Football and handshakes
YOU’VE probably read it by now, but if you haven’t this is Sepp Blatter when asked about racism in football:
“I would deny it. There is no racism.
“There is maybe one of the players towards another – he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one.
“But the one who is affected by that, he should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.”
The condemnation has been swift and wide ranging.
As something of a side show to the actual racism issue, what interested me was the implicit acknowledgement of those who criticised Blatter that actually, sometimes, a handshake at the end of the game doesn’t make everything alright.
It goes without saying that for racial abuse that is the case.
But so often within the game of football there appears to be a sense that just about any other form of abuse below racial abuse can be washed away with the handshake and that he who denies the handshake is, irrespective of what has gone on for the previous 90 minutes, the one in the wrong.
I’ve never understood that.
Goodplaya, you should have heard Garth Crooks on 5 live this morning patronising Nicky Campbell with his “come on how Nicky you small innocent niave boy” attitutude and condoning what blatter said because of its apparently ok because he’s no that sort of player, sorry, because he’s old. pathetic.
I have in the past thought Dave Whelan to be an honest and open chairmen but last week he said this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/09/football-fiver-poppies-england-spain-zlatan-ibrahimovic
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is disgusting, a horrible thing to do and I was shocked. I cannot tolerate this sort of thing and it saddens me that a Wigan player is alleged to have done it. It is totally unacceptable” – the Wigan Athletic owner Dave Whelan, quoted here cutting loose over his employee Antolin Alcaraz allegedly spitting at a fellow player is clearly unrelated to the Wigan Athletic owner Dave Whelan who last week said that players who complain about being on the receiving end of r@cist abuse are “a little bit out of order”.
The idiocy just goes on and on. The thing about Blatter is that he is basically a Berlusconi type crook. But how is football to rid itself of him and his cronies?
But how is football to rid itself of him and his cronies?
NEVER HAS NEVER WILL
WORLD IS RUN BY WHITE PEOPL – AKA RACISTS
THATS HOW IT WILL BE AND WILL ALWAYS BE
NO POINT IN FIGHTING IT – JUST LET EM FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSLEVES WHEN THEY SAY
“THINGS HAVE CHANGE, WE ERRADICATED SO MUCH RACISM” SO ON AND SON ON – BUT ACCORDING TO WHO
IF WHTE PEOPLE ARE HAPPY THAT RACISM HAS BEEN DECREASED THEN WE ALL SHOULD BE RIGHT
JUST KNOW WE’LL ALL BE JUDGED…AND DEEP DOWN MOST WHITE PEOPLE ARE JUST PLAIN RACIST- OR THINK THEY ARE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN
ETHNICS WILL NEVER HAVE THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES, RIGHTS, PRIVALEGES AS WHITE POEPLE – AND THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE!
Realistic seems to have lost the plot a bit -
All white people are racists, deep down???
Apart from being a racist gemneralisation about how people feel deep down, which he cannot possibly prove of even one person, nevcer mind the everybody he claims, is it not more true to argue that
Society has been set up with people in positions of power that are still in part inherited and geographically derived with both these factors tiled towards the white population of the western world.
Already that is changing masively, with China, India the Middle East and many other “non-white” parts of the world gaining greater economic power and “non-white” people in once-powerful countries gaining greater power, wealth and influence.
In many ways, football is an wexample of this with far more non-white players in most european leagues and although there are still very few managers and quite a lot of invisble barriers to profress, these will very probably start to crack and fail over time – ultimately, the most racist chairman will prefer a world class black CF/CB/CM/whatever over an honest local white English trier (and even then the youth team boss will ultimately always prefer a technically more gifted black local lad) – Ron Atkinson might think it’s ok to call Marcel Desailly a lazynigger but he’d have dropped John Wile for him in a heartbeat. He may be a racisdt but he still played Chamberlain and Batson and Regis and the rest because they were much better than what he had….
Not every white person is a racist even if most white people accept a lot of bnenfits in a world where many of the disctiminating advantages of institutional racism persist.
(that’s what I think, anyway)
@RealisticGunner
I am white, I am not racist, I have black friends.
Although I do agree with you that alot of white people do seem to harbour some racial dislike towards other ethnicities.
However something that I have never understood is some of the hypocricy behind racism, by which I mean:
A black person calls a white a ‘Honkey’ or other general slang term aimed at whites and it’s not considered rascist.
A white person says anything remotely insulting with the word ‘black’ in it and all hell breaks loose.
In my opinion, it goes both ways.
RealisticGunner ? I trust the name isn’t meant to be ironic….
The big surprise is that people are surprised by anything Blatter says. The man is a complete prick. I’m not even sure he is a racist to be honest; I just think the only people he gives a crap about are those who will maintain his position at the top of football’s food chain. If you’re not of use to him, you’re of no value – rgeardless of colour. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for him. Though it’s FIFA so I doubt it…
mel, didn’t hear Crooks but I have zero respect for him. Particularly after his moan about AFC fans being racist (though of course he wouldn’t actually call it racist cos that would mean him actually taking a stand, just kept saying ‘offensive’ with his eyebrows raised) after the Adebayor/City game. Funny how he found it offensive then but not every time the Spurs fans sang the exact same song at him when he played for us before then…
damn, I can’t stand a black ex-footballer…..that probably means I’m racist now….but wait I like Ruud Gullit…..phew that was close….
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One need only look at the glaring site of “our” palatial city hall surrounded by run down apartment buildings and empty office space to understand the mindset of this city’s leadership.