Racism continues to kill the beautiful game.
Speaking ahead of Brazil’s ‘one skin’ game against Spain, after repeated racism related questions, Real Madrid superstar Vinicius Jr. broke down in tears.
Subject to repeated racial abuse in the past, the Brazilian struggled to keep in the tears and attributed the repeated racial abuse to the lack of punishment perpetrators face.
Despite facing the abuse faced, Vinicius Jr is defiant in his stance to remain in Spain as leaving would “give the racists” what they want.
Racism has been a persistent cancer in the beautiful game, and although organisations have committed to stamping racism out of football, the issue still persists.
Many black players are left to contend with the pressures and struggles that come with racial abuse and it shouldn’t take Vinicius Jr breaking down in a press conference to emphasise the severity of this issue.
In his weakness, Vinicius displayed his strength and resilience, as he especially has been victim to repeated racial abuse.
Last year May 2023, hundreds of Valencia fans hurled abuse at Vinicius Jr pre game and during the game.
Atletico Madrid fans allegedly racially abused Vinicius Jr ahead of their fixture against Inter Milan, and recently alleged chants of “Vinicius die” were reported outside the Olympic Stadium before Barcelona’s Champions League tie against Napoli.
Despite my love for the beautiful game, this societal issue has ravaged the game for many years and evident is the lacklustre attempts of authorities to clamp down on this issue.
With the issue of racism, actions will always speak louder than words. I perceived some progress after George Floyd when multinational companies pledged to take a stand and raise awareness of racism and the discrimination black people in society have to navigate on a daily basis.
However, unless actualised pledges are futile.
Also, the issue with raising awareness is that companies create the illusion of proactivity, and in the process diverting responsibility away from themselves by doing the bare minimum.
Therefore, my initial hope has quickly grown sceptical as I quickly became privy to the performative nature of football clubs and international companies doing the bare minimum to fit in with trends.
The litmus test is this. Once emotions had died down, once racial incidents are no longer headline news, once the protests were no more — would we have seen genuine change.
And the answer will probably be no.
I believe issues surrounding racism must be dealt with systematically. I am not afraid of the trolls who creatively find new ways to spread hate, I am afraid of the authorities that allow this behaviour to occur.
In a society full of technological advancements, it is somewhat bemusing and concerning to observe how easily troll accounts can spread hate.
The debate around free speech comes to the table, but I believe that free speech and anonymity cannot co-exist.
A few years ago, Zaha refused to take the knee, and I completely understood his stance.
Raising awareness can only go so far. For actual change, taking action must happen.
There is so much to be said on this topic but will racism ever be kicked out of football?
As of now, probably not.
