Alexey Smertin: Bananas to black guys – it’s just a bit of fun
385
views
On the eve of the Confederations Cup Russia’s anti racism Inspector highlights the country’s inability to tackle the problem.
Russia’s tolerance of racism has been called into question after their anti racism inspector appeared to make light of recent incidents on the eve of the Confederations Cup.
Former Chelsea midfielder Alexei Smertin, who is now in charge of Russia’s anti racism investigations, told CNN that Russian fans giving bananas to supporters was just ‘some fun’.
loading...
The comments come a few weeks after supporters turned up to a Confederations Cup parade in black face paint and gave out bananas.
“My role is to educate because some people don’t know their acts hurt people,” said Smertin. “They don’t do that sometimes on purpose, but they don’t know that their acts hurt people and they need to know”
The Russian Premier League has a massive racism problem with 89 incidents reported last season, but Smertin stated that there is no racism in Russia and shockingly accused other countries of bringing it in.
“There’s no racism in Russia, because it doesn’t exist,” he added. “It is something against the opposition, not against a person.
“Racism in Russian is like fashion, It comes from abroad, from different countries. It was never ever here before.”
There has been serious concerns Russia isn’t tough enough on racism and that the Confederations Cup and next year’s World Cup could be derailed by Russia’s refusal to stamp it out.
FIFA’s own attempts to rid the game of discrimination have been called into question as their latest implementation has been rolled out at the last minute and seems to give some power to those looking to disrupt the game.
loading...
New rules will allow referees to stop, suspend and abandon games if there is any racial abuse that cannot be controlled on the day.
Given Russia’s history with discrimination and there refusal to even acknowledge the problem this could lead to both tournaments being compromised.
To make matters worse Smertin also took a swipe at the media for their portrayal of Russians as racists.
“Ten years ago, some fans may have given a banana to black guys,” he said. “It was just for fun. I think the media is making the wrong image of Russia.”
Loading...