“No to racism”, “Kick it out” and other similar initiatives taken by FIFA may have helped the anti-racism brigade but have failed to completely curb it yet.
And it’s not just club football that is a victim of this. The issue is well-document and prevalent in international football too, the proof of which was unfortunately apparent in Brazil’s game against Tunisia during this international break.
Brazil and Tunisia participated in a friendly match in Paris, France on Tuesday, with the South Americans winning the game 5 goals to 1.
Raphinha opened the scoring in the 11th minute for Brazil before Talbi equalized in the 18th minute for the Tunisians.
The parity was short-lived though, as Spurs striker Richarlison, scored only a minute later to put the South Americans ahead again.
The “pigeon”, as he is affectionately called, then ran to the corner flag, as any player usually does after netting the ball.
What should have been a celebratory moment quickly turned sour as Tunisian fans racially abused the Brazilian forward, even throwing bananas on the pitch.
Brazil leading 4-1 against Tunisia in France. Richarlison scored one of those and a banana was thrown at him…pic.twitter.com/fVpw6O06My
Throwing bananas on the pitch, for the uninitiated, is a way of calling a person ‘monkey’ and racially abusing dark-skinned people.
Naturally, something like this is absolutely unacceptable anywhere, let alone on a football pitch.
As expected, many have since come out in support of the player.
Richarlison’s parent club, Tottenham also tweeted against what went down in Paris.
However, some are now calling out the London club for their apparent double standards against racism.
On 14th August, Spurs played Chelsea at Stanford Bridge in a Premier League match that finished 2-2, thanks to Harry Kane’s 90+6th minute equaliser.
The feisty derby was unfortunately accompanied by Son Heung-min being racially abused by Chelsea fans.
Spurs not only failed to acknowledge and support the South Korean on social media, but they also dismissed complaints from people who had emailed them.
The club, via email, stated that the alleged racial abuse had happened on another ground and therefore, fell under the other club’s jurisdiction.
While comparing Son’s incident to Richy’s, both incidents took place on different grounds.
Richy’s happened when on international duty in another country, whereas Son’s happened while on club duty against a rival.
Supporting Richarlison while not putting anything out for Son is baffling, to say the least, and Twitter has made its displeasure known.
Spurs have put out tweets supporting racially abused players from different clubs as well, like Maguire and Saka, so not putting out one for a fan-favourite is very surprising.
While we’re sure that the club does not discriminate between Asians, Africans, Americans or Europeans, it surely needs to do a better job at uniformity and giving everyone the same treatment and support.
