Racial abuse on and off the field of play

[Stavros]

Some of you will know that there are currently two disputes in English football (Soccer) in which one player is accused of racial abuse against another -Luis Suarez of Liverpool is alleged to have repeatedly called Patrice Evra of Manchester United a negrito, amongst other words during a game in which they repeatedly clashed with each other. John Terry of Chelsea is alleged to have called Anton Ferdinand of Queen's Park Rangers a black cunt; these sets of allegations are under investigation.

The cases are considered serious by some, dismissed by others as part of the rough and tumble of the game in which players regularly snipe at each other and shake hands at the end...in Australia cricketers who take the mickey out of their opponents and try to put them off their game call the process sledging. I don't know if cricket really is a more genteel game, but as I see it, there is a wide repertoire of abuse that any plyer can call on to put an opponent off their game or just to snarl in words: so why would one player use words and phrases that refer to another player's colour when there are alternatives? Because it is deliberate, it is a deliberate provocation, not an innocent, spur of the moment reaction. Zidane of France was sent off in the World Cup Final for head-butting an Italian player who repeatedly hissed at Zidane, your sister is a whore. It cannot be too much to ask players to exercise basic respect for their opponents because most of them do; I don't believe I have ever heard a tennis player shout racial abuse at another player; I don't know if it happens in Rugby Union.

Does this happen in baseball, basketball or American football, or anywhere else in the world? Or is it just soccer that seems to be cursed -and let's not even get into crowd abuse in the Balkans and Russia....

[Prospero]

Soccer seems to be particularly plagued. There is one team derided as "yids" by supporters of other teams. And racial abuse is ongoing.

Mind you no British soccer team ever prompted a war like that between El Salvador and Honduras.

[russtafa]

Soccer seems to be particularly plagued. There is one team derided as "yids" by supporters of other teams. And racial abuse is ongoing.

Mind you no British soccer team ever prompted a war like that between El Salvador and Honduras.

my bother used to support Tottenham and the jewish supporters used to yell go you yids

[Stavros]

I did try and suggest it was the players I am interested rather than the crowd; as for the Jewish thing at Spurs, just as the Conservatives at Arsenal and the luvvies from theatreland at Chelsea, those affiliations waned into insignifance years ago, and even if it had some credibility it was a minority interest -on the occasions when I went to White Hart Lane in the 1960s I was certainly not aware of it. The North London catchment area for Spurs which may have had a working class Jewish community now hoasts Turkish Cypriots, some Kurds, and Afro-Caribbean commmunities.

[doolaxxx]

goode tv plyer

[Gambino]

When I was younger I would play bball with Asians who would call me skippy because of the tv show "skippy the bush kangaroo" and I'd call them nip, and no one cared, however times have changed. I'm still of the mentality that you can call me whatever you want, but be prepared to take it back, in basketball if your good, you can trash talk, but you don't bother if you aren't good cause you just get made to look stupid

[Stavros]

Fair enough -but is sledging, say, the same as abuse? I think its when players deliberately provoke someone with genuinely nasty remarks that things get out of hand. How bad can sledging get, for example?

[celticgrafix]

who cares? they can do whatever they like. you think its wrong but why cant they think its right?

[rodinuk]

Because everything has consequences and it filters off the pitch to the crowd and into the community etc. and somewhere it turns really nasty

[celticgrafix]

yeh no shit everything has consequences but at the same time those people can do whatever they want. We might not agree with it but who are we to judge.