The racists taunts during the match is really sad. Sometimes when you think racism is disapearing, it just rears it's ugly head. There is no excuse for the fans who behaved in such a disgraceful manner. I do feel it is necessary to say that this was not all of the Spanish fans, and from what I understand not even close to the majority. There will always be idiots on all sides (English fans aren't without racists & troublemakers). Making generalizations about all Spaniards based on the actions of the few is almost as irresponsible as the actions of the few today. Something should be done to send a message to fans that racism won't be tolerated.
How quickly english fans forget the chanting of '************pool' and the monkey noises being made at Paul Ince around your country, only a decade ago. Racism is disgusting everywhere and anywhere, but dont act like England doesnt have its fair share, because we all know thats a load of ****************.
haha a decade ago .We're talking about NOW you muppet . Monkey noises aint been heard over here since a millwall vs arsenal game in 92. And even that was an isolated event which hadnt been seen since the hooligans days of the 70s/early 80s.
Maybe those fans making monkey noises weren't representative of Spaniards in general but I have to say I thought it was pretty disgusting. I really felt for Wright-Phillips as well, the poor kid got foul abuse any time he went anywhere near the ball. Those people talking about racism in England a decade ago should realise that we've made huge efforts in this country to eradicate the problem, which is part of the reason we find it so disgusting when it occurs in other countries. It's like taking a step backwards.
The reason this is an issue isn't simply because of the actions of a few, (actually, I heard it was more than a few - it was several thousand according to some reports), idiots in the crowd. It's an issue because it was partly as a result of the statements of Aragones who quite clearly IS a racist. The point is... what is FIFA and EUFA going to do about it? When England fans came onto the pitch during the Turkey game in the run-up to Euro2004, (even though they didn't do anything particularly except celebrate with the players after a goal), we were threatened with expulsion by some elements inside EUFA and that was when ALL the people heading the game in this country said it was wrong. What will happen this time I wonder with Aragones attitudes being a major factor in these activities. Hmm, I wonder?
I really don't know what all the fuss is about, surely we've learned to expect this from the 3rd World?
Right, I apologise for the inflammatory thread title, it just so happens I was feeling pretty pissed off when I wrote it. I by no means meant to suggest that all Spaniards are racist. I'm also well aware that some not all English people or football followers are squeaky clean either. I would have been just as sickened had the chants been coming from England fans and would have started a thread to that effect. The fact is though (as far as I'm aware) they weren't. And to whoever wrote that I was a 'snivelling pussbag' and operate a 'love them by day, hate them at night' policy (whatever the hell that means?), you are talking out of your arse.
Unless you have several thousand ultras in the stadium who were positioned at all corners of the ground and included people standing there with their children and dressed in "normal" clothes (suits etc) then you are talking out of your arse claiming it was only the ultras involved.
Well said, Mr. Sandwich... but, like I said before, it wasn't just the crowd OR the ultras, was it. This was sparked to a certain extent by the comments from Aragones who seems to think he can justify his racism in terms of other peoples racism. 'Oh, it's OK for me to be a racist because someone else is as well'. Also, let's get it right, this follows what happened in the under-21 match so it can't even be claimed it was an isoloted incident.
A quote from Fernando Garrido (the Spanish FA press officer) "Were there racist chants? This hasn't happened in Spain for many years. You should ask yourselves what you have done to contirbute to this" Nice to see that if you bury your head in the sand and/or blame the English and everything is considered ok. Aragones certainly hasn't helped the situation - his comments about racism in England's colonial past were a bit rich, given Spain's treatment of the Aztecs and the Incas when they were colonising South and Central America. No racism existed as they simply wiped out most of the native population. As has been mentioned, there has been a history of racist chants in England dating back to the 70's. The FA, however, have made actual progress in reducing this to extremely isolated incidents. For the same behaviour to occur in Spain on two different nights at the level it did, and the lack of Spanish comment and immediate action, the Spanish FA should make a full and formal apology to both the England sides and UEFA/FIFA should act now and force Spain to play a number of home games behind closed doors. In UEFA competetion clubs are directly responsible for the conduct of supporters in the stadium (and I believe in the surrounding area) - at international level the Football Association assumes that responsibility. It doesn't matter if it is one individual or the entire crowd - think back to the Roma-Kiev game where Roma lost the game due to behaviour from the crowd. Perhaps things will change somewhat if Spain ever produces a number of black internationals of it's own.
You know what? You're right! I believe the makers of the T-Shirt for this English FA/British government campaign that all professional and amateur clubs in the UK are mandatorily engaged in have yet to receive any orders from Spain.
http://www.football365.com/news/story_134152.shtml Also very interesting comment by the article in there on the banner issues, with the anti-immigration one being so visible, yet of course no steward or security person does anything to remove it.
There is absolutely no excuse for racism of any kind, i can sort of see where Garrido might be coming from. There haven't been any racist occurrences in Spain for awhile now, so why now against England? It could be that the abuse of Aragones by the English press have hit a nerve in Spain. He's a well respected figure, and it's impossible to say that he is definitely racist based on a comment he made in Spanish. Sure the comment was stupid, could easily be interpreted to be racist, and he should definitely apologize. By not doing so he deserves to be criticized, but the thing is, perhaps the English press should be careful how to villify someone. If i were him, and i made a comment to spur on my player and got a little carried away with my words, and WAS NOT racist, i would be pretty pissed off too if i was labelled as one by a whole country and called to be sacked. And i don't think the Spanish FA would've been happy with the way the English press was labelling Spaniards and Spanish football at the time either. I'm just presenting a possible reason for the racist chants... perhaps these idiots are just looking to get back at England for their overcondemnation of Aragones? Or maybe i'm giving them too much credit. Anyway, it's all stupid, and you wonder why people don't just do the right thing and apologize when they need to. And how people could be so stupid as to believe that monkey chants at black players are going to make them look superior in this day and age. But anyway... i remember a player in Spain's Euro2000 squad by the name of Vicente Engonga, and i'm quite sure he was black. He also played under Luis Aragones at Mallorca. Just more proof that people shouldn’t go overboard by generalizing a whole country as being racist.
If someone calls your coach a racist, you don't set out to prove that he isn't by making monkey noises though. Also simply because someone had a black player in their teams means nothing.
Well, i think that i have read enough .... 1 - I hope that FIFA sanction England to not play international games NEVER, because yerterday the provocated incidents around the stadium, at least this time they didn't kill anyone (There are a huge list of people killed or attacked by english supporters). It is curious that yesterday a lot of them were skinheads and others were totally drunks "i d i o t s" (Both thinks a very usual image of english supporter outside england). Seeing all these incidents happen all the times that England NT travel (We have thousands of examples), it make me think that all the english are repressed racist and drunk, that when travel outside their country show their real face. Sorry if i generalize, but i have discovered that generalize is very usual behaviour in England and other places ... 2 - Spain isn't a racist country. Yeah, sure that exist little group of s t u p i d racist people but that people is the 0,1% of Spain population. If we saw the last elections, any fascist/radical right wing or party has had any representations in the parliament, even more the sum of party with some kind of racist ideology (messages againts inmigrants, etc) didn't represent more than 0,1% of the votes. We can see how in countries like France, racists parties like Jaen - Marie Le Pen partie had a huge number of votes, and they had people in France parlaiment. In Austria a radical right wing party won the election some years ago, in Germany (east germany) some racist parties have had many votes, the same for holland, Italy, etc ..... I doesn't speak about england because i assume that they are drunking or kick somebody head instead of vote .... Sorry, to generalize again .... 3 - Luis Aragones isn't racist, maybe s t u p i d, but he isn't racist. When he said that words about Henry, he could have said " Reyes your are better than that little stupid blondy girl" if Henry was a blond hair white men instead of a black man. This can be a very rude and s t u p i d way to motivate a player, but it isn't racist. Last week, Aragones was in TV with Samuel Etoo. Etoo that is a black player, and a Barcelona superstar, said that he appreciate luis Aragones like a father. They are very closed friends since Aragones were manager of Etoo in Mallorca. Aragones is the manager that have "play" more game in the history of la liga, and he have trained a BIG NUMBER of black players, he never have had any racist incidents with a player. I'm waiting that someone refute this afirmation .... 4 - Luis Aragones, make a mistake making s t u p i d attacks to defend his arguments two days ago. He simply musn't speak, or he should have give a more polite answer, even you think that you are right you must eat your proud if your are Spain NT manager. If some english newspapers want to generate polemic before the game that was their problem. With his answer he only generate a big polemic, and he only achieve that some not intelligent/racist people went to the stadium to make that pathetic "monkey sounds". 5 - I say that it were s t u p i d attacks because you EVERY COUNTRY HAD VERY UGLY THINGS in their past (USA is build in the total annihilation of American Indians - the bad guys of the movies - and have a not very old past of slavery and racist, English had really horrible racist episodes in its imperial past, Germany had the Nazism, Russian had terrible annihilation of people after second world war, Spain annihilated AZtecs and other indians after we discover America, ... What a wonderful world. And the problem is that seeing what is happening around the world, it seems that we don't learn anything ... 6 - TO BILBAO LION, I have seen in San Mames (Bilbao stadium) people with flags supporting the murder of people that doesn't think the same of them, i think that that is very very civilizated. More clearly, i have seen in Bilbao stadium banners defending ETA, a terrorist group that is included in USA, Europen Union and United nations list of terrorist organizations. It is great to go to a stadium were you can see people that are so superior that thing that have the right to kill you because you don't have their ideology. 7 - The game was at Bernabeu, but it was a spain game, not Real MAdrid game, some people should understand that. The stadium was full of supporters of all the places of Spain, a prove of that is that Beckham was whisle almost everytime that he touch the ball, the people that wishle were probably Atletico de Madrid supporters, or Valencia supporters. Real Madrid only rent the stadium to spain soccer federation. there weren't Real Madrid representatives in the stadium. The people that made "Monkey sounds" could have been Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Rayo Vallecano, Getafe, Valencia .... supporter, or none of them ..... 8 - The holligans groups are a problem of all Europe, South America or Africa. Almost every la liga team has a holligan group. Barcelona - Boixos noix, Real Madrid - Ultra sur, Atletico de Madrid - Frente Atletico, Celta vigo - Celtarras, .... Almost all these holligans groups are racist and fascist. This holligans group exist in great part of the teams of the big leagues of Europe and South America, it is a problem that started in the early 80s (in spain) inherit of England. The people that doesn't want to see that are hypocritical. We can remember "recent" incident of people death in Italy or Argentina. Real Madrid since Florentino is president has been fighting very hard against that racist behavior, some ultra sur has threated Florentino for that, Real Madrid had expeled of the club several member of Ultra Sur, as soon as they create some incident inside the stadium, RM work very hard with the help of Spain police. The team collaborate with a lot of antiracist organizations, and have create a lot of foundations in Spain (the last one in Mostoles, Madrid suburb) and ouside spain (chile, Salvador, Republica dominicana) to help inmigrants childs (in spain) and child with economic problems (outside spain), That childs play with Real Madrid equipentment, are visited by Real Madrid superstars, and they recieved help by Real Madrid to can study and have a good future. In the last 5 years hasn't happened any important incients in Bernabeu when Real Madrid play, you can check that ... Ultra sur is only a very little group (less than 500) that doesn't represent the 99'9 % Real Madrid supporters (85,000 members, millions of supporters around the world) ... 9 - I remember two black players that have played in Spain NT in the last years, Engonga and Donato and they never have had any problems, you can also verify that ...
illuminatus and MadridForever. I fully understand your frustration when you think that all Spanish people are being called racist - I feel the same when I hear people on these boards saying that English fans abroad are a big problem when the reality is that England has more problems partly as a result of the number of fans we take to away matches. The more fans, statistically, the greater number of idiots that tag along. BUT - your missing the point. It isn't about the fans themselves... well, not entirely anyway... It's about the leaders of football in your country, how they act and the reaction of the governing bodies like FIFA and EUFA when this sort of thing happens. I can assure you that if any British football manager said anything like Aragones said, particularly if he then tried to defend himself with some clap-trap about how he has black people among his friends, (like that makes any difference), he would be out on his ear in a matter of days. When some chants about Turks were heard during the match in England against Turkey a year or so ago everyone in a position of authority condemned it unresevedly. Nobody stood up and said, 'Oh well, it's quite fair because they killed a couple of our blokes from Leeds when they played Galatasaray', or 'Oh, well, Italian crowds are racist as well'... So WHAT? That's up to them, isn't it. Also we have been threatened more than once with being thrown out of various competitions because of the activities of our fans.. let alone our manager for christs sake. That's the problem many people in England have with this. It seems like there's one law for us and another for everyone else.
I think that UEFA and FIFA need to take this seriously, and I think there's a simple first step. That is to empower the referee to stop the game if this kind of thing happens. Just like there's a yellow and a red for players, there should be a warning then a punishment for the crowd. One warning then, if the racial abuse continues, it's game over, forfeit, followed by a hefty fine to the club or national FA. Continued cases of abuse should result in exclusion from international tournaments. To affect the fans' behavior you need them to see how their actions directly hurt the team they claim to love. To affect the suits' behavior, you need them to be held financially liable.
Honestly none of this suprises me. My wife and I honeymooned in Spain (near Malaga in a town called Marbella) and got rude stares whereever we went, people passing by in cars, walking by us in the streets, you name it (except for the service industry people). It got so bad by the end of the week, we were glaring back at them just out of spite. My parents also went to Madrid and said that they were treated impolitely. To be fair, my parents said that they were treated a little better in Barcelona. So these actions by the Spanish in Madrid, while appalling do not really suprise me.
My mate's mum is Guyanan. He was the only black kid in his school up in Newcastle - late-80s-early-90s we are talking here. The amount of racist abuse he got - don't even start. It is disgusting but should we now brand the city of Newcastle? Jesus, I got abused as a kid for being white on numerous occasions in Berkeley and Oakland - am I to brand those cities as well now?
Throughout the day I think there has been a bit too much self-righteousness in England post-match, when not so long ago things weren't great throughout the country and places like Bradford are still sooo divided over race lines.
You must be white. Only a white person would think racism simply disappears. As long as people are afraid, It'll never go away.