There's a big difference between booing a sporting rival and resorting to racism

Published on Monday 28 March 2011 22:25

THERE is a clear distinction between honest rivalry and racist abuse, one which the vast majority of football supporters are able to make. Some football players, alas, are not so capable, among them being Brazilian starlet Neymar.

The scorer of both goals in his country's 2-0 win over Scotland on Sunday, Neymar was booed by Scotland supporters at the Emirates. Those boos, and the appearance on the pitch of a banana, added up as far as the 19-year-old was concerned to an obvious conclusion: the Scots' treatment of him was racist. A short clip from the action shows Neymar's team-mate Lucas Leiva removing the banana, but does not show where it came from. As far as the SFA is concerned, it emerged from a stand which contained Brazil fans, not Scots.

One object thrown on to the pitch is one too many, and any instance of racism must be condemned but, in this case, Neymar's accusation regarding verbal abuse was made on mistaken grounds. He was booed not because of the colour of his skin, but because of his willingness to fall to the ground feigning injury after a tackle.

Brazil are a multi-racial team, and Neymar was far from being their only black player on Sunday - yet none of the others was booed. Indeed, in general, Scottish fans adulate Brazilian players whatever the colour of their skin; note the warm reception given to the now-retired striker Ronaldo, for example, when he made his appearance as a guest of honour.

Perhaps, given his age, Neymar has not experienced much in the way of booing from rival fans, and certainly he cannot have played in many matches where the opposition support was overwhelmingly white. But he must be experienced enough to know that fans of whatever colour will boo players of whatever colour when those players collapse in a theatrical heap after an innocuous tackle. Accusing the Scotland fans of racism is either nave or a misguided and unacceptable attempt by the striker to distract attention from his own behaviour.

Of course, Neymar is not the only player to have gone down this road in recent months. In January, Celtic player Ki Sung-Yueng made a gesture after scoring for South Korea against Japan that was widely interpreted as a racist taunt at the Japanese.

Not so, Ki said after criticism of him began to gather steam: it was a protest about his treatment by some fans back in Scotland, at a match against St Johnstone held some three months previously.

Again, not a shred of evidence has emerged to show that Ki was in any way racially abused in that match or in any other in Scotland, and campaign group Show Racism The Red Card was just one respected organisation which suggested his accusation was merely an attempt to get himself off the hook. But the wider problem is that we are now in an environment in which such accusations can gain credence almost automatically, and fans can be labelled as racist for doing nothing worse than booing the opposition. And it's not just ordinary fans either: think of the hostility heaped upon Andy Murray in 2006 when he suggested, in a light-hearted conversation with Tim Henman, that he would not be backing England at that year's World Cup. Five years on, the tennis player is still routinely accused of Anglophobia by many people who heard that remark at second or third hand, if they heard it at all.

You can only presume that those people know nothing about football, or that they have a very unusual approach to it. If they were Chelsea fans, for example, would they honestly expect their Arsenal counterparts to lend them their support in Europe? If they were Manchester City fans, would they be cheering on United all the way to the Champions League final? Of course not, and yet for some reason they expected Murray to put aside the fact that, in footballing terms, he has a different nationality, and to cheer on England.

If you have a genuine enthusiasm for football, you support your team against all others, especially your closest rivals. That's the nature of sporting rivalry. You cheer on your team and put off your opponents. If you're sitting on the sidelines shouting out "Come on everybody! Fair play for all!" you really should be escorted out of the ground for your own good.

Rivalry is an indispensable element of competitive sport. Without it, every game would be tantamount to a friendly, and while that might seem to advance the cause of world peace, it would do nothing to create the kind of excitement that makes football the most popular sport on earth.