— Theo van Seggelen, secretary-general of FIFPro, an organization who’s research has revealed that just over 10% of professional players surveyed had been victims of violence, with over half of all those incidents blamed on supporters. Ukraine and Poland have been littered with racist incidents according to a BBC report, including several instances of the Nazi salute raised by football fans in stadiums, and racial abuse of asian football fans. England’s Sol Campbell warned fans of colour to not even bother seeing the tournament live due to racism scares, and Theo Walcott’s family are not even attending the tournament to watch their son play because of the threat of being attacked for the colour of their skin. UEFA’s response was characteristically non-committal, saying that the footage of violent racist/anti-Semite chants was a matter for national football authorities and was taken at local matches. The illusion of a post-racial world falls apart really prominently in the world of sports, where every single player of colour shrugs of racial abuse as a part of their daily lives. But the fact that a large number of fans cannot watch a game they love— an event so many people save up to watch live, a tournament people wait their whole lives to attend— without fearing for their lives is disgusting. I’m not sure with how much enthusiasm I can watch this tournament with anymore, knowing I and people like me are not welcome into the spaces where some of the biggest tournaments of the game are played.
