We’re Not Racist, Say the Club Whose Manager Claims: The Fans Won’t Let Me Sign as Black Player
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Wednesday’s night’s UEFA Cup final in Manchester is in danger of being overshadowed by a race row after Dick Advocaat, the respected Dutch manager of Russian side Zenit St Petersburg, claimed that his club do not sign black players because their fans would not accept it.
Advocaat made his allegation in an interview with a Russian magazine as his team prepared for their final against Rangers in the City of Manchester Stadium.
Advocaat said: ‘I would be happy to sign anyone, but the fans don’t like black players. Quite honestly, I do not understand how they could pay so much attention to skin colour. For me there’s no difference between white, black or red. But they care.’
Zenit, who are run by Russian oligarch Alexander Dyukov, the head of oil company Gazprom, deny having an all-white policy and point to the presence in their first-team squad of different nationalities and religions. The only non-white faces, though, are two South Koreans.
Now Zenit have been accused by Lord Ousley, chairman of the Kick It Out campaign, the Football Association’s anti-racism pressure group, of hiding behind their fans’ views.
Lord Ousley said: ‘The problem with a lot of “eastern bloc” football clubs is that they are complicit with racism by hiding behind what fans say they want. It’s damaging to a European competition if a club is being restricted in this way.
‘A lot of club chairmen in England in the 1970s and 1980s would have said that their fans didn’t want black players and would boo them. But clubs have to be brave. You can change the culture, say that you’re going to sign the best players, regardless of race. If clubs aren’t prepared to do that, they are being complicit with racism.’
The arrival of the Zenit team this week will coincide with Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosting an event for another campaign group, Show Racism the Red Card, which works alongside Ousley in fighting racism in football.
UEFA expect 10, 000 Zenit fans to make the journey to Manchester and an FA spokesman said: ‘We would expect fans attending any game—whether or not an English team is involved—in this country to respect players from every culture.’
Whether Rangers’ black players receive such respect remains to be seen. But, according to Advocaat, Zenit’s fans will not accept the sort of talented players he wants to sign if they are ‘dark-skinned’. Advocaat, who has worked with black players during a coaching career that has included four years at Rangers and two periods as the coach of the Dutch national team, said: ‘The fans are the most important thing that Zenit have.
That’s why I have to ask them outright how they’ll react if we sign a dark-skinned player.
‘Frankly, the only players who can make Zenit stronger are darkskinned. Look at the Brazilians who play for CSKA Moscow, for example.
But for us it would be impossible. If they don’t agree with me, I will not do it. I don’t want to buy a player who won’t be accepted by the fans.’
Despite Wednesday’s high-profile occasion, UEFA, the governing body of the European game, say they will not investigate Advocaat’s claims because they insist the interview has been misconstrued.
William Gaillard, special advisor to UEFA president Michel Platini, admitted that his organisation had had no direct contact with Zenit but added: ‘This is not an issue we are tackling at this stage. We understand there was a mistake in the translation of the interview.’
However, that suggestion has been rejected by the journalist who conducted the interview for Pro Sport magazine.
‘We spoke in English and I have a recording of the interview,’ said Yuri Doud yesterday.
‘Advocaat was the first to say there was a problem, but we all know it is there at Zenit.’
Jonathan Wilson, an expert on Russian football and author of the book Behind The Curtain—Travels in Eastern European Football, says that ‘uniquely among Russia’s top clubs, Zenit have never fielded a black player’.
Wilson accepts that Zenit have made steps to counter racism and have an official policy of equal opportunity, but he insists that their fans reflect the reputation St Petersburg has as one of Russia’s most far right cities.
‘While the club condemns the racism of some of their fans, they take pride in how Russian their team is,’ said Wilson.
‘Seven of the likely starting 11 in Wednesday’s final, including their two real stars, Andrei Arshavin and Konstantin Zyryanov, are Russian.
By contrast, when CSKA won the UEFA Cup in 2005, they had six Russians in their line-up but their two most prominent players were Vagner Love and Daniel Carvalho, who are Brazilian.’
The failure to crack down on Zenit’s racist fan culture may already have had fatal consequences. On the night Zenit faced Olympique Marseille in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, Ghanaian university student Justice Adjei, 20, was stabbed 36 times by a gang of white youths.
‘They attacked to kill but the victim survived,’ said Aliou Tunkara, the president of St Petersburg’s Africa Union. ‘Every time Zenit play a team involving blacks, racial attacks in the stadium turn into violence on the streets.’
The attack took place before kick-off and no direct link has been established to the club’s supporters.
But another African student, Maira Mkamam, was stabbed six times in the chest and stomach last November on the night that Zenit won the Russian championship as fans celebrated throughout the city.
UEFA’s disciplinary commission are currently considering allegations by Olympique Marseille of racist abuse directed at their black players by Zenit fans.
Marseille’s president, Pape Diouf, said: ‘All the witnesses agree there were acts of racism against some of our players. My first feeling is contempt. We will use all our means to defend our players. I feel disgusted.’
A Zenit statement after the Marseille game rejected suggestions that the club were institutionally racist.
The club and players have taken part in programmes designed to fight racism and Zenit have displayed an anti-racist banner at their stadium this season.
They also condemned fans who racially abused Brazilian Antonio Geder, the captain of Russian club Saturn, in March 2006. But the city of St Petersburg has a reputation for racist attacks.
While UEFA’s public stance against racism is unequivocal, with numerous initiatives and grassroots work to fight discrimination, the fines imposed by their disciplinary commission have often seemed paltry.
In 2003 Patrick Vieira, then at Arsenal, accused UEFA of ‘hypocrisy’ after fining clubs just a few thousand pounds when he experienced a particularly gruesome night of racist abuse at a Champions League fixture in Valencia.
In response, UEFA fined Vieira £2,300 for criticising them.
Since then UEFA’s disciplinary commission have imposed marginally stronger punishments. The Serbian FA were fined £17,000 when their fans racially abused England’s black players at an Under-21 tournament last season.
Now, with Zenit St Petersburg poised to play on English soil, Europe’s football rulers face further pressure to hold clubs responsible for the racist views of their supporters.
(Posted on May 22, 2008)
Comments
Is this considered a problem among Russians in Russia?
They do have a strong sense of national pride.
I imagine that they would not be too proud of having to stuff their team with foreigners to have a standing in the league.
Posted by Arthur V. Brandriff at 6:10 PM on May 22
Why is a Russian team obligated to have non Russian players?
Do African teams have European players? Russia has no affirmative action laws/quotas so that private clubs can hire who the fans want—sorry formerly Great Britain.
Posted by Sardonicus at 7:19 PM on May 22
As a Russian native I state that the article is partially screwed up. The Russians have nothing against Brazilians. They even love them. Period. That the the Russians don’t like Africans is not true. The Russians hate Africans. It is true. Period.
They want Russians on a Russian team. Russia lived without Africans, Russia lives without Africans, Russia doesn’t want to live with Africans. Watching American experience, Russians don’t want to get the black plague.
Posted by alex at 7:38 PM on May 22
I saw the two “English” teams playing the European cup yesterday. I couldn’t get over how NON-ENGLISH LOOKING the teams were. If I had not known otherwise, I might have thought they were African teams. Good for the Russians for having some ethnic and racial pride.
Posted by at 8:39 PM on May 22
If the people want to keep their team White, along with their area….then don’t push it!!
Nobody should be forced to accept races that they don’t want. That is adding fuel to the fire & only going to make things worse when you force different races upon folks. We just don’t want it. Leave them alone!
Posted by at 9:17 PM on May 22
Now I’m curious as to how many white soccer players there are within sub-Saharan African teams. A cursory search yielded these photos:
Ghana: http://www.lastkick.com/wp-content/P_Ghana_1.jpg
Tanzania: http://www.jambonetwork.com/photos/albums/userpics/10001/jamboonormal_t12~0.jpg
Nigeria: http://jmayers.blogspot.com/2007/09/nigeria-wins-u-17-world-cup.html
Senegal: http://www.worldcupjapankorea.com/world-cup-teams/photos/senegal-world-cup.jpg
Ethiopia: http://www.dukemrestaurant.com/news/saint_michael_team%5B1%5D.jpg
Kenya: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40028000/jpg/_40028701_kenya203.jpg
Uganda: http://www.unicef.org/spanish/media/images/vnp_spain_6905-1.jpg
Sudan: http://www.africanoz.com/b2evolution/blogs/media/Sudan2.JPG
Ivory Coast: http://mediablackberry.com/temp/13853.jpg
…and so on. So again we see the extreme double standards against whites.
Posted by jewamongyou at 9:24 PM on May 22
“Lord Ousley said: ‘The problem with a lot of “eastern bloc” football clubs is that they are complicit with racism by hiding behind what fans say they want.”
It doesn’t sound like a “problem” to me at all, and only an idiot would consider it to be one.
Posted by Ranger at 9:35 PM on May 22
As a big soccer fan, any article about the game instantly grabs my attention. So I checked out the Zenit roster. Contrary to the story’s allegation, there are four nonwhites — two South Koreans, a Turk and an Argentine. The under-21 squad, OTOH, is 100% Russian. To which I say, good for Zenit! Even better, they won the UEFA Cup by beating Rangers 2-0. (As a Celtic fan, I love anyone who whips Rangers!)
The fact that Zenit had to beat top-flight German sides Bayer Leverkeusen and Bayern Munich just to reach the final shows how talented they are. Zenit also won their domestic league, which qualifies them for next year’s Champions League. So much for the notion that “dark-skinned players” are necessary for success.
Now I think I’ll look online for a Zenit jersey.
Posted by Strider at 10:31 PM on May 22
It seems there’s something good to be said for Iron Curtains. They kept the Eastern Europeans in, but it kept liberalism and it’s colored tide out. Perhaps we could set up one ourselves, along the southern border, and perhaps surrounding many of our major cities.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 11:43 PM on May 22
“While the club condemns the racism of some of their fans, they take pride in how Russian their team is”
Holy unbelievable words! I guess us righties can use double-speak too. I very nearly teared up right there. If I hadn’t read it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. I guess you have to be in some kind of a position of power to do one of those maneuvers like that. That could be the whole problem right there…
Posted by at 1:53 AM on May 23
Italy won the World Cup in 2006 with nary a black player. Greece won the last European championship with nary a black player.
England flooded their side with black players and — for some strange reason — couldn’t even qualify for Euro 2008.
Let’s speak frankly here. Blacks are terrible in soccer. The African teams are terrible and only make the World Cup because of quotas for each region. Even the Asian nations beat them.
Posted by bernie at 6:58 AM on May 23
Bernie wrote “Italy won the World Cup in 2006 with nary a black player. Greece won the last European championship with nary a black player.
England flooded their side with black players and — for some strange reason — couldn’t even qualify for Euro 2008.
Let’s speak frankly here. Blacks are terrible in soccer. The African teams are terrible and only make the World Cup because of quotas for each region. Even the Asian nations beat them.”
To Bernie,
France flooded their side with black and other non-white players and their won the world cup in 1998.
France flooded their side with black and non-white players and they won the Euro 2000.
France flooded their side with black and non-white players and they reached the world cup final in 2006
In 1996, during the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Nigeria a black African country won the Gold Medal by beating in final Argentina and prior to that in semi-final, they defeated Brazil
Regarding the world cup African are qualify because of their performance and not because of quotas, Europe has more team represented in the world cup than any other continent. In 1982 during the world cup in Spain, the African continent had only 2 teams and Asia had only one team.
In 2000 during the Olympic Games in Sydney, Cameroon won the Gold Medal.
I do not have any sympathy for blacks but we have to be fair to recognised their talent in football.
Posted by Realist at 11:29 AM on May 23
Bernie,
Italy played France for the World Cup finals and France lost only because of—after the game penalty shoots—if my memory is correct here.The French team was for all practical purposes an African team.
England never has more than 3 black players on its national team.
In terms of world rankings African teams in general are consistently ranked higher than Asian teams.
The recent UEFA championships showed that Africans/blacks are on a per capita basis the best footballers in the world. Chelsea had about 6 to 7 black players and Manchester United had about 3 players of obvious African ancestry. Chelsea outplayed ManU for most of the game but lost— on those silly penalty shoots.
The 2 best teams in Europe are Real Madrid and Barcelona. They are practically African teams.
And the team with the most African players usually wins the World Cup—Brazil.
Ergo, blacks are the best players of soccer/football.
QED
Posted by OCCAM at 1:53 PM on May 23
There’s nothing wrong & everything right for a club team like St. Petersburg Zenit, usually founded & supported for a hundred years or more by working people, trying to cling to its roots & its history by signing as many of it’s own Russian nationals as possible. And after their recent 2-0 EUFA Cup Final win over Glasgow Rangers, it appears a very successful policy too.
There are hundreds of black African players earning a king’s ransom playing in the many lucrative European leagues. Most of the countries the teams hail from are members of the EU & in terms of employment the EU is supposed to look after its member countries first & operate a closed market. But a blind eye is turned to France & other nations bringing in dozens of youth players from African countries to groom them for stardom & replacing many white local youths in this, the working-man’s game. Yes, these many African football millionaires have it good, thanks to the generosity of the same whites they are so ready to accuse of racism. Perhaps a spell in the South African League would be an eye-opener for them when they see how well blacks in the Rainbow Nation treat foreigners.
This is just more politically-correct muscle-flexing by blacks who are being worked by the EU diversity puppetmasters.
Posted by at 3:34 PM on May 23
What you talking about 8.39?
Man Utd have an all white team. Naturally half are Anglo-Saxon and the other half are rest of Europe. Chelsea half 3 Anglo-Saxons and a few Europeans but the rest are Africans, unfortunately.
The all white team won naturally. Individually some blacks are good but collectively…African teams are a joke as expected.
Posted by at 7:47 PM on May 23
Well some of you say black people are better at playing football, or white people are better - none of it is true there are good players from any race. Overall, there are too many African players in Europe and they cause a big problem for their clubs, so Zenit is right not to hire them. Jose Murinho spoke about this problem but why did he sign so many Africans if he knew about it, maybe he was forced. So, basically during the African Nations Cup all of the African players go to Africa, which forces teams with many such players to field their reserve players and lose several matches, then it’s harder for them to win the League. We’ve seen many times this happen. I see many other erroneous opinions - why would Barcelona and Real Madrid be considered the best European clubs??? This is clearly a joke those clubs are pathethic, and Ronaldinho is very over-rated.
Most Eastern European clubs have several Black players they bought at a bargain price.
Finally, I saw someone write that the Turkish and the Argentine players on the Zenit side are non-whites??? These two countries are about 100% white, it just shows ignorance to write something like this, just check their photos if you are not sure about someone’s race.
Posted by fdf at 7:02 AM on May 24
This reminds me of a news story, I believe when Bush, Sr. was President. The story was that an American ship had docked in Russia but the Russians refused to allow any of the black sailors off the ship.
Does anybody remember that story? My husband swears he remembers hearing that news story that same morning as me but I have checked the internet and couldn’t find anything. I know I didn’t dream it. I remember my husband commenting that the Russians were smart. They didn’t want any of the black sailors to be mixing it up with their Russian women, like what happen in Europe after WWII.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 8:23 AM on May 24
Here we have Occam - the same Occam who continually tells us how racial differences are skin deep - claiming that blacks make better football players. Well Occam, you can’t have it both ways. If “blacks are the best players of soccer/football” then, obviously, there must be more to race than skin color. If you plan on arguing that the differences are cultural, then please answer this: how is it that blacks have this cultural trait while other groups don’t? Occam’s razer dictates that we look at what all those black societies have in common. They only have one thing in common: they’re all black.
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:53 AM on May 24
Athleticism is only half of soccer. After watching many soccer games, I have noticed that blacks are clearly faster and more athletic than whites, but there are other factors at play: intelligence, teamwork, heart, technical skill, etc. One of the posts mentioned that, for some reason, England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 in spite of flooding their team with black players. Since the majority of the team was English, I wouldn’t say they were flooded with black players. But in any event, a lot can be learned from the team they lost to in Euro qualifying: Croatia. This is a country with 4.5 million people (less than half of New York City), yet was 3rd in the 1998 Word Cup, has qualified for every major tournament except Euro 2000, has beaten Italy three times, England twice and Germany once. These are countries with 50-70 million people. How could such a small country consistently have that kind of success against huge countries? Although Croatia’s 1998 World Cup Team had tremendous talent, it is primarily because of teamwork and heart.
Posted by at 5:24 PM on May 24
The Russian cities are very beautiful. One can walk anywhere without fear of being set upon by black and brown criminals. Every where you go the people are white and generally polite.
Posted by at 7:54 PM on May 24
“Lord Ousley said: ‘The problem with a lot of “eastern bloc” football clubs is that they are complicit with racism by hiding behind what fans say they want. It’s damaging to a European competition if a club is being restricted in this way.”
How is it “damaging”? But he doesn’t tell you.
The NBA is practically all Black and almost 20 years ago Charles Barkley said that the only reason is wasn’t all Black was because of, surprise, surprise - Racism.
“Racism” = not wanting to have pride in your Race if you’re White. And, above all, not wanting to bow at the altar of Political Correctness and it’s aggressive attempts to spread its dark cloud over the entire Planet.
You know what folks, PC, like anything else, is just an IDEA!
Nothing more.
It is NOT the final word on anything. It’s just being presented that way by people with a hidden agenda, though that agenda is pretty transparent by now.
And as ideas go it is not very sound, and is tearing us all apart.
Posted by Pitbullexpress at 11:36 PM on May 24
I’m not a football supporter - its stupid way to waste your enegies when their is so much more important going on.
But what I cannot fathom is why anyone would want to support a team, say Manchester United, when it is made up of people from all over the world.
What are you in fact supporting? Not your local team with local players. The club with the most money gets the best players. Wheres the sprot in that. Where is the pleasure of supporting your local team through thick and thin?
All you are supporting is a strip.
The Russian supporters have it right. They are Russian and want to support a Russian team - not a collection of Thord World wash in’s
Look at France - they only have about one Frenchman on their national team. The Italians, who beat them in the last World Cup, was made up of Italians.
At least the Italians could relate to their team - I cant imagine what the French could support if their national team looked like it came over from the Gambia.
Posted by Geoff Miller at 4:33 AM on May 25
Realist, for the Olympic football competition, most countries don’t send their best players. Nigeria never would have won against the REAL Brazilian or Argentinian national teams. France’s black team is an all star team made of players from many different countries in Africa.
Posted by Joe at 5:52 AM on May 25
If White Americans (or Britons, Canadians, and Australians for that matter) had half the ethnic and racial pride Russians do, we wouldn’t be in the awful mess we are in now.
Posted by at 11:12 PM on May 25
Jewamongyou,
Blacks are better at soccer/football because the countries they come from are in mainly warm weather areas, which makes for outdoor sports the whole year round.
Further, blacks just spend more time practising the game. I think it boils down mainly to having the right environment and playing conditions. Examples: Australians of European extraction are mainly of British stock but they have been much better sportsmen than their British kin for the longest while—with a much smaller population. Think of the sports the 2 nations share to get my point: cricket, tennis, swimming, rugby, athletics. The Aussies routinely trounce their British cousins.
Compare too Sweden(8 million) with Britain(63 million) in sports like tennis, golf, athletics, etc. Both nations are of Northern European stock. In this instance, it’s probably more training than the environment—which could also be seen as part of the “environment”.
Posted by OCCAM at 9:52 AM on May 26
Posted by Geoff Miller at 4:33 AM on May 25
“But what I cannot fathom is why anyone would want to support a team, say Manchester United, when it is made up of people from all over the world. What are you in fact supporting? Not your local team with local players. The club with the most money gets the best players. Wheres the sprot in that. Where is the pleasure of supporting your local team through thick and thin?”
I agree 100%, and it is true not just with soccer but all sports teams here in the U.S. The fans are simply rooting for a group of players from cities and even countries, and are merely playing in a particular city’s stadium or arena - there is no other connection. If there were at least some loyalty to the city, but there is none: When another city offers to pay the player more, he usually jumps at the chance (just as an owner will move the team to another city in the blink of an eye for a few more bucks). Professional sports is simply a business. At least with the Olympics or the World Cup or Euro Soccer, the teams are, for the most part, made up of people from that country, so there is something to root for.
Posted by at 3:54 PM on May 26
Occam wrote:
“Blacks are better at soccer/football because the countries they come from are in mainly warm weather areas, which makes for outdoor sports the whole year round.
Further, blacks just spend more time practising the game. I think it boils down mainly to having the right environment and playing conditions. Examples: Australians of European extraction are mainly of British stock but they have been much better sportsmen than their British kin for the longest while—with a much smaller population. Think of the sports the 2 nations share to get my point: cricket, tennis, swimming, rugby, athletics. The Aussies routinely trounce their British cousins.”
Here in the U.S. we find blacks dominating several sports - even though they are just as likely to come from Detroit as Mississippi. If your theory were true, we would expect Whites, Asians and Hispanics from the Southern states to dominate sports more so than blacks from Northern states. I wonder (and doubt) if there is any evidence for this. Do we find teams from Southern areas having an advantage over teams from Northern areas? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to check.
Posted by jewamongyou at 3:00 PM on May 27
“At least with the Olympics or the World Cup or Euro Soccer, the teams are, for the most part, made up of people from that country, so there is something to root for.”
NOT TRUE!
Olympics is the same deal, look at Canada for example, all the blacks that are “Canadian”. I would rather have a real Canadian olympic team without a medal than one full of “hired gun” foreigners.
At least some countries are true to themselves, for example Japan, China, but most are now using all sorts of foreigners in the race for medals. I could care less.
World Cup and Euro Soccer are full of blacks. Except was it the Italians that won a couple years ago with real Italians.
Posted by at 11:14 PM on May 27