FIFA Wants Tougher Actions Against Racism In Soccer, But Reportedly Rejects Black Couple In Brazil
This week, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said he was “sickened” to hear supporters of Spanish soccer club Real Betis racially abuse their own player. TV footage recently released shows Betis fans appearing to make racist gestures and noises at defender Paulo, a Brazilian player who is black, as he left the field after a loss to city rival Sevilla.
On his official Twitter account, Blatter publicly condemned the incident and stated that it was “nonsense to fight racism with fines,” a practice that has long been used by FIFA. “This has to be tackled by ALL competition organizers,” he added. ...
See the whole article here, courtesy of Forbes.
Kicking Back Comments: What's funny of course is in the update at the bottom of the article, FIFA is quick, very quick, to blame the organizer of the event, and shed FIFA of any responsibility whatsoever.
This of course is laughable that FIFA ceded any control, but is a far cry from racism either.
There is an interesting question lurking around here though ... Should FIFA have intentionally chosen the couple of African descent to show "FIFA is not racist?"
Isn't that racism defined, to prejudice a decision based on race? (Some call this reverse racism, to me it is just racism)
FIFA is honestly in a no win situation here, where if they go out of their way to accommodate the couple of African descent, they are pandering. If they accommodate the couple of European descent, they are racist.
So where do you go with that?
Maybe you do give up complete control to an independent selection committee, state same publicly before hand, and go from there. Or possibly be public about the selection criteria, such as independent polls or popularity scores ... whatever you use ... just be objective and public ...
FIFA by opting for any type of "quota" system, as the article describes Brazil doing, may do more harm than good.
For US jurisprudence on the topic take a look at Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
This one is a lot harder than the article gives it credit for. What is NOT hard however is how FIFA should respond to actual racism, a video if which is linked to the article. As I have said in the past ... be draconian. Don't just fine people who have the money ... or if you do, make it really hurt.
No comments:
Post a Comment