Racism Integrating into Fan Culture
Toxic fan culture is undoubtedly a factor in sports throughout the world. As sports and the world evolve, the exposition of racial abuse has become more and more prevalent in sports, especially in worldwide tournaments such as the World Cup and the Olympics. Racism, in the world of sports especially in Europe, is nothing new, but with the use of technology and social media, these violent acts of racism are now being shared to a global audience.
One of the largest examples we saw on a worldwide level was in the soccer realm with Vinícius Júnior, a 22 year old player for Real Madrid, one of the most successful soccer teams in Europe. Racism and the abuse of black people is the norm in Spain as Júnior reports, “The competition thinks it’s normal, as does the federation, and the opponents encourage it.” Vinícius Júnior has been subject to stadiums full of fans slewing out racial epithets, as a response to any move from getting a penalty to scoring a goal. Madrid’s training base is in the middle of the Spanish capital, a country known for its history of racism and colonization. Júnior was reduced to tears on the field with the entire stadium shouting “MONKEY”, thousands of people around him loading violent racial insults all to a single person. Instead of action, the league instead chose to blame Júnior, as well as Madrid's regional President Isabel Diaz Ayuso claiming through a tweet that Spain is “not a racist country” and that anyone who claimed that to be true was “lying” just going to show the true racial oppression in Spain.
The mass racial abuse of Júnior is not an isolated incident. When a black player scored a goal in Italy, this April, a stadium full of racial insults, “monkey” chants and gestures were thrown at the player. At a North London game, a black player scored a penalty and on top of the racial slurs being shouted around him, a banana peel was thrown from the stands at the player. During last year’s men's World Cup, the black players on France’s team were flooded with racial abuse online.
In the US players also find themselves subjected to similar racial targeting from “fans”. Boston Celtics fans have a long history of abusing players of color. In an interview with Lebron James on HBO’s “The Shop”, the player was asked why he hates Boston, and responded simply with, “Because they racist as f**k” Other NBA players like the Bay Area’s own Stephen Curry and Draymond Green have experienced this same racial targeting. Green shared with ESPN that, “It took me a while to adjust to it…it was just so unexpected. It caught me off guard” in reference to the racial slurs being directed towards himself and Curry during a Boston Celtics game during the 2022 NBA Finals. Experiences like this have been seen all around, in a college level football game between Texas and Alabama a video surfaced of fans yelling racial epithets at Texas players. Texas won over Alabama earlier in this year's September, and videos online from fans showed Alabama's fans hurling racist and homophobic yelling and slurs towards the Texas players.
Fan culture and rivalries are now surfacing as more than just huge fans yelling a TV screen, to the vile use of derogatory language and racial abuse. The prevalence of racism in sports, particularly in Europe, has a long history, and the influence of social media has exposed these violent acts to a global audience. The experiences of athletes like Vinícius Júnior, are not isolated incidents. Fan culture and rivalries have evolved to encompass not just passionate cheering but also the use of derogatory language and racial abuse.