Just Say No to Serbia
Posted on October 19, 2012 4:38 pm
So all of a sudden everybody has noticed that Serbia is a pit of racist hooliganism, thuggery and defiant belligerence towards generally accepted standards of human decency.
Everybody, that is, except FIFA.
In case you’ve missed it or avoided it or otherwise feel like getting angry, here’s one of the many widely available clips of the very end of the England-Serbia U21 match in Krusevac:
Now before you start believing your own lying eyes and ears, the FSS wants you to know that:
“(The) FA of Serbia absolutely refuses and denies that there were any occurrences of racism before and during the match at the stadium in Krusevac.”
You can read any number of summaries elsewhere, if you’re interested; suffice it to say that the report England’s FA filed with UEFA yesterday describes a series of incidents beginning with monkey chants during warmups, Serbian players and coaches shoving and insulting England players in the pregame tunnel and loud and continual racist abuse from the stands (which was reported to the UEFA delegate as early as half-time).
The monkey chanting only intensified in the second half, most of it when Danny Rose touched the ball, and reached a crescendo at the end of the game when Conor Wickham scored the winner. Rose reacted with a fist-pumping gesture to the crowd that had been abusing him, and kicked the ball into the stands.
(All of which leaves aside the constant hail of missiles from the stands; reportedly, even the UEFA delegate got nailed a few times.)
The attitude of the Serbian government was summarized nicely by Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, who is also Serbia’s police chief; he is demanding that the England players be charged with criminal behavior.
As for FIFA Grandee Sepp Blatter, who has made the battle against racism the cornerstone of his campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize administration, he said that he is always “saddened” to hear of this kind of thing and added:
“We must keep fighting to eradicate discrimination from our sport. Kick racism out of football.“
A lovely summary of Blatter’s approach. His response to a torrent of obscene, grotesque and outrageous racialist abuse showering down onto a football field is to repeat some meaningless boilerplate followed by a stale, trite slogan.
And this kind of thing “saddens” him? Really? It doesn’t “enrage”, “infuriate” or “anger” him?
“Sad” is when a cat gets hit by a car or heavy rains ruin your strawberry patch. “Mad as hell, demanding some answers and getting ready to kick some ass” is sort of what we’d rather see.
Maybe he figures if everyone had just taken his advice last year when he said that a post game handshake would solve football racism, this stuff wouldn’t keep happening. Or perhaps he feels that we need another go-round of the “Just say no to Racism” campaign, with the two teams meeting behind a big sign while the captains drone their way through some leaden prose about respect and brotherhood.
Or maybe – I’m just spitballing here – someone needs to come down on these subhuman miscreants like a ton of bricks, as both a corrective measure and a warning to others that if they’re going to continue to do this stuff there are going to be serious, meaningful consequences.
Like, for example, with the Russians, who are being forced to host the 2018 World Cup due to a long and ugly history of this kind of thing.
Oh wait….
Back in 2007, Serbia had a very similar incident during a match with an age group team from England for which FIFA fined them the princely sum of £16,500.
Unfortunately, that is very comparable to the £10,000 fine levied on FC Porto last year when their fans showered Mario Balotelli with racist abuse, or the £10,000 fine Croatia had to pay for an incident very similar to the one in Serbia.
Contrast this with, for example, the 100,000 euro fine levied on Nicklas Bendtner of Denmark for the unspeakable crime of displaying the corporate logo on the waistband of his compression shorts at Euro 2012.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about which kind of infraction FIFA takes more seriously.
And just to make it clear what’s going on here, consider:
One of the most famous Serbian footballers of all time is Sinisa Mihajlovic, who spent 14 years in Serie A, mostly with Lazio and Sampdoria.
He was known, to put it bluntly, as a hardass ankle breaker and notorious face-spitter. Oh, and a virulent racist.
In 2000, for example, he got into a post game shoving match with Patrick Viera and admittted calling the latter a “nero di merda”.
Literally: black piece of shit.
A couple years later, he was fined and suspended for eight games by UEFA for spitting on and then kicking Chelsea’s Adrian Mutu – who was lying on the ground at the time – during a Champion’s League match.
Furthermore, he is widely known to have been a close friend, ally and confidant of the “Paramilitary” leader and genocidal maniac known as “Arkan” who was responsible for some of the worst of the ethnic cleansing mass executions and forced sex slavery camps during the anti-Muslim Kosovo war which only ended when President Clinton led a NATO bombing campaign against them which promised to turn Serbia into a huge undifferentiated pile of dust.
(And even with NATO emptying out their warehouses of explosive ordinance on their heads it still took the Serbs 30 days to agree to stop the slaughter; they wanted to finish the job)
Now in any civilized country Mihajlovic would be considered a national embarrassment.
Last May, Serbia made him their national team coach.
Upon taking over the Beli Orlovi (White Eagles), his first order of business was to cut midfielder Adem Ljajic of Fiorentina, the only Muslim on the team, for refusing to sing the Serbian Anthem at a match against Spain. The song, which is actually the old Kingdom of Serbia anthem, is an Orthodox Christian hymn beseeching God to protect the Serbian race.
God of Justice, You who saved us
From our nation’s falling,
Hear the voices of your children,
And be our salvation from now on.
Defend with Your mighty hand,
That future Serbia walks to,
God save; God defend,
Serbian lands and Serbian race
Llajic said his religion forbids him from praying to any god but Allah – not to mention the fact that “The Serbian Race” referred to most specifically does not include him – so the coach expelled him from the team. The Serbian FA backed Mihajlovic up, saying:
‘The door has not been closed forever on the national team but he needs to change his attitude and officially notify Mihajlovic that he has done so. Then when his form merits it, he can return.’
Or, more bluntly, as soon as he’s willing to change religions, he can come back.
Noted Human Rights Crusaders Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter were asked to intervene but refused to get involved.
Just say “meh” to racism.
Coincidentally, at almost exactly the same time as Serbia was awarding their national team coaching job to a virulently racist bigot with close friends in the genocide business, a very strange thing was happening at the FIFA Executive Committee meeting in Budapest.
Unexpectedly (it apparently was not originally on the agenda) FIFA’s Executive Committee voted to allow Kosovo to play international friendly games against members.
For those who need a refresher: after ten or so years of UN administration, the Republic of Kosovo declared it’s independence in early 2008. It is recognized as a sovereign nation by the US, Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Poland, Australia, China and some 90 other nations as well as the IMF and the World Bank. The International Court of Justice has ruled that Kosovo’s status as an independant nation is beyond dispute.
And to be clear, Kosovo isn’t asking FIFA to make them full members. That status is reserved for longstanding giants like South Sudan, which was founded in February of 2011, and CONCACAF’s own Anguilla, – population 13,500 on 35 square miles – which lost to T&T 10-0 on the same day that Serbian fans were doing their Cheetah imitations.
In short, they’re not asking for anything like what they deserve; rather, they just want to be allowed to play some games.
Nevertheless, in response to the ExCo decision, the Serbians went – to coin a term – apeshit.
They were “outraged”. They “demanded” a reversal. They said that allowing some Kosovars to play soccer would have “negative and harmful effects” and called it an “unjustified decision which could have far-reaching consequences across the region.”
Most of all, they rushed a high level delegation to Zurich for an “urgent meeting” with Blatter and Jerome Valke to talk them out of it.
FIFA made it clear that they would not be discussing the ExCo decision, but would be happy to sit down and talk over the “logistics” of the situation.
Of course most people would say that FIFA ought to go ahead and start making Kosovo a full member anyway, Serbia be damned.
The stumbling block is that in order to be considered for FIFA membership you have to first be accepted into your regional confederation, which in this case is of course UEFA.
And not only will UEFA not discuss it, but out of the 8 ExCo members from Europe not one of them voted in favor of allowing Kosovo to suit up. Not a single one. The motion was passed by the rest of the world over their unanimous objection.
Which would normally leave one to ask why. But not in this case.
No, nobody gives a damn what the Serbs think. But EVERYBODY cares what Russia thinks.
And Russia, which has a history of racist incidents and hooligan violence which takes a back seat to absolutely no one’s, is Serbia’s Daddy.
Russia is why Kosovo is not already a member of the UN, and Russia is why Serbia can run to Zurich and pound the conference tables and make ridiculous demands despite being an international embarrassment.
Did I mention that FIFA awarded the 2018 World Cup to this coven of gangsters?
Just checking.
Which brings us back to this latest display from Serbia, which has to play national team fixtures in dumps like Krusevac because if they hold them in Belgrade the various club’s hooligans only end up trying to kill each other in the stands and on the streets.
FIFA needs to stop making up slogans and proposing handshakes to solve football racism. They need to get serious, and this incident in Serbia is a good place to start, since they’re a multiple offender who, despite mounds of video evidence, are willing to stand up and deny that anything happened.
FIFA should take the following measures:
1) Demand a full admission from the Serbian FA that the crowd in Krusevac on 16 October engaged in racist taunting and physical violence directed at the England side.
2) Demand full cooperation with a UEFA/European Community effort to identify as many of the perpetrators as possible and the issuance of lifetime bans to same.
3) Demand that the Serbian federation issue an open apology to Danny Rose, the England FA, UEFA, FIFA and the world football community for the behavior they and we have been forced to witness.
4) A fine of one million Euros.
5) A one year ban from all international competitions.
6) A two year ban on allowing attendees into Serbian National matches.
7) Immediate acceptance of Kosovo’s right to play international exhibition matches.
The last is particularly important. It will hurt, it will make them furious and it will, coincidentally, send a message to Russia that they need to spend a little more time and effort putting their own house in order.
Serbia needs to get the message: this stuff has to stop.
Great, GREAT post Bill. I only wish the people who need to hear it were interested in listening.
(Rhetorically speaking.)
Bill,
Your pieces on FIFA and the rampant corruption within it, are aways well written and informative.
Please keep up the excellent work.
Excellent post Bill.
You can understand what my country (Bosnia-Herzegovina) has to deal with these imbeciles who committed genocide and ethnic cleansing resulting in half the country being run by Bosnian-Serbs who are being heavily influenced by Serbia. They control half the government!! I cannot believe the west awarded them in the Dayton peace agreement half the country for committing genocide and other atrocious crimes.
This racism is despicable. Those fans are horrible horrible people and should be ashamed.
Thanks, Bill. I don’t always agree with you, but I sure as shit agree with this. Well done.
Also Adem Ljajic is a Bosniak* he is Muslim of faith but the proper term for his ethnicity is Bosniak. That’s what “Bosnian Muslims” are too.. Bosniaks.. since Muslim can’t be a ethnic group, its a faith choice.
Hey kids, Bill Archer’s back!
Great stuff. Suffice to say, I’ve missed these.
The sad reality is that Serbia’s not alone in all of this. It happens all over Europe. Even though this incident happened to an English player, some English fans are just as racist, including some who stupidly leave racist messages on player and team Facebook and Twitter pages. If anyone shouldn’t be screaming for the moral high road, it’s the English. Although Danny Rose deserves an apology, I don’t think the English FA deserve anything because they can’t exactly keep their own house in order. Even though there are punishments in place against acts like this in England, people STILL do it. I don’t think any type of punishment against teams, FAs, and individual people is ever going to fix this specific problem, and while it is my hope that one day this racism problem will all be eradicated, I just don’t see it in the near future. It’s no different than the homophobia and sexism which are publicly displayed by politicians in the good ol’ US of A. These things are deemed by some to be acceptable, just like racism is in places like Serbia. I’m OK with a punishment against the Serbian FA, but it must be made across the board. For any single racist incident, this precedence must be taken. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, half of world football will be shut down, including the US. Those chants of “Mow my lawn” at Mexican players aren’t exactly helping our standing in the moral high ground.
Utterly bizarre post.
England has some of the strictest anti-racist laws in the World and it is illegal to post racist comments on facebook & twitter and if you actually had any idea what you are talking about you’d know many have been jailed for such things.
And just to prove my point conclusively, the FA just punished Terry heavily for a racist slur even after the case in the Crown court failed.
The English actually have every right to take the high ground since they’ve taken such a strong stance against racism and arguably lead the way on such matters.
Could you be anymore wrong?
Actually England is good at pretending to be on a moral high ground while not doing anything practical to deal with the problem. They have had plenty of problems with racist crowds and even for repeat offender clubs they English FA would not make them play behind closed doors. The English FA are hell bent on handshakes and t-shirts that accomplishes absolutely nothing practical. They are only doing it so they can say they are doing something while doing nothing.
The English have actually gotten so preoccupied in making racism their cause so they can take the moral high ground that they are using the term racism to the point of abusing it. It has gotten to the point where racism was getting thrown out there for everything including the Leeds-Wednesday incident which actually had nothing to do with that.
This behavior is pathetic.
Ban them for at least the next World Cup and Euro qualifying tournaments… at all age levels.
And to think Neven Subotic picked this country over the US. (BTW, I can’t think of another dual-national decision in recent memory that backfired for all parties involved.)
I thought Subotic played for Slovakia, not Serbia.
Nope, Serbia.
I’d like to point out that China (as in the People’s Republic of China) does not recognize Kosovo as independent. However, the Republic of China (Taiwan) does.
Sickening behavior. But if I may, in an article railing against others for being racists perhaps you should try avoid using the phrase “subhuman” to describe them. Call them stupid, ignorant, even worthless. But “subhuman” smacks a bit too much of racism on its own. But aside from that excellent article and wouldn’t it be nice to see FIFA actually do something about it.
The acts were less than what can be called common human decency, hence subhuman. I agree wholeheartedly with the way that Archer puts it.
There’s a big difference. The “subhuman miscreants” in question are being called that because of what they’ve done, not because of their race or ethnicity.
Serbian football fans have a mean streak of racism, homophobia, xenophobia and violence related to the three. They deserve to be condemned in the ways you mention.
But let’s not pretend that all opponents of Kosovo are mobsters and/or racists. Unless you’re willing to call 98 nations mobsters and/or racists and/or Russia’s pawns (compared to the 92 that officially recognize it, all freedom loving nations presumably in the author’s opinion). Plus, the actions Kosovars have taken against Serbs in Kosovo amount to ethnic cleansing.
The only surprise would be if anything beyond token comments sees the light of day. I mean this is Europe we’re talking about. Guys named Hitler, Stalin, and a boatload of others cemented their places in history by wiping out (all they could get their hands on) those who were targeted as being inferior.
Speaking of boats, how many instances of the crew of sinking ships making sure their hides were saved before their passengers? It isn’t that any country holds the patent to shameful behavior but in a regional sense, it’s alive and well ’round the Med.
I don’t condone racism but it isn’t going to go away – even if it were to be punishable by death. By the same token, acting as if it doesn’t happen isn’t going to moderate the ultras and extremists. Racism is too well-ingrained over there to be dealt with as effectively as it is here in the States, and that’s not to say we’re doing a good job of dealing with it as a whole either.
This “branch” is going to bend much more before it breaks and when it does, the movers and the shakers are going to be busy positioning themselves in front of the press to denounce racism and attach themselves to any groundswell among their peers aimed at eradicating racism-charged hooliganism.
Its gotta start somewhere and if that’s what it takes then so be it.
The US did quite a bit of wiping out too. Or they used someone’s supposed inferiority to justify making them work for free.
The US had a bit of a head start dealing with racism because black and white people have been living side by side for centuries. I bet you that 50 years ago maybe 0.0001% of the Serbian population had ever seen a black person. Still despicable how they act now, but considering that it took the US centuries to realize that it is not ok to make black people drink from a different fountain, I do believe that over time the Serbs will catch up too. As long as they do it in less than 100 years, they would still be on track to have faster integration than the US.
And I hope this doesn’t sound apologetic to what happened in Serbia. Because it is not OK. But people need to realize that the US had a unique history that forced it to deal (often unsuccessfully) with black/white issues much earlier than other countries.
Outstanding work. People have been so up in arms about the joke of Qatar hosting the World Cup that Russia has almost gotten a pass.
What an absolutely ignorant and hysterical article, so typical of the muppets that compose the ranks of football fans today in the Anglo-American world. Bill Archer’s distortion and misrepresentation of the facts of the U-21 game are not bad enough – he needs to inject Anglo-American revisionist and racist history about Serbia and other parts of Yugoslavia.
The fact is that the U-21 squad and particularly Danny Rose behaved disgracefully during the match – the way Rose taunted and provoked those in attendance. Rose alleged that he was being racially abused throughout the game, but video evidence demonstrates that he is lying. Even if his allegations were true, his behaviour would still not have been justified – he behaved in a cowardly, vulgar, and mentally weak manner. If a professional footballer cannot keep his cool, then he doesn’t belong in the sport.
English commentators today have this special uptightness about displays of racism or alleged “monkey chants” during matches, as if these are the worst possible things that can happen – never mind the fact that abuse of players by the audience and violence during games are nearly 100% motivated by non-racist reasons. This uptightness almost never happens with other countries. There was in the Clasico the allegation that Busquets was calling Marcelo a monkey. But rather than resorting to the FA terror of police investigations and show trials, nothing serious happened over that alleged incident, as the Spanish are much more rational about issues like this.
There have been many problems at football matches with hooliganism, violence, obscene chanting, etc. When violence occurs at football matches, it has always been of a non-racist character. Yet, the impression one gets from reading stories in the English media is that racism is the foremost problem in football matches today – which is nonsense. What’s going on is needless politicisation by liberal elites who are conducting their social experiments on the sport.
Archer cites the fallacious argument about some kind of unfairness between Bendtner’s €100k fine and the undeserved fines for “racial abuse”. But there is no equivalence between the two, as one is an act committed by a player while the other is done by people who are not part of a club. There shouldn’t be any punishment for a club for a victimless thing like “monkey chants”.
Next, Archer slanders Serbian legend Mihajlovic as a racist, but fails to mention that Patrick Vieira uttered a racial slur at Mihajlovic and never apologised for it. Your omission of this and failure to condemn Vieira reflects not genuine anti-racism, but rather the counterfeit anti-racism found in Black Nationalism, according to which only Black people can be the victims of racism.
Archer then associates Mihajlovic and the Serbs generally with committing genocide, which is outrageous. The Serbs themselves have suffered hundreds of years of persecution, beginning with the savage Ottoman yoke that the British upheld for so long, and particularly the genocide that the Serbs suffered at the hands of the Nazi-aligned forces, made possible by Britain’s policies of appeasement. Britain and America also bear responsibility for the outbreak of the wars in Yugoslavia, as they masterminded and supported the fragmentation of that country: some one million Serbs became refugees from Bosnia, Croatia,and Serbia’s Kosovo as a result of the genocidal pursuits of the US/EU-backed nationalist forces. Refugees today compose 10% of Serbia’s population.
Archer then briefly discusses “President Clinton” and his policies towards Yugoslavia. You are repeating the lies from our media’s propaganda campaign against Yugoslavia about mass executions and mass rapes – which has never been verified. The NATO countries, which has stirred and encouraged the rebellion in Kosovo, unleashed a war of aggression against Yugoslavia because they wanted to subjugate it. Their air raids deliberately targeted civilians who were murdered and injured by the tens of thousands. The NATO countries used toxic chemicals and depleted uranium against the population, having harmful effects to the health of large numbers of people: there are many cases of cancer and birth defects in Serbia today associated with this barbaric war that the Americans and British unleashed.
Archer also fails to note that this NATO bastard child called Kosovo is an absolute basketcase – it lives off of vast handouts from the EU members. Most Albanians don’t even live and work in Albania or Kosovo. Particularly notorious about Kosovo is the organized crime element – their own “prime minister” is a trafficker of drugs and human organs. From this hellhole, hundreds of thousands of Serbs have become refugees.
Never verified? I’m not how having been victims of genocide at the hands of the Nazis or the Ottomans renders Serbs incapable of committing genocide themselves. It doesn’t look like you’re thinking that transition in logic through quite clearly.
Re Vieria: After (or during) the post “black shit” shitstorm Sinisa Mihajlovic said it was in response to a similarly phrased antiziganist slur Vieria threw at him, and that he was “proud of being a gypsy”. Is he Romani? Can you be ethnic Romani and be ethnic Serb (I really don’t know how that works, not being an ethnologist or whatever).
There’s allegations in Archer’s piece leveled at members of the Serbian team (e.g., harassment in the tunnel) so saying Bendtner was a player, not a bunch of fans in the stands, doesn’t really cut it. But shoddy logic and projections of blame onto the US and NATO, as well as claiming historical adversaries of Serbia are no angels, therefore Serbia is nothing but angels, seems to be how you want to approach the issue, so I’m not sure pointing out gaps in your logic is going to elicit a more cogent re-articulation from you. But no harm trying, eh?
Sorry everyone; nominations for Blog Comment of the Year are now closed.
You had me at “Savage Ottoman yoke”
My favorite part was racists chants being “victimless”
Well, they’re just black people, so they don’t count.
Sure they do. 2/3 of a person. Duh.
It was actually 3/5, the fraction accepted by both sides in the representation compromise.
Great post, Archer.
Daniel, you’re a star in the face of the sky-y-yyyy…
It’s rather disappointing that you decided to defend the obvious racist chanting in the same post in which you criticize the author for his severe lack of knowledge when it comes to foreign policy and history. Your defense of racism makes your salient and very valid points irrelevant.
Serbian football fans DO have a massive racist, xenophobic and homophobic streak. Kosovars in general, as shown by their treatment toward Serbs in Kosovo, do as well. So do Croatian football fans. The fact that they have problems however does not excuse Serbia from its problems, nor do any events outside of football. Racism in any way shape or form is a bad thing.
Unfortunately, the author should have stuck to football, since his foreign policy arguments are clearly biased (apparently China, Brazil and India and 90+ other nations are just subjects to Russia’s will, while the smaller-than-half in the UN that recognizes Kosovo are freedom-loving democracy spreaders).
He excuses the Kosovars’ racism, which while outside of football is still a bad thing, and gives a very revisionist version of NATO’s intervention in Serbia which ignores the deliberate funding of secessionists like the KLA. These groups would incite ethnic tensions, which when filtered through pro-Western media would give NATO an excuse for full-on intervention and formation of a pro-Western government, international laws be damned. The new government then virtually hands over all natural resources to the west. Sound familiar?
Of course, I must be a crony of Putin for pointing out the basic plan of the last 50 years of US foreign policy.
El. Oh. El.
Just like your Russian wet nurses, you refuse to accept responsibility for your actions. Its always someone else’s fault. You would be masters of the universe if not for the Turks, or Mongols, or Tatars, or Bosniaks, or NATO, or America, or, or, or.
You are like the petulant teenage delinquent of Europe. You constantly break the accepted laws of society, then say it’s someone else’s fault.
Damn. The jig is up.
He has exposed, as he puts it, “the basic plan of US foreign policy for the last 50 years”:
Set up the subversion of Serbia so we can steal their coal and bauxite.
NOW what do we do?
Many years ago, when I was a shortwave radio junkie, I read a story about Albania’s state-run radio station. Every news story was spun into a conspiracy against Albania. Why did we bomb Libya? Because we were trying to intimidate Albania, which would never give in to such cowardly threats. Why did the Berlin Wall fall? To make it easier for East Germany to invade Albania.
The article called the station “radio’s cure for insomnia,” but I found it fascinating.
Its not an exposition since it’s pretty much out in the open (except for mainstream media; Ron Paul on Iran and Noam Chomsky on Palestine, for example). Not only is it done for natural resources but political capital. Surely I didn’t have to spell out how relations between a Kosovo government and US government would be like, and how that would benefit US power projection capabilities in a not-so-friendly region.
Anyway, this distracts from my main point. Daniel’s excusing away of Serbian racism is wrong, just like Bill’s excusing of Kosovo racism is wrong. Sure, it didn’t happen at a football game (yet), but its just as much a Serbian problem as it is a Kosovar, Croatian, Polish, Russian, etc. problem. If you want to enact these punishments in Serbia you might as well do it in all of these countries.
Better yet, if you want Kosovo to play football games, fine. Surely, they’ll earn themselves the same reputation in the first home game against black players or Balkan opponents anyway.
This might be the craziest, most terrifyingly misinformed, shit-fest of a comment on the entire internet. I’m speechless.
I’d like to thank you for posting such a wonderful article. You fully vindicated everything that Bill Archer was pointing out. Great stuff.
“There shouldn’t be any punishment for a club for a victimless thing like “monkey chants”.
It took 17 hours for a Serb apologist to comment on an article critical of Serbia…I’d say that is a bit slower than average!
Serbian legend Mihajlovic can’t be a racist–compared to him everyone on the planet literally is inferior and deserving of his scorn. Especially black people.
Serbian legend Mihajlovic is 1/8th African. This has nothing to do with his ancestry. The man ate a f*cking black guy!
Serbian legend Mihajlovic kicks so much Muslim ass that he gets accused of ethnic cleansing every time he washes his feet!
Did you know that the Mediterranean Sea is man-made? Serbian legend Mihajlovic dug it just 20 years ago to try and keep Africans out of Europe.
Ramadan isn’t actually a religious holiday. It’s a month long period in which Serbian legend Mihajlovic personally forces starvation on a billion Muslims worldwide!
The real reason that images of Mohammed are forbidden is that a roundhouse kick to the face delivered by Serbian legend Mihajlovic pulverized the prophet’s features to such a degree that no accurate representation could be possible.
Serbian legend Mihajlovic doesn’t eat pork either, but only because it doesn’t go well with ambrosia, golden apples, soma, and amrita.
Serbian legend Mihajlovic farted once and the resluting explosion broke up Yugoslavia.
“If it would be physically possible for Serbia to be towed out to sea and sunk the air of Europe would at once seem cleaner” – unattributed but possibly Lord Grey
Serbian FA response video – article and link.
http://epltalk.com/2012/10/18/serbian-fa-release-smear-video-on-youtube-challenging-danny-roses-racist-chant-claims-the-nightly-epl/
Didn’t England just have race riots? Doesn’t England have fans invading pitches and attacking players still?
I don’t care about Serbia, but fans (of any team) are drunken idiots that want to get under the skin of opposing players. Add a Nazi salute or monkey chants and the media has a field day. If this was white on white or black on black, it would not be a big deal.
Just because Serbia has blatant racism doesn’t make it any worse then many other countries. Almost every country has some form of racism so why don’t you get off your high horse. Terry anyone? What about Suarez?
I find it hysterical that because the Western Media is so much louder and larger then it’s Eastern counter parts that this is some new issue that needs to be attended to. I thought this article was going to be something new but it’s really just a regurgitation of the bull that the English media has been spoon feeding it’s public so that it’s own problems are not addressed.
As to fines, racism doesn’t have a price tag. If someone is so deep in their own hatred no amount of money will ever stop them from pushing their own rhetoric on to other people.
Terry and Suarez were punished, and until Serbia is punished, your post doesn’t make sense. A high horse isn’t a bad thing when the position is the right one.
no amount of money will stop them from pushing their own rhetoric, sure, but playing their home games behind closed doors will stop players from having to hear it.
I agree with part of this, what I don’t like is the tone of the article, like if racism was only a Serbian problem or a European problem and not a worldwide one. Also, this first of the class talking from a podium in a country where racism does not exist (you wish); maybe it would be best to watch first in each one’s own backyard first and for example realize that – while talking about racism in Europe – the KKK is still legal in the United States, in the name of the freedom of opinion or what ever it is. A freedom of opinion that in the last couple of months has done incredible damage worldwide. So, like it would be wrong to blame all Americans for the KKK it is equally wrong to blame all Serbs for racist chants done by a part of a soccer match crowd.
I was deployed to Kosovo with NATO troops and spent significant time in de-facto Serbia areas of Kosovo. A meeting with a local leader–openly racist comments with no regard for how it would make the leader and community look in front of the NATO officers present. Another meeting with a local, open-minded Serb–other Serbs came over and loudly started spouting racist comments with NATO officers present and understanding. Meetings with another Serb leader were sprinkled with racist comments for a particular population group. On the anniversary of the war a television show used racist terminology, during which local Serbs accompanied the show with loud racist comments, knowing full well that NATO soldiers and officers present heard and understood. School children giving the fascist salute and yelling, “Sieg Heil!” Racism in Serbian stadiums is nothing surprising. It is open in the population.
While nothing good ever came out of Serbia, English are last people that should be opening their mouth about racism.
Well written, Bill.
The problem that we, the EU, FIFA and everyone else for that matter have with the Serbs is that a majority of the population do not believe that they have a problem. It is like an alcoholic that denies he has a drinking problem.
None of this racist stuff has any effect on them so we get views like dear old David posted above. As an Englishman, I remember when we had severe issues with hooliganism back in the 70′s and 80′s. We refused to realize that we had a problem, until Heysel. That was the shock treatment that pushed us over the edge.
The Sebs don’t recognise any of the stuff at the end of the game being the problem. They look at the Rose claims, and that is their issue.
Deluded.
Only a severe ban will work here before something more serious happens. Unfortunately, I don’t think UEFA have the stones for this. FIFA may have to get involved.
http://www.soccerlimeyinamerica.com/?p=4401
Do you say that all English fans are hooligans?
If not, don’t deride all Serbs as hooligans.
That kind of bigoted mentality is why the problem started in the first place. This is why people are afraid of Child Protective Services, because a few evil people get in and don’t check on kids, and instead of blaming those people, the whole agency is blamed.
Students accused in the death of that FAMU band member are small news compared with FAMU being responsible for “allowing hazing”.
The best defense against racism (which my son and his teammates have dealt with on the pitch from age 12 on) is to be better than your opponent. Then THEY have to face the fact that someone THEY consider subhuman is BETTER than them.
It is all part of education, and lack of REAL education on morals and values is prevalent around the world. In the US, atheists are among the most moral folks around, but in many other countries, there are people who have left religion but filled the void with hate instead of increased understanding.
When I saw/read about this, my initial thought was FIFA and UEFA will give Serbia a slap on the wrist.
Then it got me thinking, if it was reversed and this was english fans, England would probably either be kicked out of the next major competition and/or be made to play a qualification behind closed doors or on neutral grounds and/or heavily fined.
Not sure I agree with your assertion that a cat getting hit by a car is sad, but apart from that I guess you’ve made a reasonable point or two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GlTDMeeq0s
Right after the clip Serb shot them…
You are as headless as those few assholes on that game, just a different type of nothingtodo.
Just blame it on Serbs for everything.
Bombing lasted 78 days, not 30, and I don’t believe you mention that here…
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