Everyone is talking about how Milan’s Champions League
dreams are on life support. Or how Gattuso’s time is up. But last week, two of
our best warriors were racially abused. Well for more than just once, actually.
And after all of that abuse, the FIGC handed down a
suspended sentence of only a partial stadium ban to Lazio. Meaning that
if fans behave themselves for 12 months, nothing at all will happen to them.
Nothing. In 2019, our players and team got fined a total of €86,000 for holding
up an opposition player’s shirt, but fans racially abusing two human beings get
nothing. It’s beyond disgusting. And, in Italy, racism rules again.
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| Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore |
Those familiar with Serie A know a couple of things about
racism: it is never punished like any other infraction, and certain teams are
guilty of it more often than others. One of the reasons it is not punished
appropriately is that the very rules are written for failure. Although UEFA’s
three step policy to combat racism within the game includes the referee
stopping a match, the FIGC rules say the referee cannot stop the game, the
Serie A officials have to. Which is really weird, because outside of racist
chanting, the referee has final say on every other aspect of the game. The
referee can literally stop the game for weather and acts of god, but
apparently, not racism.
Additionally, although violent or other incidents are
retroactively punishable with video evidence, racism is not. In order for a
punishment to be applied, the racism must be witnessed by league officials
during the match. So, following our Coppa Italia Semifinal second leg against
Lazio, for example, Milan identified 32 instances of racial abuse within the
game itself using video and photographic evidence. It was very audible throughout
the broadcast, even over the 62,000 Milan fans who were there, yet both the ref
and fourth official claim to have not heard or seen a thing. Thirty-two. In one
game. And that may not even be including all of the abuse before and after the
match, either.
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| "I did not hear the Lazio fans singing 'This banana is for you Bakayoko'" |
In addition to the chants during the Coppa match, which all
of the Milan players acknowledge that “everyone heard,” video clips surfaced and some even went viral of Lazio fans chanting racist chants against Bakayoko
at Lazio’s Serie A matches against Udinese and Chievo that week, too. Also, the Inter fans chanting at their match that week, since their clubs are “twinned.”
There were chants from fans before they entered the stadium, and the rules
indicate that they should not have been allowed to enter the stadium. Yet they
were allowed in and continued to sing, unchallenged. However, none of that is punishable
because the league officials claim they didn’t hear it during the match. Milan
sent their video evidence to CONI, and I am hoping that they get FIFA, UEFA,
and FIFPro (the world players union) involved as well. But any involvement is unlikely
to change much in Italy, unless they implement financial or disciplinary
measures. I am not even sure they can do much, really. Each nation and league
have the right to govern themselves, at least to an extent.
Another ridiculous rule in Italy that only applies to racism
is that a certain percentage of fans must be participating in order for them to
actually implement their weak version of UEFA’s three-step plan to combat
racism. And while in this instance, the FIGC’s Disciplinary Committee report
documents that 90% of the Lazio fans were participating in the racist chanting (which
is considerably more than the required amount for discipline,) Lazio only
received a suspended sentence for a partial stadium ban.
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| Nothing ever changes |
Maybe the FIGC are trying baby steps with Lazio, whose
owner, Claudio Lotito, has said racist, sexist, and other bigoted things himself
publicly, and might not even understand what his fans did wrong. Teams like
Juve, who only a few years back had fans chanting racist things about Mario
Balotelli when he wasn’t even there, even at youth games, have worked very hard
to at least have fewer racist incidents. They have banned lots of fans for life
from their stadium, and while there always seem to be more, their frequency of
incidents does seem to have actually dropped. Lotito and Lazio, however have
made racism business as usual. In fact, they never publicly apologized for
their fans’ behavior, or even condemned it. Rather they complained about the
media blowing this out of proportion and pointed out that this was not
representative of their club’s beliefs nor all of their fans. Yeah, just 90%.
Because this was the Coppa Italia semifinal, we
knew that they were not going to give Lazio a stadium closure for the final.
That’s bad for football. Italians seem to be the only ones who don’t realize
that racism is also bad for football in 2019. In civilized countries, it is
frowned upon, to say the least. Some of their rules indicate that they are
aware. For example, a fan can be banned from the stadium for life for racist
behaviors. But to do that, the rules would have to be enforced. And although
that rule exists, it is a hundred times more likely that a player will suffer
racial abuse than a fan be removed from the stadium or banned. Wait, a hundred
times is much too low.
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| Banners and signs will solve the problem, right? |
Consider a couple of the high profile events of just this
year, when Koulibaly was abused by Inter fans, for example. He lost his temper
and ended up serving a two match ban, which was highly criticized by many
outside agencies. While Inter did serve stadium bans for this, when they abused
Kessie during the Derby, they were also given only a suspended sentence. The
concept of stadium bans is that they should increase as the behaviors increase,
thus resolving the problem one way or the other. But not in Italy. Once a ban
has been served, apparently, they wipe the slate clean and start over. Which is
why clubs like Inter and Lazio are allowed to be such repeat offenders. It’s
truly disgusting.
But the most disgusting thing, and the thing that gets lost
in all of the discussion, is the brutality and reality of racism itself upon
our players. For a sport that holds athletes to a higher moral code, not just
because they are paid well, but also because they are public figures, Italy
completely throws players of color under the bus. No one acknowledges how
damaging it is for one member of a team to be singled out and abused by
thousands of fans while trying to be part of a team and play like everyone
else. Racism is wrong because it literally takes power away from the
individual. They are condemned for something they have no control over, and
once it happens in public, it cannot be taken back. It is incredibly damaging
when certain players are punished more severely than other players, such as in
Koulibaly’s case, or when Kessie and Bakayoko were fined for holding up a
shirt. Some people claim that they “just can’t win.” However, with racism, it’s
actually true. Players subjected to racial abuse literally cannot win. And when
that happens, we all lose.
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| In response to racism in Spain, the Prime Minister and Italy NT coach ate a banana in solidarity with Dani Alves |
The only winner in all of this is racism. Racism is alive
and well in Italy. Moise Kean’s teammate condemned him for his celebration, something most players do. But because he was doing it in response to racial abuse,
his teammate told him it was wrong instead of standing with him or doing
something to get the abuse to stop. Koulibaly was punished excessively for
something that likely never would have happened if he hadn’t been abused. Bakayoko
and Kessie have received excessive media attention for all of the wrong reasons
this year, most of it because opposition fans singled them out for the color of their
skin. These are our players. They represent our shirt. They bleed for us the
same as all of the other players, but no one seems to care. This is Italy’s
dirty not-so-little secret. No one cares that the people in charge have made
racist statements themselves. Because this is not a problem anyone in power, or
even enough people not in power want to solve. Until they do, racism will
always win.
This post
inspired by the music of They Might Be Giants’ “Your Racist Friend”
Our next match is
Serie A Week 35
Milan vs. Bologna
Monday, May 6 •
20:30 CEST (2:30pm EDT)