American Players Say Slurs Common
Although American soccer players are accustomed to dealing with nationalist jeers and other forms of abuse when they play in foreign countries, some say racial slurs are also common -- even from opposing players.
“There are always some kind of racist comments coming from players and fans, wherever you go,” said Galaxy winger Cobi Jones, who has played a record 164 games for the national team since 1992. “It gets that ugly, especially when there’s a high-profile game and tensions are high. Players in little confrontations, they’ll say stuff.
“Just walking out on the field ... you have it from little kids to old adults throwing it out there,” Jones added. “It’s all types. The most shocking for me is when the little kids are saying it. It’s just perpetuating the whole thing.”
The U.S. men’s national team plays Wednesday at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in the first of 10 final-round qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup. Other matches will take the U.S. to Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama.
Racial taunts are sometimes drowned out by the waves of anti-American sentiment that typically wash over the U.S. team on the road, current and former national team members say.
“All Americans are treated horribly wherever we go, especially Costa Rica and Mexico,” said Robin Fraser, who played 27 games for the U.S. between 1988 and 2001. “I didn’t really pick up on the fact that it was racist.
“I haven’t personally been a victim of it.... When I was getting booed and jeered and having things thrown at me, every white player around me was getting the same thing.”
Some U.S. national team coaches say they did not know their black players had been targeted.
“As far as racism with our players in competitions, I’m not aware of it,” said U.S. Coach Bruce Arena. “Obviously, when we go into Central America there’s an ugly attitude toward the American team. I wouldn’t call it racism. It’s not pointed toward black players or white players, it’s pointed to the U.S.”
Kansas City Wizard Coach Bob Gansler, who twice served as U.S. national team coach and qualified the team for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, agreed.
“When I first read about the incidents in Spain, it was doubly shocking because in our situation -- and maybe I’m a naive man here -- but I never saw any of that, here in the U.S. or in Central America or wherever else we played,” Gansler said. “Anti-Yankee, yes, but it wasn’t specifically aimed at white or black. I don’t recall any of that.”
But Galaxy Coach Steve Sampson, who coached the U.S. to the 1998 World Cup in France and later was Costa Rica’s national coach, says racism is very much a part of the baggage brought to games by opposing fans.
“I have experienced it, not necessarily so much toward American players, but even in Costa Rica, when black players would play for other countries,” Sampson said. “Same thing in Europe.”
Soccer has the authority to punish individual clubs or national federations for fan misbehavior, through fines or stadium bans, or forcing teams to play behind closed doors or ousting them from competition altogether.
Arena wonders how clubs or federations can be held responsible when fans misbehave.
“Is it the fault of the clubs or is it the individuals in the stands?” he asked. “In a 100,000-seat stadium, to ask a club to be responsible for every individual’s behavior I think is pretty tough.”
Chicago Fire and U.S. national team defender Tony Sanneh, himself the target of racist abuse while playing in Europe, suggested, only half in jest, that when clubs are fined for racism by their fans, that some or all of the money go to the players who were abused.
Eddie Pope favors a tougher line, banning racist fans.
“If it has to be a zero-tolerance policy, then I think that’s what it needs to be,” said Pope, who was a starter for the U.S. in the 1998 and 2002 World Cups. “They have that in England for the hooliganism, and I think they should have it for the racism as well. One’s not less of an offense than the other to me.”
