Enzo Fernandez should have known better, and football can't be ok with that.
Yes, we're still talking about it.
Hi all,
I know; you haven’t heard from me in a while—I’m sorry, I’m aware, and I will make up for it. I really missed spending time sharing my thoughts here, but these past couple of weeks haven’t allowed me to do so. Plus, you all know what I’m here to write about today, and to write about that, I needed to listen, think, and organize said thoughts about it.
Here we go. Again.
At the end of Copa América we all witnessed an absolutely unacceptable racism episode coming from the players of the Argentinan squad, winner of the competition. They decided that singing racist chants against a team that didn’t even play against them was the best way to celebrate their win, and that live-streaming the whole thing on Instagram was the next great idea to top it off. Yes, that’s what Chelsea FC and Argentina player Enzo Fernandez did that night. If you want to read more details about what happened and the repercussions, I recommend this article by
at .I have to confess that I am very tired of writing about racism in football. Mind you, I’m a white person. And if I am tired, I can’t imagine how people of color must feel. We should have already moved to greener pastures. We should be able to have more room in our minds and notebooks to address different things. To build the good football rather than having to constantly bring attention to the mess created by those who insist on cultivating a toxic environment where discrimination thrives.
There was something else keeping me from writing about this - the issue involves the Argentinian national team. You see, I am very aware of my incapability of neutrality, plus I was raised by a father who does not recognize two out of the three World Cup titles won by our biggest rivals because “one was sold by Peru, and the other was won with a hand goal.” You get the picture. Writing about a racist manifestation by the team I most love not loving (trying to stick with non-violent communication here) is a very dangerous zone. But when Italian journalist ace Emanuele Atturo encourages you to do so, you don’t say no.
I still had to take my time to process all of this and understand the angle I wanted to bring. Life happened, the Olympic Games arrived and swallowed all of us Brazilians with its magic, and I caught myself thinking maybe the timing for this article was gone since no one was talking about it anymore. A big red light went out, and that’s when I knew I had my angle.
I will not underestimate your intelligence by talking through the absurdity of what happened. Or how no cultural aspect can be used to justify or minimize it. Or about the audacity of an athlete of a major football club in thinking that an apology Instagram story written in Comic Sans was an appropriate response for what he did.
Instead, I want to focus on the fact that all the different people and organizations involved in this episode are able to act (or not act) under the certainty that they will not have to deal with major outcomes or setbacks. They assume people will stop talking about it sooner rather than later since we quickly jump from one cancellation to the next these days. They don’t even have to worry that much about crisis management because they know the bar is low and tolerance is high.
Ironically, the ones who tend to be more impacted in these cases are the people being abused or attacked, either because they are expected to take over the responsibility of educating their counterparts against racism or pressured to become a spokesperson for the matter. Or maybe the task of smoothing things over might fall on them. In more extreme cases, their career can be compromised - Colin Kaepernick probably being the most well-known example.
If we want to see real change, if we want to see an end to racism in football, we simply cannot allow the simplistic, surface-level, image-cleanse responses that happen most of the time. We need to pressure the decision-makers who tend to stay quiet. We need to be curious about seeking the correct solutions for these complex and urgent problems. We need to ask the hard questions and, for goodness sake, be willing to listen even when the answers make us uncomfortable.
We also need to address a few elephants in the room that seem to just always get away with it. Say, where are the sponsors, and why haven’t we heard any loud noises from their side in these last cases of racism in football? We sure see their cool campaigns, but are they leveraging their power and position to demand real change? And how much longer are we just going to watch federations and leagues pretend that the racism happening on their watch is not their problem to handle? And here’s one very specific to this case we’re discussing: how can the biggest name in football today get away with not saying a word about what happened while being the captain of the team in question? Do we just not care that the name stamped on millions of backs around the world and the guy who every little boy wants to become is choosing not to use this influence to help educate more people on the horrors of racism? Do his sponsors care? His fans? Anyone?
Sigh.
This is not about finding who to blame or who is in charge of solving this issue. On the contrary, I think this is precisely what has been done up to this point, and it’s clearly not working. Until the whole football ecosystem understands that they each play a fundamental role in ending racism in the game, we will just be watching them pass the buck and give out lousy excuses for grotesque mistakes.
I know it sounds like this article will end on a very hopeless and depressing note. But here’s what I’ll say: more and more, I am finding that there are competent, fierce, and well-intentioned people out there determined to change this ugly side of football. From fans to players to professionals across the industry, we can all play a part in this challenge, and it could be as simple as talking about it when the conversation is already being pushed to the sidelines. Even if nobody else is talking about it anymore. Even if they say they’d “rather just talk about football.”
After all, eventually, you realize there is no such thing as “just football”, and, as big as this sport that transcends the pitch is, it still leaves no room for racism in it.
THE GOOD LINKS
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from .👩🏻🔬 Updates from the ACL project led by Nike, FIFPro, and Leeds Beckett University.
💍 This Olympic moment.
📺 Great news from UK’s women’s football.
👌🏽 Absolutely everything about this.
🗣️ What Hector Bellerín said (in Spanish).
As you say, the key to improve this situation is to talk about it. But, I think that if you don't include people who have racist thoughts or tendencies, not much progress will happen. We have to understand why they act the way they act and say what they say to be able to come to a real solution. It's easier to know what to do to change their behaviour if you know why they behave that way.