Let's analyse the damages caused by racism on the football pitch

My overall theory about the role of race in world football is that on the football pitch itself, football is strictly a meritocracy. Coaches know that they must field the best players in order to win.

This is because football is no longer a sport only. It is a big business and the players on the team are treated as fixed assets which are amortized on the books of the company just like plant and machinery in a paper mill. The best teams in the world are those that have deep pockets. Manchester City has climbed to the English Premier League because of the funding power of the Gulf sponsors.

But there is something else that is going on. There is fear from some segments of society that the application of the strict principles of meritocracy will overturn certain preconceived ideas that are deeply rooted in race. Not everyone is exactly happy that American Basketball has become a sport in which the best players in the league are nearly all black. American baseball has been slowly moving in the same direction of including more and more black players since the days of Jackie Robinson.

When I was a college student in the US in the late 1960s, the idea of a black man being a quarterback was unthinkable because the preconceived idea was that it was a position which required too much “thinking” and blacks were not capable of that. But today, the number teams of the NFL that have black quarterbacks and even coaches quite impressive.

During the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936, American Sprinter Jesse Owens ran the 100 meter dash so fast that he stunned the German Furher himself who declined the opportunity to shake the hand of the American gold medalist because his victory ran against the grain of his belief that the Aryan race was superior.

In football, something very interesting has been happening. It is a unique sport in the sense that, like basketball, training can start at a very early age even in the poorest communities in the world because in poor neighborhoods all that they need is one football for 22 young kids. In the absence of a regular football field, they will learn to play on any stretch of the ground that is nearly flat. Go to Rosario in

Buenos Aires and see where the young demunitive Lionel Messi learned to play football. Go to Douala and see where Samuel Etoo learned to play football. Go to Abidjan and discover where Drogba learned to play football.

Like basketball, the sport has now become a multibillion dollar business and as any business, it must survive on meritocracy. As some of the best players keep emerging form some of the remotest corners of the world, this is upsetting some peoples’ world view.

This is where the crowds come in. Crowds are increasingly being encouraged and even coached (behind the scenes) to “destroy the fighting spirit” of talented black players by subjecting them to “monkey chants” when they get the ball or by throwing a banana at them. That strategy which is increasingly being implemented from the spectators is in recognition of the fact that the black player is talented.

In other words, crowds have now descended on to the football pitch to become fulltime players and their main role is to destroy the sport as a meritocracy by attacking the fighting spirit of talented black players. They will feed him with monkey chants or throw a banana at him. By reducing a black player to the status of ‘non human’, the crowds succeed in doing what their favorite team of 11 players is not capable of doing on the pitch. That is what is happening to people like Mario

Balotelli in Italy. Prince Boateng got so fed up that he walked off the pitch in Italy. Bingo. We got him.

Remember a guy called Zinedine Zidane? Before the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final in Berlin, Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament. Having already announced he was to retire after the expiration of his Real Madrid contract at the end of the 2005–06 season, the world of football already knew Zidane's second World Cup final was to be the last match of his career.

Seven minutes into the match Zidane put France ahead with a penalty kick and became only the fourth player in World Cup history to score in two different finals, along with Pelé, Paul Breitner, and Vavá, in addition to being tied for first place with Vavá, Pelé and Geoff Hurst with three World Cup final goals apiece.

He almost scored a second goal during the first period of extra time but his header was saved by Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. Zidane was then sent off in the 110th minute of the game after headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest, so he did not participate in the penalty shootout which Italy won 5–3.

What transpired between Zidane and Marco Materazzi is known only between the two of them. But what is absolutely certain is that Marco Materazzi said something to Zinedine Zidane which was the equivalent of an attack against his soul. That is why his response was completely raw and animal. Marco Materazzi knew that the only way that he could stop Zinedine Zidane on the field was to utter words that would pierce his soul. And he succeeded. Zidane was expelled and Italy won. That is how racial abuse by fans and teammates is calculated to work.

During World Cup 2014, Mexico fans were under investigation from FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, for yelling gay slurs at the team’s World Cup matches against Cameroon and Brazil, but instead of condemning the behavior, Mexico manager Miguel Herrera is rushing to their defense. FIFA also announced that it would investigate both Mexico and Brazil fans for homophobic chants at World Cup matches, as well as Russian and Croatian fans for racist and anti-Semitic behavior.

Mexico’s fans could be audibly heard screaming “Puto!” — a slang term that is often used as a gay slur — every time Brazil keeper Julio Cesar took a goal kick during a match between the two teams Monday. Herrera, however, did not see the problem (as Soccerly noted Thursday, this is regular ritual at Mexican soccer matches).

“We’re with our fans,” Herrera told the Associated Press. “It’s something they do to pressure the opposing goalkeeper.”

Exactly. If fans come to the stadium to support their side with chants of support, then should abuse of players on the opposing team, including monkey chants and the use of racial slurs be considered fare game or not? These are the tactics that are being used to reduce a beautiful sport to ignominy.

Brazil the host country of World Cup 2014 is a country where nearly half of its population identifies itself as Afro-Braziliana. But it is wrestling with its own internal problem of racism in the sport.

In March 2014, Santos midfielder Arouca, who played for Brazil's national team last year, was on the field talking to reporters after his team's 5-2 win in the Sao Paulo state championship on Thursday when some fans in the stands called him "monkey." The insults came a day after a referee said he was targeted by racist fans before and after a match, and less than a month after another Brazilian player was insulted in a Copa Libertadores game in Peru.

A Brazilian referee Marcio Chagas da Silva said some fans called him "monkey" and told him to "return to the jungle" before a match in the Rio Grande do Sul state championship. He said his car was vandalized and bananas were left on top of it.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff gave her support to a black Brazilian player who was taunted with monkey chants every time he touched the ball during a Copa Libertadores match in Peru. On her Twitter feed, Rousseff called the incident involving Cruzeiro player Tinga "sad," adding that "sports can never serve as a stage for prejudice."

The second dimension to the business angle of the sport is that some coaches are beginning to be selective about whom they want to put forward on the team because the star quality of a player can emerge in the course of a tournament, opening the way for that player to wealth and fame on a scale that is unpredictable. Some countries in Africa are failing to reach breakthrough point in world football because the coach (and the federation) may want to promote only certain players of their preference in order to give them exposure at the expense of merit. This is the political angle in the fight against meritocracy.

In applying the policy of zero tolerance for racial abuse of players, FIFA must first of all recognize the fact that the purpose of the abuse is to sap into the fighting spirit of black players and destroying their effectiveness on the field of play. The types of fines that are given to delinquent crowds today are simply a slap on the wrist. What is a minor fine of a few thousand dollars against the higher stake of winning and qualifying? The fines are simply the cost of financing the crowd to play their role in the game.

Secondly, they want to discourage certain coaches from fielding certain black players who might become the subject of racial abuse from crowds. The dissuasive power of racial abuse may be playing a bigger role in coacher’s choice of his squad than they will admit openly. That way the ultimate objective is achieved: Keep the black players where they are!

The purpose of racism in football is to destroy the sport as a meritocracy. Look at what a young man like Suarez has done for Liverpool in one season. Talent speaks its own language. Such talent is hiding in Brazil, Columbia, Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria and many other countries with teeming black populations. But racism want them remain there.

It is very encouraging that countries like England, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Italy, USA and Germany have continued to maintain a policy of zero tolerance for racial abuse in the sport by always putting forward a team based on talent and merit only. These are the countries whose football leagues are continuing to attract young blacks to aspire to play the game in their countries. Kudos!