. And two, he was being completely humiliated on an international stage. He's there to play football. Again, this is not something that was dealt with properly. It wasn't managed well, in my opinion, and continues to be mismanaged. But his face, his actual face in the tears in his eyes, it's heartbreaking, but at the same time coupled with rage. You're angry and indignant on his behalf. You're also frustrated with the lack of anything that seems to be resolving the situation or the matter. And the fact that the majority of his teammates and his opponents don't understand what's happening for those that aren't racialized, they don't get it. So the lack of support worried

me immediately. Is he going to get the support that he actually needs to navigate this moment? to navigate this moment. Okay, so in the aftermath of what happened there on the pitch, one newspaper in Valencia referred to Vinicius as both, quote, stupid and provocateur. Another said he, quote, lacked respect. Help me understand why so many in Spain, whether we're talking about the press or the president of the Spanish Football League, have essentially blamed the victim for the abuse he faced in the stadium.

Well, first, I think it's important to look at the demographic of those particular people. Javier Tabas, who is the head of the Spanish Federation, likened it to, well, he's being abused because he's so good. That's also, I keep saying it's not a thing, because what I mean by that is it's not a thought process. It's not effective or impactful in leadership to say something like that. He wasn't being attacked on the quality of his play. He was actually being attacked because of identity. And those, as you mentioned, the head of federations or media, they're predominantly white. Global football media is predominantly white and they're predominantly men who have no experience. So it's easy for them to have tabloid like, you know, statements saying he should have been respectful. So is that the narrative that we're trying to peddle?

If you're hurled with abusive remarks, you're supposed to be respectful? To be honest, whatever he would have done, it would have been criticized. That much I know is true. And it's not just Spanish media. So if we can just like pause for a minute and look at all of European football generally, I mean, the way that black players are treated is so poorly in the media. And the only thing I can liken it to for the listeners here in North America is the way Serena Williams was treated by media. Let's talk a little bit about the broader history of racism in soccer. There've

been a number of incidents even this year, like in Italy, when a Congolese-Belgian player named Romelu Lukaku was subject to racist abuse from fans there. He actually responded by scoring a goal and celebrating in front of the abusers, which he was kicked out of the game for. So why do you think referees are kicking victims of racism out of games while their abusers get to remain in their seats? So the reason that was argued by the official when they were challenged for that particular case was that his celebration was considered offensive. The rules around football are quite rigid. The rules around how you celebrate, how you engage are quite rigid. And it was considered to be overly enthusiastic, if you will. But those are not equally applied to all players. And in that instant, I mean, that's what, I don't think Lukaku scored a goal in defiance specifically. I think he scored a goal because his job is to actually score goals. But it so happened in that he was able to use that to say,

see, look what I can do. And I mean, that's what he did. And I think that's incredibly powerful. But I don't think it's good to set a precedent saying that if you're racially abused, you should score a goal and that's how you should deal with it. I think the issue here is how do we deal with systemic racism in a sport when the leaders of those federations refuse to address it for what it is? It's not a failure to say this part of the game is bad and we need to fix it. I mean, we don't criticize this stuff because we hate soccer. We do it because we love it. And this is not dissimilar to what Noël de Gras,

the former head of the French Football Federation, had said when he said there was no racism in French football, which we all know to be laughable as a statement. Of course, there's racism embedded into French football. There's racism embedded to every kind of football culture, unfortunately. But what are we doing to fix it? And, you know, with regards to Lukaku, he's a star in the Belgian national team. Like, he's incredibly powerful as a player. And that was his choice in that moment to do that. Unfortunately, Vinicius, you know, he didn't have the same support around him to be able to do that in that moment. And you talk about that, the reactions that different players have had. And in the 1990s and the early 2000s, there was a lot of this kind of racism and black players used to have bananas thrown at them on the field brazilian defender danny alves was preparing to take a corner when a banana got thrown at him and without skipping a beat he picked up the banana peeled it

and he decided to take a bite before carrying on with the action and delivering that ball into the box. So do you think attitudes in football among fans, executives, and players have even changed since that time? Well, you're right to say that racism in football has sort of been a consistent thing. I mean, one of the things that's really powerful about social media is that people are able to capture it. And now people can videotape offenders and then submit that as video evidence. So, you know, exactly, you know, in a stadium of thousands of people, you're able to capture in a way that you couldn't before. And I think that's actually quite helpful for people who are monitoring.

There's organizations in the world that monitor for homophobic or racist or misogynistic abuse. And that's really important. But at the same time, we don't actually see a decrease in this. So the instance, some of the famous ones that you're talking about was Dani Alves, who's a Brazilian player as well, in 2014, when he was playing for Barcelona against Villarreal, a banana was thrown, and then he picked it up and ate it. I mean, Danny Alvarez is known to be a very humorous and comical and fun-loving player. So that was his reaction. And then you also had, you know, another famous incident.

2013 was Kevin Prince Boateng who played for the Italian club AC Milan against Pro Patria, another club. And he ended up walking off the pitch essentially. The commentator searches for words, the referee tries for calm, but the Ghanaian walks off, the first professional footballer to do such a thing. His teammates follow, and evidently to the approval of the majority. And that is something that is so discouraged, is a really a powerful form of agency because a player can say you know i'm not doing this and it's not what their coach necessarily wants it's not what the teammate wants and he could technically be fined by the league to do so but in that moment boateng was like i'm not doing this anymore This is not an environment that I can play in.

And that was very powerful. And we haven't seen that. Part of me, actually, Jody, wishes that Vinicius Jr. walked off. I really do. Why? What would that have said to you? Because players have a lot of power. And traditionally, teams discourage that kind of agency and discourage that because technically they're you know air quotes again owned by the team and they have an obligation and a contract to the team

but if in my in my opinion if the players aren't given a safe environment in which to work they can't complete their obligations and this was clearly unsafe it was not a place where Vinicius Jr. could work and could be expected to do so under this type of abuse. And protesting in terms of not playing is actually very powerful because at the end of the day, these players are part of a very capitalistic system. So money talks. So if they're not doing what they're supposed to and they're getting paid for it, that also speaks volumes to team owners. All right, Shireen, I want to play you this clip from Mario Bellotelli. He's a Ghanaian-Italian footballer, and he was once the star of Italy's national team. And he was subject to abuse as well.

And here's how he responded when he was asked about his experience about 10 years ago in 2013. After what happened to the last game, I felt a little bit alone when I was home. And I always said that if it happened in the stadium, I'd just do like if nobody said nothing and I don't care. But this time, I think I changed my mind a little bit. And if it's going to happen one more time, time i'm gonna leave the pitch because it's so stupid you said you feel alone you feel that authorities are doing enough to protect players i don't wanna i don't wanna talk about okay i don't wanna say something okay so that's 10 years ago and it sounds a lot like the conversation we've been having about vinicius jr and his options

like the conversation we've been having about Vinicius Jr. and his options. But Balotelli was Italian and he was being abused in Italy. When you listen to that clip today, what do you think about? I think about, I followed Mario Balotelli, who's lovingly called Balo, for a very long time and I saw, I used to read the reports about how badly he was reported on and how unfairly he was treated by Italian. And for those that don't know his background, as you said, he's Ghanaian, but was adopted by an Italian family and made Italy his home. He considers himself Italian. He is Italian. And despite the fact that he's representing that country with so much pride, he's still

very ruthlessly abused by fans from opposing teams. And I mean, I don't understand it because on the one hand, he's a national hero when it's convenient. But then again, there it is, that we use these players as almost pawns to our own agendas. Like we can love them or pretend to love them when they're serving our purpose.

But when they're in an opposing team in a club situation, we're going to hurl abuse at them. What makes me wonder about what he said was how lonely he was, was how did the teammates respond? Nobody said anything publicly to my knowledge at the time. I'm sure Balo got phone calls or texts or reassurances. But the reality is even his teammates probably don't know how to deal with this kind of issue. They don't speak out because they don't feel they have the tools to, because they're not taught any type of media relation or media communication or any tools in that way to be able to express how heinous they believe this is, irrespective of the sport. I see it from hockey to soccer to everything. They don't have those tools. And I don't think

their clubs and their management do either. I don't think the coaching staff is trained properly on how to deal with these instances. And so that becomes a problem. So he is very isolated. Can you imagine not being able to say, I think what happened to my friend is wrong? That's not a difficult statement to make. But there's so much fear around saying that, that people don't have the basic courage to support somebody publicly. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples,

I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So it leaves a really big question, which is what do you do about it? And there have been instances where fans have been prosecuted for racially abusing Black players online and in the stadiums. And we've also seen fans banned from stadiums for a game in places like Eastern Europe, and that was for racism as well. But it really hasn't stopped. So what's preventing a major European league from handing down a severe penalty, like banning a team's fans for attending games for six months or something like that? See, to me, that makes sense.

But the problem is money. I think you will get protests from the highest order if you try to play, because this is how clubs make their money from fandom and fans and supporters coming. And their argument is we don't want to punish all fans for the acts of few. But the problem is those few are still overriding everything. And those that are around them are complicit. If you see someone doing something illegal and offensive and abusive, shut it down. But that's not happening enough. I agree with you. I think that empty stadiums are a

signal. I mean, we do always put the onus on those who are abused to make change. Everywhere in the world, if you have any kind of protest or organization or mobilization it's always racialized folks leading charges of anti-racism and that's the reality i'm being really frank here and that's what we're almost expecting in this situation how are players who are receiving abuse supposed to fix the system or no they're not the ones committing the offenses so i do think it's up to organizations like clubs to ban fans. I actually think there should be like one time and you're out, that you should be banned as a fan. And if it requires stadiums to be empty until they can fix their fan culture, I think that should be the case.

And do you think there would be a day where Black players simply refuse to play in countries like Spain or Italy, that they essentially decide to withhold their labor? Well, I think there's a couple of things that happen. So it can happen at a club level, but it can also happen at a national level. Like, look what happened to Marcus Rashford of the English national team after he lost a penalty kick, which meant they lost the Euros in 2020. So like, what happens? So then they don't represent their country, and you're really narrowing that focus. I would defer it to the player and where they feel comfortable. I think centering the player is really important here and how they need to deal with it. But at the same time, if they start saying, I'm not going to play anywhere, there's racism, where are they going

to play in the world? I mean, even in England, you know, we've seen it a lot. We've seen it definitely in France, we see it in all over Europe. We see it in North America. So like, you have to really, really reset fan culture. And media has to understand that this idea of an anti-oppression lens isn't against any journalistic ethos. I believe that firmly. I think in the reporting on what's happening, it's important to report what happened. But because you're reporting on it doesn't make you some left-wing activist. It makes you someone who's reporting on injustice. And I think we really need to think about sport in terms of justice and acts of injustice against players, because people don't consider it as important as it is. Okay. Shireen, thank you so much for explaining what happened here and helping us think through approaches that organizations should be

taking about it. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Jodi. In the wake of this most recent incident with Vinicius Jr., it's been reported that if the Spanish don't do enough, the Brazilian government is considering using their nation's law to come to the player's defence. Under the Brazilian Criminal Code, in extraordinary circumstances, it's possible to prosecute crimes against Brazilians committed abroad. That's all for this week. FrontBurner was produced by Imogen Burchard, Derek Vanderwyk,

Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, and Matt Almha. Our sound design was by Matt Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Chabison. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Jodi Martinson. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.