Can Russia Get Rid Of Racism Before 2018?

Blog numero cinqo, my final one before I take a short break for the mid-semester. This one's gonna be big in my opinion. I'm trying to focus on the future in this post instead of the past or present, so I can show you guys what's to come in the coming years for the beautiful world of futbol.  

Many people might not know but Russia is also a big hot spot for racism in the soccer society. It is full of racist communities. Last April after a game in Moscow, fans started cheering for their team while at the same time waving a Nazi flag around. The Torpedo Moscow (A soccer club in Russia) has been fined 29 000$ for racism and crowd violence. They were forced to play 5 home games without one fan because of the trouble they cause and were also forced to play 3 home games with certain parts of the stands removed for player safety reasons.

Russia better change their ways quick because in 2018 they will be the hosts of the 2018 World Cup. If an incident happens to the players during this world renowned event, Russia can suffer great consequences in the soccer world. They might never be able to host another major sporting event again. They might even be ineligible to participate in these events just so that the fans can learn their lessons.

In my opinion Russia can get the change in before the World Cup. They have already started by hiring a new anti-racism monitor. This will be a team of supervisors that have the task to watch more "dangerous" matches and keep the fans in their place. To me this a great idea for keeping the peace and leaving Russia with a good image.

The FIFA World Cup is only here to bring the world together so we can all watch the sport we love. If a few fans were to ruin that, it could ruin soccer for millions of people.

Russia Article      

Zidane Racism Story

YO! Welcome back to my fourth post on this blog. As always I'm excited to bring you guys this story, especially this one of any racism incident that has happened. This story always gets to me because the victim of racism was Algerian (close to Lebanese/Middle-Eastern).

This is the incident of Zinedine Zidane, one of the greatest to ever play the amazing sport of soccer, in my opinion. So this is back in the year of 2006, in the World Cup Final, France vs Italy Zidane's final game ever. The game had been tied at 1-1. During the first half of extra time the Italian player Marco Materazzi went up to Zidane and said something that enraged Zidane enough that he headbutted Marco in the chest and was sent off for the rest pf the game. Italy went on to win in shoot outs.

Zidane had never specified what Marco had said but only mentioned "Terrorist". Being called that alone would provoke anyone even the calmest man. A few days after calming down, Zidane apologized for his actions. He had gotten over the insult but I think was especially upset of the way he ended his career.

Zinedine's agent talked to the press and made it specific that his client is the calmest and least likely person to do that so whatever Marco said must have been bad.

I am on Zidane's side for sure but can also see why the officials penalized him so harshly. There was no reason for Marco to take things to that extremity. If he was trying to get under his skin he could've used other types of trash talk which is fair since it's part of the game but not that far. On the other hand, Zidane might have reacted too violently. He could've just turned the other cheek which is really hard but would've shown that he's the bigger man.

Zidane News Story

Mario Balotelli Story

Hey guys, welcome back to blog post number three so far. I don't know about you guys but I'm having such a fun time with these blogs, it makes school work so much more fun than just sitting and answering questions from a book. 

So back to racism in soccer, I have a story for you guys about one man that is one of the best footballers in the world but also one of the most affected by racism. Mario Balotelli.

So Mario is a man of black race that plays in Italy and also for their national team. Obviously when you have a player like Mario, who is black and is having great success in his career, people are going to try and break him. So while playing in Italy, he was always treated wrongly. Fans from opposing teams would boo him and call him names from the stands. Mario couldn't take the hatred much longer, he was even considering on quitting soccer, which would have been a huge loss for the world of soccer since he was such an amazing player. After long thinking he finally decided that he wanted to be traded and went to play with Manchester City FC in England then went on to play in Liverpool. Was it a coincidence that the best soccer he's played was when he was in England? I don't think it's a coincidence, he just has so much more stress relieved from him and can concentrate on his own game.

 Just to put my opinion into this, we can't have problems like racism that in this day should already be gone from the world since we are so "civilized" take away players. Let's not think about soccer for a second, think about let's say hockey, P.K Subban for example. Almost everyday I hear at least 1 comment saying that he shouldn't be playing hockey just because he's black and that he should stick to basket-ball or some other racial stereotype like that. These things are not alright. he is an amazing athlete who is excelling in his sport and I just think people are jealous of what he has instead of working to be able to succeed like he did. Same goes for Mario's case.