Hey guys,
Talking with many people and doing my own research I have come to this conclusion. For instance, I’ve read about player who went to the Premier League and were not called by any “Racially charged” nickname by their fellow players. Something had to go through on other leagues especially La Liga.
To me this is “Common Sense” and I don’t believe the “term of endearment” argument that some people put forth, usually closet racists. Since ethnic identification should be more of “private matter” and has nothing to do with football or work collegues or friends on the pitch. For instance,if I had a friend from a different ethnic group I don’t think it should be up to me to start giving him nicknames based on his ethnicity; To me that’s crossing the line.
I’ve also heard the Premier League fans at the stadium behave better than the La Liga. I seen videos of how Spaniards behave towards players from minority groups. They’ll shout all kinds of racial slurs. It seems to be a extremely hostile environment.
The three main objections that Spaniards and the Directors of Spanish Football put forth are:
1-Fatalism: Nothing can be done. Spanish Society is Racist, Football its Racist, The World is Racist. I’m not buying it if this was the case, then how are Brits able to do something about it?
2-Empathy towards the evil doer and not the victims: I’ve seen this with Spaniards but also with Argentinians. Like,‘Oh those poor working class people, they don’t know any better." If you start giving them fines you’ll be doing them a great harm since they don’t have much money’ I heard some Spaniards say, “Vinicius and other minority players are rich they need to get over it.”
3-It would be too expensive: Some people say that if they start implementing these reforms it would be too expensive and they would lose fans.
What do you guys think? How was the Premier League able to overcome these objections?
I’m under the impression that the La Liga president is a member of a far right party, which might contribute to that.
Not sure it’s as clear cut. They do punish through CCTV but if it was working there would be no racism at all.
English are closet racists, spanish are overtly racist
The FA and Premiership pumped loads of money into “Kicking racism out of football” and British society became a lot more racially tolerant in general from the 90’s onwards, at least as far as overt racism based on skin colour goes. Peer pressure by other fans, a change in the demographics of supporters and penalties by clubs like lifetime bans on racist fans have made it pretty effective. Not to mention having a few decades of normalisation of black players becoming club icons alongside a huge influx of foreign players since the 90’s.
The reason the FA put so much effort and resources into it was just to make the game more saleable in an age of Sky TV and mass media. It needed to be family friendly, easy to market around the world and get rid of the whole working class “hooligan” image of the old 1st division. In short, they wanted to sell the game to the middle classes, corporations and generally make it more glamorous, rather than limiting it to just the traditional working class supporters. It needed sanitising to do that.
British football fans definitely weren’t previously really any better than the Spanish, with maybe a few exceptions, it’s taken a concerted effort over a few decades to change things. It’s probably one of the biggest social positives to come out of the massive commercialisation of the English top flight.
Good answer. Why do you think Spaniards are not able to do what British people did? Is it a lack of effort, lack of money or something else?
England is less racist than Spain.
Spain cares less about the racism problem than England does.
Spain is about 15 years behind England in terms of race issues. They will catch up quite quickly I think.
As a minority living here in Spain, I don’t think it’s a racist place but they don’t see racist things as a big problem.
They call newsagents “Chinos”, have racist caricatures on food, ask questions like “where are are you REALLY from?” - but it’s only from not knowing any better, not malicious intent. They just don’t have the same toxic history with racism that we did in the UK.
Tldr: racism is more excused in Spain
I agree with you. In fact 20 years ago I saw people say that it was like 30 years ago in the UK. And even then I pointed out to them that Spain where the UK was 50 years before. So things are moving in the right direction. But it is hard work.
I had a bit of a tiff with an acquaintance regarding an objection I raised when they started going off on “wokeism” and the food caricatures. And I was extremely polite and considerate. But the opinion of the friends in common that agree with me seems to be that I should be more tolerant of her bigotry because “that’s just how she is” and we’re meant to be nice to each other or something (huh?).
Things like the “Chino” name for a cornershop opening earlier and closing later 365 days a year would take a lot longer to disappear though. But since it started in the 80s-90s when those shops run by Chinese nationals started showing up, it might change soon. Or just the simple fact that your lawyer might be a Spaniard of Chinese descent. Or your kid’s teacher… Or the owners of your local bar… What would they refer to if the say they’re going to the “Chino”. But yes, it is cultural. I remember when as a young man I moved to North London and young arrivals said they were popping off to the “Turk”. I don’t see them saying it now.
And the same goes for “blackface”. There were no minstrel shows in Spain. So it never had the loaded history. But progressively people will listen to what others say. Even more so if they’re black. And it also backfired massively when a white Englishman starts pontificating, for obvious reasons I will not get into.
It’s not the leagues that are the problem, it comes down to the difference in how Spain and the UK deal with racism on a societal level. As an Afro–Latin American who’s lived and worked in both countries, I noticed that Spanish society in general is very reluctant to admit that there’s a problem with racism.
Racism is much more hidden in Britain.
Are they?!
It’s cultural my guy. You are writing this passing judgement over something you understand basically nothing about. The Spanish language itself is incredibly descriptive and people give nicknames based on appearance as a matter of habit. The UK and Spain are not the same at all nor are the languages and cultures.
Race in general in Spanish speaking counties is just not close to being perceived as it is in the Anglo sphere. The history is different and therefore Latinos, and Spaniards alike don’t view it the same way as the people in the UK and US do.
The problem is that you see something as “common sense” when it’s not. There are tons of factors that make the UK and Spain distinct culturally (language included) that you are not factoring into what the Spanish consider to be common sense. Therefore, the reason that the UK was able to stamp it out is because culturally they were more inclined to do so as of right now. The world IS racist and you really have to get out of this mindset that everyone thinks like the Brits do. They don’t for a myriad of different reasons. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be taught to do better, but talking down at people saying things should be “common sense” to them is just talking down at them and will solve nothing.
the only “understanding” needed is to not hate other people because of their skin color. fuck whatever cultural norms spaniards have in that category.
I think Spain’s public debate about what is racism and how serious it is , is very poor and not as advanced as it should be.
People there seem to treat being racist the same as being disrespectful or being provocative, etc
Spain is a racist country, England isn’t.
You nerds are falling for bots. Lol.
Because though it still has problems, actually the UK is more racially tolerant and integrated than much of Europe as a society. We have an ethnic minority Prime Minister as an example and surveyed attitudes and mixed relationship stats back this up. In football black players have been playing for England for decades and captained England . There have been black managers in England for years too.
I wonder if the Reconquista had any roll in regards to historical Spanish xenophobia. The way in which the Spanish treated indigenous peoples in the new world and the African slaves they brought over was considered among the most heinous compared to their colonial contemporaries.