Ethnicity and football

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ethnicity and football is a description of the global acceptance of the sport of Association Football, with players from many different races and countries participating. While football has moved around the world from its roots in England during the 18th century, the progress of non-European players has been seen to be difficult, with racism a continuing problem in many different countries.

People of different races have sometimes not been accepted as players in European football. This is happily changing due to societal change as well as campaigning on the part of the football authorities in different countries. UEFA and the European Union support the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) project which aims to stop racism.

1 Early football
2 Modern football
3 Religion and football
4 'Asian' Footballers
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Early football

In several countries, black players were often harassed by spectators; stories of players being pelted with racial slurs, chants, and even bananas were quite commonplace, in spite of the fact that there had been black players in Europe for a long time - Andrew Watson was capped for Scotland three times in the early 1880s^[1] (although it took another 100 years for more black players to represent Scotland ^[2]). However, Arthur Wharton who played for Preston North End and Sheffield United, amongst others, is recognised as the world's first black professional footballer ^[3]. Jack Leslie was the first black player to be selected for England, but never actually played for his country - a fact which is thought to be due to the colour of his skin. Frank Soo was the first (and so far only) ethnic Chinese person to play for England, during the Second World War. It was not until Viv Anderson that black footballers started to become accepted into the England national football team.^[4]. Since then, the England team has seen several black players serve as captain, notably Paul Ince, John Barnes and Sol Campbell.

Andrew Watson has the distinction of being the first black player to ^[5]:

play football for a senior Scottish team (Queen's Park F.C. from 1874)
play international football (1881-82)
captain an international side (1881)
play in the Scottish and FA Cups

Arthur Wharton became the first black professional football player, later acting as de facto manager for several Lancashire clubs. ^[6][7].

[edit] Modern football

Nowadays in the bigger leagues minority players have become part of football, and are supported. This was seen in the French football team which won the 1998 World Cup. The team was composed of white and black Frenchmen, plus a New Caledonian (Christian Karembeu); the whites also included an ethnic Armenian and Kalmyk (Youri Djorkaeff), a Basque (Bixente Lizarazu), and an ethnic Berber (Zinedine Zidane). This composition was seen as an indicator of racial harmony.

Unfortunately, in countries that do not otherwise have many immigrants of different race (such as many Eastern European countries), prejudice against hiring e.g. black football players still remains an issue, especially in the smaller clubs. This can be particularly distasteful when combined with a lack of decency shown by some football fans when they chant against the opposing team.

Incidents in 2004 have also shown this to be the case in some bigger leagues, where there are a visible number of players from a different ethnicity. A notable incident occurred that year when England played Spain in Madrid, and home fans were heard by the world media to be making "monkey chants" at some of the black players on the pitch ^[8], forcing the Spanish football authorities to apologise for their fans ^[9]. Part of the outcry about these recent incidents was put down to cultural differences between the English-speaking (mainly British) press and Spanish culture ^[10].

On November 27, 2005 Marc Zoro, a player from the Ivory Coast, was playing for the Italian team Messina when he was racially abused by Inter Milan players to the extent that he picked up the ball and threatened to leave the field ^[11] ^[12]. This caused the Italian football authorities to propose to start the following week's matches late after an anti-racism display ^[13]. This comes at the same time that European Union legislators are threatening Europe-wide legal sanctions against national football associations and clubs whose fans are seen to take part in racist actions. ^[14]

[edit] Religion and football

Sometimes certain clubs are, often unfairly or unnecessarily, connected with religions, such as both Spurs and Ajax with Judaism, or the Old Firm Rangers F.C. and Celtic F.C. of Glasgow, who are seen to be Protestant and Catholic respectively. This has led to problems with violence and occasionally death, but often equates to little more than derogatory nicknames.

[edit] 'Asian' Footballers

Players of Asian origin have a long tradition - often forgotten - in European football. Hong Y 'Frank' Soo played 9 times for England during the 2nd WW. Sammy Chung managed Wolverhampton Wanderers to a UEFA Cup Final in the 1970s. The Korean player Park Ji-Sung who plays at Manchester United is an excellent example of Asian footballer who can be a rising star in big clubs in Europe. Park may be preceded by the Japanese player Hidetoshi Nakata, who played at various European clubs such as Perugia, AS Roma, Parma, Bologna, Fiorentina and lately at Bolton Wanderers. Other Korean, Iranian, Chinese and Japanese football players have also gained starting places in their respective clubs in Europe. Some football clubs hire the Asian football stars hoping to increase merchandise sales from the player's respective Asian country.