2023-05-22 12:59:31
The insults to Vinicius in Valencia they have once again highlighted racism in Spanish football, which has experienced a few notorious episodes in recent years. They have suffered it in their own flesh not only the Madrid striker, but also players like Iñaki Williams, Marcos Senna or Carlos Kameni. This is a review of some unpleasant situations experienced on soccer fields and their protagonists:
Iñaki Williams
The Athletic forward starred in the first case opened for racist insults in the stands of a professional football match in Spain. It happened in the Espanyol field on January 25, 2020. The investigation began as a result of the complaint filed by the Professional Football League before the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office, in which it recounted the racist insults uttered when the player was substituted from the field. game and received from a sector of the Espanyol stands “shouts of contempt towards his person, with the undoubted intention of humiliating him and undermining his dignity for racist reasons”. Williams was fired off with shouts of “uh, uh, uh, uh“, an onomatopoeia that reproduces the sounds emitted by monkeys. And not only that, but one of the defendants made gestures imitating an ape. Williams testified before a Cornellà judge that he felt “humiliated” and “indignant”.
Samuel Eto
In 2006, Samuel Eto’o wanted to leave the grass the Romareda after hearing insults of all kinds playing with Barça. The Cameroonian striker stood up: “I don’t play anymore”. He made an attempt to leave the field. Everyone tried to stop him. He ended up returning to the field, but that gesture from the Barcelona footballer marked a turning point.
Wilfred
Wilfred Agbonavbare, Nigerian goalkeeper for Rayo Vallecano, suffered racist chants from the Santiago Bernabéu stands: “black motherfucker pick up the cotton”. These images were recorded by several television cameras and there was no sanction of any kind. It was the moment of maximum degradation that the goalkeeper suffered in the harsh 90s. Racist insults were common, but history left a Madrid-Rayo in which the Canal Plus cameras captured very serious insults against Wilfred that years later went viral by social networks. “They should take some kind of measure to eradicate it. There are games in which people say ‘the goalkeeper is black, you have to score seven goals’, or they simply shout ‘Ku Klux Klan, Ku Klux Klan!’, Willy explained in an interview to the magazine Don Ball. Wilfred hung up his gloves in 1997, aged 41, and died at 48 after a post-football life marked by financial hardship.
Rocky
Kameni was one of the first players to publicly complain about certain racist gestures on soccer fields. “My worst moment was in the Zaragoza field in my first year with Espanyol. We were winning 0-1 and they told me everything, to the point that the referee asked me if I wanted the game to stop, but I saw myself with the strength to continue.” Even some ball boys, some children, joined in the simian cry of the choir cave. After the game, one of those ball boys still asked for his shirt as if nothing had happened. In 2005, when he faced Atlético de Madrid at the Calderón, and they sang to him: “Jump the fence, Kameni jumps the fence.” Kameni suffered hostility even from his own fans. When he had only been defending the blue and white team for one season, he raised his voice against a group of Blue and White Brigades who did not stop insulting him at every game he played at home. “They are behind me the whole game, yelling at me . And that hurts. It can’t be,” he denounced then. That young goalkeeper had to shield himself emotionally so that all this would not affect him. Although he knows that this type of harassment can lead more fragile people to extreme decisions. “Yes, you can commit suicide. Those who do it to you do not know that this can lead someone to commit suicide or is what they are causing. That is why with everything I have experienced in my life I am very strong. And I pass and push forward. But one who does not have a very strong head can arrive and abandon and drop all his dreams for those things “.
Diakhaby
A very recent case in Spanish football faced Cala and Diakhaby in a Cádiz-Valencia. What happened is not clear, but the truth is that the French player denounced a racist insult: “Black shit”, he would have called him. The Valencian team, in solidarity with their teammate, withdrew from the field of play. The match was suspended for five minutes and, after talks in the locker room, the two teams took to the field again. Diakhaby did not return and stayed on the bench, Juan Cala did. The Valencian fans received a lot of criticism for not supporting the player until the end and assuming all the possible consequences of his fight against racism. After the match, the Frenchman assured the following: “I don’t know if Cala is racist, but I do know that he has to pay for what he told me.” Finally this case was archived since nothing strange was found in Cala’s behavior.
Umtiti
Umtiti and Sergio García had a scuffle in a derby between Barça and Espanyol that was played in 2018. The defender claimed that the parakeet forward dedicated a racist insult to him during the match. “First of all, clarify that yesterday I already spoke with Samuel. In no case was my mood racist. You all know that my wife is of gypsy ethnicity and that I grew up in a neighborhood (Bon Pastor, with a high rate of immigration) with all the races in the world. My brother-in-law, with whom I have a strong friendship, is also African-American. In the tension of the game, many things are said that should remain on the pitch”, stated the Espanyol player.
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