Thursday, November 18, 2004

Spain-England

On the football aspect, a very boring game last night between Spain and England, although a deserved victory for the Spanish team, with an excellent Xavi in control.
Now, the greatest shame about the game, were the pathetic Spanish fans. Their racist shouts have no place in football. But Spain has shown absolutely no willingness to fight racism in football, mostly shown by the national coach, Mr. Aragones', comments earlier this year about Thierry Henry. While a formal regret has been posted on the website of the Spanish football federation (http://www.rfef.es/artavan-bin/Rfef/init), it is still quite unapologetic. And of course, the racist Mr. Aragones did not even want to apologize (Who would have expected he would anyway? He was probably shouting as well...). If FIFA is any serious about anti-racism, Spain should be punished harshly.
Football is a microcosm of society around it. The great things about football, are great things about life: passion, team spirit, competition... Bad things about football, are the bad things about life: loss, violence, xenophobia.
When Spanish fans are demonstrating such behavior, and nobody in Spain seems to mind, there must be something terribly wrong in Spanish society.
Spanish fans are absolutely pathetic.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard Ashely Cole has said Luis Aragones should be punushed. I agree.

El Erik said...

The Spanish football federation has received a fine for the racial incidents during this game. Furthermore, they have been threatened that if it happens again, they might be forced to play without spectators, or in a worse case scenario, be disqualified. Can the last thing really happen? Or is it just an empty threat? It sounds empty to me.
Mr. Luis Aragones is being investigated, and I hope they do give him a bigger fine. He has been a main instigator of all of this.