Friday, November 25th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Follow us on Twitter @Untold Arsenal

——————————-

“Making the Arsenal” – the book of Arsenal’s rebirth

—————————————-

Turning a Blind Eye

Don McMahon

FIFA,EUFA, Some officials and some Turkish fans are racists, at least based on what I saw happening to Eboue in a Galatasary match recently. The former Gunner was fouled and rolling on the ground doing his usual pantomime of a dying swan when the hail of missiles started. Once he was resurrected, he prepared to take the throw-in but was immediately hit by an almost full water-bottle, batteries and other paraphernalia rocketed at him from the stands by irate Galatasary fans.

An article on ArsenalNews website reported this with video evidence but the moron who penned the article asked whether Eboue should have thought twice about going to Turkey, choosing not to criticize the Turkish cretins attacking Eboue and the game officials total indifference to these attacks!

Eboue pleaded with the referee to do something, and also pleaded with his own manager but NOTHING was done!

Why do I say that the unholy cabal of FIFA,EUFA and some officials are racists?

1) Because this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this in Europe, nor will it be the last time. Italy, and in particular certain Northern Italian teams are infamous for their racist chants, attacks and insults…just ask Mario Balotelli. Roberto Carlos had bananas thrown at him in Turkey and this happened in England when the first black players began their careers in the EPL and most recently with Ferdinand,Terry, Evra and Suarez confrontations.

2) Because FIFA and EUFA have known of this problem and have ignored it, or simply made token gestures to ¨remedy¨ it.  Septic Blatterfull’s exceptionally stupid, foot-in-mouth commentary last week about racial abuse being insignificant and racists’ comments leading to handshakes after the match, as well as  Platini’s indifference to continuous examples of racism throughout Europe, are proof sufficient.

3) Because officials in Europe have failed to stop games or threaten stadium management with severe consequences (well within their powers under the Laws of the Game) and, as in the case of Eboue and Balotelli, have ignored these horrible events while enjoying the spectacle of a black man being humiliated and abused by opposition (and occasionally home)supporters.

The FA seems to have gotten the message so why haven’t other European national associations woken up and smelt the roses? Any team can go anywhere in the world, except Europe and never see the slightest hint of racism BUT don’t come to Europe or else!

The answer is clear….the World Football governing bodies are lead by idiots and cretins who prefer to turn a blind eye to the continuous abuse of  minorities and are very reticent to take any meaningful action to protect minorities from this type of racial abuse. Here is what, as a minimum, needs to be done by our esteemed leaders at FIFA & EUFA in collaboration with their respective membership:

a)Immediately ban any player(s) adjudged to have used racial slurs against another player, a Club representative or management, for a significant period of games, to be determined by general consensus. Once the ban is over, require the offender(s) to travel across their country promoting racial equality and respect towards opponents, to youth and supporters associations and teams.

b) Suspend clubs who continue to permit such abuse to occur in their grounds. Again for a period of games to be determined by general consensus. If the Club fails to remedy the situation within a reasonable delay, they should be heavily fined and at worse banned permanently.

c) Require clubs to play a number of games behind closed doors until they have convinced the authorities that the racial abuse is being adequately dealt with.

d) Require that the National Association(s) involved, investigate and determine who did what, then pursue these racist fans or Club members/players legally, to the extent that local laws permit.

e) Repeat offenders should be automatically banned from the game for life and offending clubs receive a competitive ban for the remainder of the current season or the entire subsequent one.

f) Stiff compensatory fines should also be levied against player(s) and the Club…these monies can be paid to the abused players as partial compensation and mitigation for the public humiliation, embarrassment and suffering they endured at the hands of those ignorant fans.

g) Ensure that the offended persons have access to all legal recourse in pursuing justice and additional compensation.

h) Immediately suspend the game official(s) who failed to protect the player(s) from such abuse or to take action to re-mediate the situation. Pursuant to a full investigation, the officials should not officiate in any further games, until proven innocent of all charges period. If found to have ignored the Laws governing the protection of players and control of Match events, they should be required to follow a mandatory racial relations program and be reassessed regularly during their future match assignments.

i) Should further incidents of racism be ¨tolerated¨ by said officials, they should be permanently removed from the referees list.

j) National Associations who fail to handle their member Clubs racist issues, as describe above, should be banned from all International competitions until they have re-mediated such conditions to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

There is no such a thing as a little racism, sexism, intolerance or abuse. The slightest hint of such abuse MUST be dealt with immediately and thoroughly, in a fair, enlightened and just manner for all concerned. Draconian measures are not necessary if the approach taken by the authorities is rehabilitative and educationally based and proactively applied. Happy faced slogans and campaigns are fine but when they fail to prevent this type of abuse, then warnings are inadequate and severe punishment must become a recourse.  Stamping out racism easily takes priority over stamping out diving, dissent, cheating and other shameful failings in our Beautiful Game.

—————————————-

————————————

——————————————–

Write for Untold Arsenal

We really do welcome writers who have a positive view of the Wenger revolution, or who have something new to say about any of the topics that we regularly cover – all listed above.  Just email your idea to Tony.Attwood@aisa.org or send in the whole article as a Word file attached to an email.