Soccer

How England tackled racism in soccer

Authorities have mostly eliminated taunts, racial epithets from stadiums

Jacques Brinon / AP

** ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY, FEB. 8, AND THEREAFTER ** FILE ** In this April 11, 2006 file photo, Paris Saint Germain soccer fans at the Kop de Boulogne section yell during the French Cup soccer match PSG and Lille, at the Parc des Princes stadium. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)

updated 10:37 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2009

PARIS - About 20 years ago, English soccer was decimated by fan violence, in and outside of stadiums.

Now as England prepares to play Spain in an exhibition game on Wednesday, its top league is regarded as the wealthiest and best-marketed in the world, and the Spanish are under scrutiny for racism.

English authorities have mostly eliminated taunts and racial epithets from stadiums, refused entry to known troublemakers and done away with overcrowding by insisting on all-seat grounds.

Anti-racism activists say Spain has one of the bigger problems on the continent. Because England’s players endured racial taunts in Madrid in 2004, the location of this match was switched from Madrid to Sevilla.

The problem lingers.

Real Madrid’s radical fans, the Ultra Sur, made fascist gestures and shouted extremist slogans during a match against Osasuna on Jan. 18. In his match report, referee Alfonso Perez Burrull cited “extremist or radical symbolism,” and chants that made reference to “the gas chamber, death to Osasuna” and loyalty to fascism.

Three days later, Spain’s soccer federation fined Real Madrid 3,000 euros ($3,900).

In August, Spain’s national basketball team defended an ad campaign in which it posed with its eyes “slanted” to mimic Chinese people as part of a Beijing Games campaign.

Racism hit Formula One racing last year, when Lewis Hamilton, who is black, endured racial slurs at F1 testing in Barcelona. Spanish fans wore black face-paint and held up banners saying “Hamilton Family” at the Montmelo circuit.

Javier Martinez, a spokesman for Anti-Racism in Madrid, thinks Spain is in denial.

“There is a level of racism in society because, in some ways, it’s socially accepted,” Martinez said. “It’s used in a humoristic or comic form and is tolerated and accepted.”

Simon Kuper, author of “Football Against the Enemy,” compares Spain now to England of the 1980s. The racist jokes stopped in England, Kuper says, because the general public had enough of them.

“There was a social mood, society was no longer accepting that stuff in England,” Kuper said. “Football doesn’t tend to take the lead, but by the ’90s it was no longer that acceptable in Britain anymore to make racist jokes.”

England started tackling its problems after two triggering events. The first was when Liverpool fans rioted in Brussels’ Heysel Stadium before the 1985 European Cup final against Juventus, and 39 spectators died as a wall collapsed on them. The second occurred four years later, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the overcrowded terraces at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium at an English FA Cup semifinal game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

Along with the Taylor Report, which recommended that standing sections be eliminated by 1994, came a new attitude that insults and racial abuse would not be tolerated.

“We got the ball rolling,” former Crystal Palace forward Mark Bright, who is black, said in a recent telephone interview.

Bright, who also played for Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton, recalled how nasty the atmosphere used to be in England.

“(Racism) was at most grounds. When I started at Port Vale in ’84-’85, you used to get abuse off your opponents, the opponents’ bench, and the crowd because there was (only) a handful (of black players) sprinkled throughout the league,” Bright said.

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By the mid-1990s, the Professional Footballers Association backed anti-racism campaigns such as Kick It Out, in conjunction with the Commission for Racial Equality, and Show Racism the Red Card.

Bright, who is black, credits PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor as instrumental in turning the tide by “grasping the nettle and saying ’You know what, we’ve got to do something about this.”’

CONTINUED : British press also played role in swaying opinions

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