Jump to content
Existing user? Sign In

Sign In



Sign Up

Response to racism (in football, and in general)


Recommended Posts

I don’t pretend to understand football, and I certainly don’t condone racist, discriminatory behaviour in ANY context, but what does worry me in the wake of the frankly unacceptable scenes in Sofia last night is that both we as a nation and the wider world appear to be castigating an entire nation for the despicable actions of a vocal few.

The people of Bulgaria are not racist. The true fans of the Bulgarian national football team are not racist. A minority who attended yesterday’s match chose to use it as a platform to spread hate, but they are very much a minority, and whilst the media focus naturally fell on them it was clear from the wider video and photography coverage that the genuine fans amongst the home crowd were equally disgusted by the actions of that minority and sought to distance themselves from any association with them. 

I don’t know the answer, and it’s probably not my place to know the answer either, but I do know that a vitriolic response towards the Bulgarian people as a whole will not help, this will only serve to create further tension and likely spark further such conflict. Perhaps we, our football community and the relevant authorities should be working together to combat racism, rather than ineffectively fighting racist behaviour with more of the same? Just a thought…

Link to comment
Just now, BladderLad said:

Totally agree with you- British football is still not free from racism so it feels somewhat hypocritical and don’t get me started on Homophobia in professional football! ☹️

Exactly! It genuinely saddens me that professional football players are frightened of being themselves for fear of a homophobic response. 😞 How can that be right, in a supposedly civilised society? 

Link to comment
Just now, Piddly said:

Exactly! It genuinely saddens me that professional football players are frightened of being themselves for fear of a homophobic response. 😞 How can that be right, in a supposedly civilised society? 

It really isn’t- it’s the modern day version of what used to happen in Hollywood with movie stars- players are just commodities-so out of step with modern day society 

Link to comment

the big problem about football are the hooligan fans, who under the excuse of "supporting the team" unleash their agression, often in a violent way.
fans like this are usually young people who are rejected elsewhere in the society, most probably due to antisocial, agressive behavior which is not tolerated elswehere, and join into clubs like this, where they feel accepted. the clubs are like gangs, they have internal (bullshit) rules, they make their own anthems and such, sometimes make members takes oaths to loyalty, everything to make the group bigger and more connected, with force if necessary, and be agressive to any members who'd like to leave the group, marking it as betrayal. all of that indicate abandonment issues. 

i think the agression of the hooligans isn't really racism, homophobia, nationalism or anything - they will rage for any possible reason they can think of. homophobia, racism, nationalism are mostly just excuses for dividing people into "us vs. them" and provoke a fight, which is everything they actually want. the emotional outbursts are also way more powerful when they are in a group, making them able to encourage each other to engage in violent acts an individual by themself would normally resist doing.

football hooligans are one of the clearest examples on how dangerous group identity concept really is. and it is a great shame that a degenerate fan club can be believed to represent the people of the country. 
 

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...