FOOTBALL4GOOD MAGAZINE - DECEMBER 2019

IT’S TIME TO SHIFT THE FOCUS TO FOOTBALL’S MOST CRITICAL OFFENCE VAR AGAINST RACISM? BY SAM COOK SINCE THE START OF THIS FOOTBALL SEASON, NO TWO ISSUES HAVE DOMINATED FOOTBALL HEADLINES MORE THAN RACISM AND VIDEO ASSISTANT REFEREES (VAR). HOWEVER, CONTRARY TO THE ULTRA-HIGH-TECH GADGET AND GIZMOS OF VAR, UEFA’S THREE-STEP PROTOCOL TO EMPOWER OFFICIALS TO ACT AGAINST RACISM BARES A HUGE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE TWO MEANS AVAILABLE IN DEALING WITH BOTH ISSUES AT HAND. As we reach the midway point of domes- tic campaigns across Europe the lengthy stoppages are a worrying state of affairs. In equal measure, football itself is being made to seem incidental by two entirely irreconcil- able matters. Between two rounds of international fixtures, in the space of little over a month countless incidents have illuminated the disservice the game is providing its players repeatedly being subject to discrimination. Should we, as suggested by Gabriele Gravina, the President of the Italian Football Federation, use a similar system to VAR to identify racist offenders? Amid monkey chants and Nazi salutes from home fans aimed towards black players of the away team, the England v Bulgaria match in Sofia was halted twice before players were asked if they wanted to continue playing. Five days later, Haringey Borough abandoned their home match against Yeovil Town as the away fans began chanting racist abuse, spitting and one fan threw a glass bottle from the stands. Mario Balotelli walked off the pitch after hearing monkey chants during his side’s away defeat to Hellas Verona, and so too did FC Shaktar Donetsk’s Taison from the travelling Dynamo Kyiv fans, only this time in tears and with a red card to his name. Most recently, in the Netherlands Excelsior Rotterdam’s Ahmad Mendes Moreira suffered horrific verbal abuse, leaving the field in protest, only for the game to be re-started ten minutes later. If standing in front of your abusers as many of these players have, waiting to find out if the behaviour of fans will be altered by a public announcement, is not dehumanis- ing enough, the taunting fans are given yet two further reprieves, before the players are eventually presented with the option of leaving the field.