Kick racism out of Football

News item on TV One tonight. Shall be interesting as it is focussed on Wellington

Been on yet?

Quick summary

Race relations commisioner involved.

Seatoun AFC

People are picking fights and threatning things because they are Africans.

Steve Dimakas the coach has complained to Capital Football yesterday, but wouldn't comment.

Dame Susan Devoy says Capital Football need to do something

The games full of arseholes, thats why. Racists taunts are inevitable. Every single game i see or play in theres at least something said that doesnt need to be. Whether its players telling each other to fuck off or spectators taunting players for whatever, it all stems from this same attitude that we all now accept as being part of the game, or "passion for their club" as i was told in another thread. Last week in Cap 5 when we scored an own goal one of the opposition players took it upon himself to direct a mouth load at our 3rd team coach who turned up to watch. Why? What was the point? It wasnt racist but it all gradually escalates from these little things. People need to stop acting like tough c*nts all the time.

Good on them for upping the anti. 

Although when I played against them a number of weeks ago, they were throwing a number of homophobic slurs around.

Racism taunts are unacceptable, and good on them for taking it further. Have referees heard / done anything?

Would however suggest that Seatoun are not exactly an Angelic bunch and based on what we encountered last year they would not qualify as "a Referees favourite team to referee"

Ive seen the Seatoun lads...and yes one or two of them do or at least did give the ref some grief...for which they picked up cards....but that is a long long long way from the racist abuse they have got in some games this season and last. There is no excuse in the world for racist, sexist or any other sort of abuse....and certainly not because some players challenge the ref.....btw I am a qualified ref!

I think they should be making sure the are squeaky clean first.

Have been on the sideline of quite a few of their games this year and the comments their players are using and their sidelines supporters do not qualify them as being able to point any fingers.

Clean your house first would be my recommendation.

Its getting a little away from the point.

Everyone has a go at the ref at some point and yeah at some stage everyone commits a bad tackle or tells someone to bugger off but there's a huge difference between a bad tackle and what some of these lads are getting stick for.

I read an article this morning on stuff.co.nz about someone wanting to release a pit bull on one of them.......thats pretty intense.

i used to play and to be fair my tackling isnt that great but i never ever resorted to using this type of language against players.

Just unacceptable and i hope something is done to stamp out of the game.

What a load of crap. Get back on topic pal. There is always banter on and off the field at  several games over all divisions but this does not give anyone the right to racially abuse players or supporters for that matter.

I remember that coach being particularly abusive when he was involved with BNU (player/coach?). I think he got sent off most games when he was in goal. Good on him for supporting this though

Suggestions as to what CF should/can do?

Probably not much since it has been on national tv/ Dom front page - other than to tell refs to look out for it.

I disagree with the "if you're not squeaky clean don't point fingers" thing.

People need to point fingers about this sort of stuff. It doesn't matter if the finger-pointer has sworn at a referee once or something.

All I'm saying is if every club cleaned up any racism or deragatory comments there would'nt be a problem.

Clean up your club and then you have the moral high ground and set the example.

I'm not saying it is relevant - just pointing out.

Though I wouldn't start a campaign on careful tackling or agreeing with the ref all the time

mate ive played with a
number of the Seatoun boys for over 10 years now, these boys are far from
racist... they can get frustrated and have a go at a refs decision but everyone
does that once and a while...

We havent heard much about what the clubs and officials reported officially, or what the issue was with the 'Seatoun' player potentially being banned for life ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8917842/African-footballers-target-of-racial-slurs ). Some more facts needed.

But CF should at least get an observer down to some Seatoun games

Stuff comments are all laying into CF. Unconvinced they have done anything wrong here.

As for the "systemic racism" in local leagues hmmm

This from a discussion I had earlier. He was ranting at me as if I was responsible... but some of it was interesting... the gist was...

".... if I saw this and went to your club what would they do?  You got someone prepared to go to a team and say, who was on the sideline at your game today giving out abuse. You got someone who has full club support to go and tell them they're not wanted here?  Probably not. Chances are it's someone's mate and you, or your club, will make excuses for him. It'll be, the ref didn't report it or...  he's not usually like that or...  so move away from the excuse making...  How about action like... you abused the guy today while playing in our colours, we heard you, you don't play for two/three weeks.... do it again and you're out...  "

and from the Herald.

Absolutely no room for racism on any level at any occasion, I don't know the facts of this incident, however.....this team have played the victim around racism before when we played them last season, stating that some of our boys racially slurred their players. It didn't happen and was a joke considering half our team are of African descent themselves.

I support their stance on racism but do wonder if this has been exaggerated based on previous experience.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10898455

Updated article from Herald including response from Cap Football

Smithy from what I read there didn't seem to be a policy in place about racism and how it would be dealt with? If it's true I'm guessing that's a starting point, as it'll give you a template for how to respond so you can come at it from a comms perspective a bit better.

I think the wider problem could be addressed to, I'm guilty of being a part of an abusive culture on the field, loosing my rag when it gets heated, and although I don't think I've gone to the levels of throwing racist slurs at players, I like to think we could try to enforce a higher standard on ourselves playing in the leagues of any form of abuse.

why should they need a racism policy? Regs state proven abuse will result in the guilty parties being punished. That covers it I would have thought.

Believe it or not I actually think Seatoun laying a complaint against Lower Hutt is a bit of a waste of time (if that's what they've done). It will probably not get satisfactorily resolved and as can be seen from the Herald article it will just devolve into an argument about who actually said what. That will be a shame because it will deflect attention from the real issue, which Seatoun have done a very good job of highlighting. Perhaps Seatoun could consider not following through on the complaint and instead use the attention they've got to implore everyone involved in football in Wellington (including Capital Football) to really drive the message that racism (and in fact any form of abuse) isn't welcome in the game here. I think that would be a much more productive use of everyone's time and effort, especially Capital Football, who we are all paying for.

Why don't seatoun wait until finding out what happened to their complaint at cap football before bringing this out in the media? Not sure it does anyone any good for a tit fort at media storm to develop

Statement from Capital Football here.

You could prob argue that only two matches for striking someone is light

Doesn't sound like there was a punch....

"Investigations prior to the judicial meeting revealed that the player had not struck a spectator, rather it was an altercation with a substitute of the opposing team in retaliation for something allegedly said."

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/kick-football-out-of-racism-campaign-launched-2012101945719