RACIAL abuse occurs at soccer stadiums in Europe with alarming regularity. In contrast, such incidents happen only sporadically in Asia. But they are ugly as sin when they do.
Hong Kong’s home friendly it lost to the Philippines last June 4 is a case in point. Our Azkals won, 1-0, amid the terror from the stands.
The Inquirer’s Cedelf Tupas who covered the game, witnessed it all. Cedelf, along with the authoritative South China Morning Post newspaper, reported that during the match, Hong Kong fans called their Filipino counterparts “slaves,” threw bottles and juice packs at them and booed our national anthem.
Racial bias in European soccer stadiums, says a cultural anthropologist, results from differences “in culture, ideology, geographic proximity, economics and alcohol.” The same “toxic mix” fuels soccer hooliganism everywhere.
The “slaves” tag refers to the fact that more than 100,000 Filipinos work as foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong. The Associated Press says these workers are “toiling long hours taking care of children and doing chores for middle-class families for low pay.”
Some people in the former British Colony still show hostility to Filipinos because of a 2010 Manila incident in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in a botched police rescue. The victims were held hostage earlier by a troubled former police officer.
The match at Mong Kok Stadium is not only a ghastly reminder that racial tension and soccer have gone hand in hand for the longest time.
It should also offer us a refresher course on how our own sports fans and our country would look to the world, if for some unfathomable reason, we act as badly as our Hong Kong neighbors did.
After all, the supposed PH-HK friendly was just that, a contest with no bearing—where passion for football, not racial prejudice usually prevails.
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Based on a report from Azkals manager Dan Palami, the delegation head in Hong Kong, the Philippine Football Federation has filed a racial abuse complaint to the International Football Federation.
PH’s grievance to the Fifa comes as football’s world governing body decided, several days before the inglorious Hong Kong episode, to treat racial abuse more seriously by toughening up punishment.
According to published reports, the Fifa’s stiffer measures include throwing teams out of competitions, or even relegating them into a lower division, should there be any form of bigotry from their players, officials or fans; and a minimum five-match ban against players guilty of racial abuse.
The Fifa will also introduce anti-discrimination personnel at key games and start a hotline for players and fans to report incidents of racism.
These measures cover Fifa’s own matches, but the organization will propose that the new sanctions be universally applied, the reports said.
The Azkals’ complaint will make the Fifa, led by president Sepp Blatter work harder. Often accused of not doing enough to clamp down on soccer’s racists, the Fifa faces dire consequences if it fails to deliver.
It could face financial ruin should soccer’s major sponsors, gunning more than ever for the greater globalization of the game, withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.